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Advancing Korean, Year 5/6: TAC15 東亞 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| druckfehler Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4664 days ago 1181 posts - 1912 votes  Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean Studies: Persian | Message 297 of 344 16 December 2014 at 9:07pm | IP Logged | ||
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2014년 12월 16일. Week 51.
Goldlists: 2 Podcasts: 56 Books: 10 ----- News Items: 11 (read) 15 (watched) Written: 30 Conversations: 18 (in Germany) + immersion in Korea Grammar Practice: 6 Ah, it's that busy pre-TAC time again. Soon we'll once again define our language journeys, write summaries and dream of what might be accomplished in a year... But for now, I'll just write a regular (or rather irregular, nowadays) update. I've been upping my podcast count a little again, but not that much. I originally envisioned listening to one podcast per day Monday to Friday, but that is simply no longer feasible. Where I used to listen to 20-30 minute long parts of radio shows, I'm now generally listening to longer podcasts of 60 or 90 minutes. Yoo Inna's podacast has become my comfort food for commutes when I'm too tired or stressed to read. But her podcast's topics are pretty much confined to everyday life stories, so I was looking for something a little broader and more challenging. I tried a couple of podcasts and now semi-regularly listen to 지적대화를 위한 넓고 얕은 지식. It's a sort of discussion round where they introduce all kinds of different topics. By now I listened to episodes about Ebola, Assassin - a historic radical Islamic sect - and the 조선족 (ethnic Koreans in China). All of them were pretty interesting and it's great to listen to something so varied. Out of curiosity I started reading 생각 버리기 연습 2, the book on how to throw away one's thoughts (or maybe more accurately one's troubles and sources of stress) written by a Japanese Buddhist monk. I'm also still reading "Inside Korea" - now done with Geography and started reading the History section. Even these very different books sometimes mutually reinforce new words I'm learning. If I've seen them in two books plus doing a couple of Anki reviews, many of the more study-resistant words tend to finally stick. Inside Korea also has a lot of words whose meanings I don't necessarily recognise, but which I can easily learn because I'm familiar with the words' components. The most recent group of words I encountered and found very useful are words ending in "-ization". "-ization" corresponds to the Korean -화, so modernization becomes 근대화, globalization becomes 세계화, colonization becomes 식민지화، Japanization becomes 일본화, industrialisation 산업화, democratization 민주화 and an aging society is a 노령화사회 (old age - change - society). I love that sort of vocabulary acquisition. With just one syllable I've acquired a lot of useful words. Edited by druckfehler on 16 December 2014 at 9:59pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Warp3 Senior Member United States forum_posts.asp?TID= Joined 5331 days ago 1419 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Korean, Japanese | Message 298 of 344 17 December 2014 at 1:44am | IP Logged | ||
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I was pretty sure I could guess which Hanja that 화 was, but looked it up to confirm my
suspicion before replying. As I suspected, the 화 in those words is 化 which means "to become" (like the verb 되다). Edited by Warp3 on 17 December 2014 at 1:46am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| druckfehler Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4664 days ago 1181 posts - 1912 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean Studies: Persian | Message 299 of 344 29 December 2014 at 11:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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2014년 12월 29일. Week 53.
Goldlists: 2 Podcasts: 60 Books: 10 ----- News Items: 11 (read) 15 (watched) Written: 30 Conversations: 18 (in Germany) + immersion in Korea Grammar Practice: 6 I should be sleeping already, so I guess I'll just do a quick update and write my summary in the new year. As January is drawing near, I'm starting to think about my goal for the first quarter of 2015: preparing for TOPIK level 6. While reading is a great study tool, I feel like more textbook study might be beneficial. Also, I don't think I'll look into Seogang 5B, which I bought in Korea, once TOPIK is over. So I'd better just finish it before then. I started to do a review of Seogang 5A (the textbook we used in class in Korea). I really like that they provide a booklet with all the vocabulary and grammar with explanations in Korean. Right now I'm going through the word list, marking those words I forgot or think I still don't know well enough. I'm not yet sure whether I'll make an Anki deck for them or simply review the booklet several times. I also still have 3 workbook lessons left. Each Seogang textbook has 8 chapters, so if I aim for about 1 chapter per week, it should be very doable. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| druckfehler Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4664 days ago 1181 posts - 1912 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean Studies: Persian | Message 300 of 344 04 January 2015 at 3:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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2014 SUMMARY
2014 was a very good year for my Korean. Not that all my TAC goals went very well, but I got the unforeseen opportunity to spend 6 weeks in Korea and attend an advanced language and culture summer course at Sogang University. I'd also call 2014 the year of my Korean reading breakthrough. For the first time, I was able to read entire Korean novels in the course of a few days. Goldlists: 2 (Goal: 50) Podcasts: 60 (Goal: 100) Books: 10 (Goal: 10) ----- News Items: 11 (read) 15 (watched) Written: 30 Conversations: 18 (in Germany) + immersion in Korea Grammar Practice: 6 Vocabulary I had originally planned to study vocabulary through goldlists - writing down 25 words several times, while eliminating the easiest words each time. I thought goldlists were less irritating than Anki (somehow not having "due" cards is less stressful), it proved ineffectual for me. I usually got distracted before I could finish a list and I rarely found the time to start a new one. In November I started working full-time and with my long commute I have even less uninterrupted time at home. The smartphone I bought has been a godsend in that aspect. Once again I'm building Anki decks which I can easily make and review on the bus and train. I get all my new vocabulary from reading. Some just stick without reviews, some stick after irregularly reviewing them on Anki and some never really take root in my memory. I guess their time has not yet come, so my brain still rejects them as not important enough. Learning vocabulary has been an interesting experience overall. I frequently lose and have to relearn words I once used to know. It used to irritate me in the beginning, but by now I've gotten used to it - I know that I can easily relearn them and one day I might not forget them anymore. Reading I'm very happy to report that I have been able to meet my reading goal. I finished reading 10 Korean books in 2014: 2 short & cute essay books, 3 young adult novels, 5 regular novels (3 of them translations into Korean). Sometimes I read intensively, but mostly extensively with occasional lookups. I feel like I'm getting a lot out of reading. My feel for Korean grammar improves as well as my vocabulary. Reading seems to help with my listening and speaking skills as well. As much as my reading speed increases, my ability to understand spoken Korean improves. But maybe the most important fact is that reading is fun for me. I know many people find reading in foreign languages difficult and tend to avoid it. For me it's also difficult, sometimes it's extremely frustrating and I tend to slip back into the mindset that I want to understand everything and feel bad for all the words and expressions I don't know. But in the end, reading is more pleasant than memorising words or composing essays and once I'm caught up in a story I can forget my limitations and enjoy those parts of the content I understand. Listening My goal was to listen to 100 Korean podcasts. In the end I only got to 60, but I'm satisfied with that. I got so much invaluable listening practice in country that 40 podcasts less than planned don't faze me. Immersion really is a great experience. Of course I never understood everything people said. Sometimes I was happy to understand a quarter of what people were talking about. Although watching dramas helps a little, understanding dialect and non-standard speech has always been and remains the biggest challenge for me. But whenever people paid some attention to my situation as a language learner I could understand 80-100% of what was said. It was only when I returned to Germany, that I understood how much my listening comprehension had improved in my 6 weeks of immersion. For once I had the feeling that I could easily follow a conversation between Koreans at the Korean-German meeting. Speaking I got most of my speaking practice this year in Korea - some of it inside the classroom, but most of it with my Korean flatmates, friends, taxi drivers, random people on the street and while travelling. Even though my Korean is far above survival level, I sometimes found situations like calling a taxi or booking a place to sleep extremely challenging - but maybe that was more of a listening problem. I also made an effort to meet and practice with Koreans in Germany. If I counted correctly, I had 18 conversations in Korean while in Germany. It doesn't sound like a whole lot, but for me it certainly is. Overall, I can communicate a lot in Korean. Whenever the topic gets complex I run into vocabulary problems or find the things I am able to express too simplistic, but small-talk usually goes quite well. A real problem is that I tend to rely too much on the same old grammar patterns. I often know that what I say doesn't sound like what a Korean would say, but maybe just getting my point across is good enough. Writing Writing might just be my most disliked language learning activity, because it always seems to take a lot of time. I logged 30 bits and pieces of written Korean throughout the year and probably most of those involved a lot of thinking, reformulating and looking up words or expressions. Writing practice has a lot of potential, but because I don't find it very pleasant I tend to avoid it. 2015 GOALS and PLANS I have exactly two major plans for Korean in 2015: to sit TOPIK again in April and to complete the Language Super Challenge. I might track other things again as I did this year, but I won't have target numbers for them. For now I'm thinking about the categories textbook lessons, GLOSS lessons, conversations, written. Reading and listening are covered by the Super Challenge. TOPIK LEVEL 5 or 6 TOPIK has been a great motivator throughout my Korean journey. I used my first TAC year to prepare for the Intermediate TOPIK and ended up passing level 4 (high intermediate) in April 2013. Since then I've been setting sights on the advanced levels. This year I think I'm ready to try. I absolutely would like to pass level 6, the highest level of the test and I will aim for it while doing my test preparations. But that means I'll have to compare mostly with people who have been staying in Korea for several years and often are preparing for Korean university. I wonder if that isn't asking a little much from myself. So I've determined that I will be happy if I pass level 5 and that should definitely be doable. SUPER CHALLENGE The current Super Challenge started in May 2014 and runs for 20 months. The goal is to read 100x50 pages and watch or listen to 100x90 minutes of the target language. Right now I'm at 46 films and 41 books, so if I continue exactly this way, I'll be able to reach the targets by December 2015. It will probably mean reading 10-15 Korean books and watching several TV series or listening to about 60 podcasts. I like the fairly open format that allows for different activities, so I don't have to restrict myself to counting podcasts this year. TEAM 東亞 I'm glad to be part of an East Asian team again this year and am looking forward to everyone's log entries. I think a lot of our experiences with Japanese, Chinese and Korean are somewhat similar, so it will be interesting to read about those and also about the differences. I'm still interested in one day starting to learn Mandarin - who knows, it might just happen. Edited by druckfehler on 04 January 2015 at 8:45pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| yuhakko Tetraglot Senior Member FranceRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4428 days ago 414 posts - 582 votes Speaks: French*, EnglishB2, EnglishC2, Spanish, Japanese Studies: Korean, Norwegian, Mandarin | Message 301 of 344 07 January 2015 at 7:42pm | IP Logged | ||
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A very productive year it seems! Well I guess the trip to Korea helped a lot as well ;) I
was a pleasure to meet you there too! 이번 년에 TOPIK도 다른 목표도 화이팅! 쓰기는 할거야? 안 할거야? 못 알아먹었어 ㅎㅎ 하면 어떻게 할거야? TOPIK을 위에 필요하지? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| druckfehler Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4664 days ago 1181 posts - 1912 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean Studies: Persian | Message 302 of 344 18 January 2015 at 11:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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2015년 1월 18일. Week 3.
Textbook Lessons: 2 TV News Items: 3
Well, I could theoretically pass level 5 with near-perfect listening and reading scores even if I get 0 points for writing, so… :D But then again, near perfect probably won't happen. I tried the listening section last weekend and got 86 points. Not bad at all, but while taking the test I thought it was surprisingly difficult in the beginning and middle parts. The beginning questions were played only once, so they felt a lot more difficult than I was used to from the old TOPIK. Interestingly, I thought the last questions got easier again, maybe because they had more context or because I was more familiar with the topics. In TOPIK listening sometimes understanding the answers is more difficult than the listening itself. With reading it's similar. In the more difficult sections understanding all the answers is the real challenge, because there is little context in the answers. Either I know most of the words or I don't and even one word can change the sentence's meaning entirely. I tried the reading part of TOPIK this weekend and got a great 94 points, but that involved a lot of guessing. Partly I think how difficult the test will be has to do with luck - I simply may or may not know the difficult words used in the test. But I realise that I'm really weak with some topics and don't know some of the words that come up again and again… so this is something to pay attention to. I also tried the two first writing questions where you have to fill in sentences. I have no idea how they will evaluate these. My sentences are different from the example sentences, but they also make sense (although there are some parts with shaky grammar…). I guess I'd get some but not all of the 20 points awarded for these four sentences. Regarding the essays, I think I'll study the example essays first before I try my hand at writing one. It would probably good to aim at 90 reading, 90 listening and 60 writing or something like that. Anyway, TOPIK is still a big challenge, but I guess that can only be good for my Korean skills. The Sogang level 5B textbook I'm working with at the moment doesn't even compare. It's nice to use because it teaches me some new words and grammar but apart from that it's not challenging at all. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| druckfehler Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4664 days ago 1181 posts - 1912 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean Studies: Persian | Message 303 of 344 25 January 2015 at 10:35pm | IP Logged | ||
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2015년 1월 25일. Week 4.
Textbook Lessons: 2 TV News Items: 7 Current Super Challenge Count Books: 41 Movies: 47 I took a week off studying with textbooks, learning vocabulary and reading difficult books. Instead I started reading another novel I bought in Korea. I simply needed a break, because Korean started to feel like a burden. I got too little sleep last week and life felt stressful, so I needed my commute to relax and do things that make me happy. I'm lucky that there are methods of improving my Korean which I enjoy a lot (reading novels, watching TV, podcasts). But while they help me improve, they are not the most effective methods for TOPIK study. I decided that I have to make a compromise. I want to be well-prepared and improve my weak areas, but I also want to keep Korean fun and relaxing. Fun and relaxing are probably the only reasons why I didn't drop Korean a long time ago. I'll have to see how this develops. For this week, I'm once again motivated to work through a textbook chapter. In two weeks I'll have a couple of days off and I want to spend some of that time on writing. I'm still wondering how best to study vocabulary. Maybe I'll find it more bearable if I only add 3-5 new words to Anki per day. That's not much, but infinitely more effective than getting stressed out and dreading to open Anki. One interesting side-effect of practicing TOPIK test is that I learn random things. One reading part talked about how to revive shrivelled up vegetables: Wash them in 50°C hot water and for a couple of hours they look as good as new. I wonder if that really works... Edited by druckfehler on 27 January 2015 at 10:29pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| The Real CZ Senior Member United States Joined 5445 days ago 1069 posts - 1495 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 304 of 344 26 January 2015 at 3:42pm | IP Logged | ||
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Are there any textbook you use to improve your writing or do you simply study the
practice essays and write a lot? I've been thinking of trying to find a good way to improve my writing after I'm done focusing on grammar, and would like something structured aside from "more reading and writing." 1 person has voted this message useful |
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