Slow-cooked Korean

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qeadz
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Re: Slow-cooked Korean

Postby qeadz » Fri Mar 17, 2017 11:05 pm

My current 'process' involves a lot less formal 'study'. My typical approach is that every day I will read something new in addition to re-reading an older text.

I don't do SRS by any proper measurement of 'spacing'. It kind of happens somewhat naturally (and thus very sub-optimally) in that I rarely read anything to completion in one sitting. I'll read the transcription for a TTMIK dialog over a day - doing it in chunks. They tend to talk on one subject so I see the same words cropping up throughout the day. This then comes up again a few days later when I re-read it alongside something new.

Similarly I listen to the audio for new content every day in addition to audio from older content.

For writing, I am rotating between explicit grammar practice, translation, free-style (ie: diary entry or such) and story telling (retelling something whose general plot is fixed). They don't necessarily get equal time - I do the story telling the least.

As I've lamented as of late, speaking is not featuring in my language study at the moment. It's March already and I was supposed to have gotten back into iTalki sessions over a month ago but have still not worked out how I am going to make this happen.

It's good to hear what you're doing and whats working for you. As said before, it gives me food for thought - perhaps I should dwell more on each grammar point and do more practice with it.

I'm very interested to see where I am at by end of June. That will be the timeframe when I'll be doing another review of where I am at and making some decisions then.

Why so far away? Well I held some strong beliefs about what I thought was working for me last year. However the best way to challenge that is to try do some kind of review and see whether they actually hold true. To this end I ended up doing a significant adjustment in my approach.

So the proof will be whether I have results after I have given my current approach sufficient time to see results. As I am doing 6 - 7 hours of study per week, I think 6 months of this should be good.
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AndyMeg
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Re: Slow-cooked Korean

Postby AndyMeg » Fri Mar 17, 2017 11:20 pm

I hope you find the process that fits you best! ;)

화이팅!
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qeadz
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Re: Slow-cooked Korean

Postby qeadz » Sat Mar 18, 2017 12:49 am

@AndyMeg: I'm sure it feels to you like the old addage: You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink! But please don't feel I am rebuffing your suggestions. Like most people, I've read a bunch of things online and have formed a lot of my own beliefs around approaching language learning. I am grateful for your comments and actually am enjoying the Coursera course you recommended - there is some fascinating stuff in it. It will take time for me to think things through.

----

I actually do have an end-of-week update of sorts. It seems a bit like it is following on from this last discussion with AndyMeg, however surprisingly it is not. It began before that even!

At its root is testing my assumptions about language learning!

I've maintained since I began this journey that I could - at least for the foreseeable future - forsake flashcards or any specific vocabulary training. I bought wholly into the approach Steve Kaufmann takes and it is in part because to me a lot of what he says in his videos seems to make sense, but also (I would have to admit) in part because he's telling me what I want to hear.

At the start of this week I happened to stumble upon someone linking to Korean frequency lists as put out by The National Institute of the Korean Language.

Now when I began learning I was well aware that many folk would flashcard or in some way specifically study the top 1000, 2000 or even 5000 words from frequency lists. In fact years ago - before I started this stint of language learning, I did use Memrise for some time with a frequency list. I didn't do much - it was 5 - 15 minutes per day, but my success was limited. The words were frustratingly hard to learn.

I was doing no reading or any other form of study at the time. Silly me huh? Actually the situation was that I was doing it 'in the interim' while I thought about my failed attempts at learning Korean before that and was thinking about giving learning one more go. The flashcards were more like a reminder that I'm still in this boat. I'm still on this journey. I haven't quit yet.

So one of the things I bought into when I began trying the 'massive input' kind of technique was that if I just read regular texts that were either of interest to me or simply available to me that learning vocabulary would kind of take care of itself. I would learn the most frequently used words simply by virtue of them being the most frequent.

It makes a fair amount of common sense when phrased like that.

So this week I have spent time each day going through the top 1000 words as put out by the aforementioned institute. I scored myself with inverse scoring: 1 point for each word I did not know, 0.5 point for each word I was pretty close to, 0 points for every word I did know.

I was fairly strict with not letting things slide through unless I really knew the word. Note that this whole list is completely out of context so this is more a test of how many words I know so well that I don't require a context.

Also a few words appear multiple times - I assume because they have multiple meanings. So there is some error here. I like to try be precise, hence all the background for this little experiment!

In the end my total score was 239, which means I know approximately 3/4 of them well enough to not have to look them up.

I was really hoping the end result would be more like 90%, but it is what it is.

I'd say a good 50 of them or more I don't think I've ever heard of. At least 100 of them rung a bell but I had absolutely no idea what they were. Then there were the really frustrating ones which I felt like on any other day I would have remembered - but not when I was going over the list. Finally there were a section for which I could remember the general kind of meaning but felt it wasn't specific enough to warrant saying I *knew* the word. eg: 재산 which I knew had to do with wealth or riches but somehow 'wealth/assets' itself eluded me.
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AndyMeg
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Re: Slow-cooked Korean

Postby AndyMeg » Sat Mar 18, 2017 1:29 am

qeadz wrote:@AndyMeg: I'm sure it feels to you like the old addage: You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink! But please don't feel I am rebuffing your suggestions. Like most people, I've read a bunch of things online and have formed a lot of my own beliefs around approaching language learning. I am grateful for your comments and actually am enjoying the Coursera course you recommended - there is some fascinating stuff in it. It will take time for me to think things through.


Don't worry. I think it is better to take things slowly, one step at a time. You need to experiment for yourself to see what works for you and what doesn't. I don't expect you to follow every (or even any) suggestion I make. It is just, as you say, food for thought.

I wrote that with sincerity (but maybe I worded it the wrong way? English is not my native language, so maybe it felt too abrupt because it was so short. Sometimes writing in english becomes exhausting for me). I think you need to explore and follow your own intuition. You are the one learning and you are the best judge to know what works for you and what doesn't. I know you need time to think things through, and to see if your current approach is the right one or if you'll benefit from doing some adjustments; that's why I didn't want to make more suggestions, because I think you are on the right track, challenging your own beliefs and giving yourself a specific time frame to see if things work or don't in the way you are approaching them now.

Don't worry. I enjoy your log. I'll keep reading and even give some suggestions from time to time. ;)

I'm really curious to see your conclusions after the time you set.

Learning is an awesome adventure! :mrgreen:
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qeadz
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Re: Slow-cooked Korean

Postby qeadz » Tue Mar 21, 2017 6:35 pm

Oh the never-ending battle that is Korean!

When I write Korean I always provide the English translation to indicate my intention of what I want to say. The Korean is always written first and then as a second pass I go through translating into English. I follow this pattern for two reasons:

1) I want to do the 'work' in Korean, not English... so the Korean must come first
2) There has to be English to clear up confusion for the correctors or else some sentences just get question marks if my Korean is too poor :)

The challenge is always to make the English translation match the Korean as closely as I can. I find that if the English translation does not, the native speakers will change my Korean to match the English rather than just fix the grammar in the Korean.

For example if the Korean written said: He is paid a lot of money.
And I provide an English translation which says: He earns a lot of money.

There is a subtle difference of who is 'doing' the verb in each sentence. Invariably my corrections will see the Korean version adjusted to reflect the English. That is never the point. The English is simply a guide for the sentences which, in Korean, are too confused.

Sometimes I specifically ask for the language to be rewritten to indicate how a Korean would say it. In this case I don't expect grammar correction, but rather grammar and vocabulary replacement.

This is always the most frustrating correction I can receive because invariably the *entire* phrasing is completely changed.

Here is an example from my most recent mock dialog which I had corrected:

A: Excuse me, Sir! Where is this station?
B: uh, if you head straight forward for 2 city blocks, you'll see the station on the left.
A: I want to head South. (Korean: ride, as in take the subway heading south)
B: In that case the station will be on the opposite side of this main road.

My attempt and the actual Korean for the final line in that dialog:
ME: 그런데 이 대로에 그 역이 반대편쪽으로 있을 거에요.
COR: 이렇게 가면 그 역의 반대편으로 가네요.

Now the Korean I gave *is* what I would attempt to say in Korean. This is, as mentioned, because I wrote the Korean first and then worked on the English translation second. Leaving aside any grammatical mistakes I may have made, *fundamentally* the way I express the intended meaning is represented. I feel it represents in some way the way I think - yes, its expressed via language, but what I want to express is at some level language-independent.

The correction, as best as I can translate, could be rendered something like this:

Literally: If you go in this way, you'll go in the direction of the station's opposite side.

As said, leaving aside all other mistakes, there is a fundamental difference in thinking. In my reply I am talking *about* the the station and where it will be in relation to the person. In the corrected reply it appears to be talking about the person and where they would be in relation to the station.

Time and time again I stumble upon this. I don't really know if there is any kind of shortcut to it aside from just experiencing a tonne of Korean dialog and becoming accustomed to how things are phrased (and indirectly how a Korean person *thinks* about situations). But boy it is taking a *long* time~
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AndyMeg
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Re: Slow-cooked Korean

Postby AndyMeg » Tue Mar 21, 2017 8:34 pm

qeadz wrote:As said, leaving aside all other mistakes, there is a fundamental difference in thinking. In my reply I am talking *about* the the station and where it will be in relation to the person. In the corrected reply it appears to be talking about the person and where they would be in relation to the station.

Time and time again I stumble upon this. I don't really know if there is any kind of shortcut to it aside from just experiencing a tonne of Korean dialog and becoming accustomed to how things are phrased (and indirectly how a Korean person *thinks* about situations). But boy it is taking a *long* time~


Maybe this could help:

Why is Learning Korean So Hard? - Language as Mind

Also, korean culture (and language) has been heavily influenced by confucianism, so maybe reading about it could help too.
Last edited by AndyMeg on Tue Mar 21, 2017 9:27 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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qeadz
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Re: Slow-cooked Korean

Postby qeadz » Tue Mar 21, 2017 9:05 pm

AndyMeg wrote:Maybe this could help:

Why is Learning Korean So Hard? - Language as Mind

Also, korean culture (and language) has been heavily influenced by confucianism, so maybe reading about it could help too.


That's a great video.

The realization of how differently people from other cultures can think about and express things is not new to me. Before I even began learning Korean, when I was first dating my wife-to-be I realized how being so close to someone from another culture really opens up how differently they view the world. This stuck with me and when I began learning Korean, I began to try read about it on the internet.

I do recall reading the arguments around language influencing one's thought patterns.

Without being immersed in Korean culture, there is a very low ceiling to how much understanding of this I can hope to take on board. At any rate, it's a good video and I hope other Korean learners reading this language log will follow the link you gave!
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AndyMeg
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Re: Slow-cooked Korean

Postby AndyMeg » Tue Mar 21, 2017 10:33 pm

Without being immersed in Korean culture, there is a very low ceiling to how much understanding of this I can hope to take on board. At any rate, it's a good video and I hope other Korean learners reading this language log will follow the link you gave!


Glad you enjoyed the video! :mrgreen:

If we were maybe 20 or 30 years back in time, I would mainly agree with you, but in this global age I think the ceiling is a lot higher that one may think. But you need an open mind to tackle this: we have at our disposal many native resources to help us get immersed in the culture even if we are not living in the country (korean TV via internet, songs, books, etc.).

Learning a language is not only about directly learning the language (grammar, vocab, etc.). It is a much more complex and richier process because you are learning how other culture thinks and percieve the world.

If you have questions, you can find native speakers over the internet and ask them: Why is it like this and not like that? Would it be wrong if I said it like this? Would it sound unnatural or rude? Why?

You don't need to be in Korea to notice certain things: if you watch a k-drama, for example, you may pay attention not only to the words but also to the cultural context and non-verbal communication (the key here is being actively looking for those things instead of expecting to assimilate them just with passive interaction). You could also follow korean youtubers, bloggers or podcasts.

For this I think lots of decipherable input is really important (emk has a great summary image about that: The Cheating & Consolidating Method). With enough decipherable input in different contexts (and from different resources) we internalize language patterns and structures in a similar way than natives do it. We may not know why something should be this way, but we get a feeling that comes from familiarity and it tell us what sounds right and what sounds wrong.

And for output, I think it naturally happens if you get enough decipherable input (how much is "enough" may vary greatly from person to person). I don't force myself to output, but I don't prohibit myself from outputting either (even if at first I just spontaneously output in bits and pieces mixed with english, spanish or even japanese). I just let it to naturally happen. We are made for communication, so if we keep actively interacting (in various contexts) with the target language, it is natural to spontaneously start expressing ourselves (sooner or later) in it.
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Sayonaroo
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Re: Slow-cooked Korean

Postby Sayonaroo » Wed Mar 22, 2017 3:39 am

I think that being able "think" in the Korean way is part of fluency. There's so many instances where I'll listen to Korean and have no problem understanding what they're saying and ALSO thinking how I would never output that because I feel like I fundamentally think in a different way (to some extent or maybe it's completely on a subconscious level since english is my native language) and I was curious if it was possible for me to be able to reach a point where I'm able to think in the "korean" way if I were to immerse myself in Korean hardcore. I wrote about this example in my blog. https://choronghi.wordpress.com/2012/02 ... ncy-means/
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Re: Slow-cooked Korean

Postby leosmith » Wed Mar 22, 2017 5:11 am

AndyMeg wrote:in this global age I think the ceiling is a lot higher that one may think

If you're saying that people learn languages better, more effectively or to a higher level on the average today than in the past, I'd be curious to know what your source is.
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