Slow-cooked Korean

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qeadz
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Slow-cooked Korean

Postby qeadz » Mon Aug 15, 2016 9:05 pm

Most folk begin a language log when they are fairly new to a language. Some begin one when they are on a language-learning high and just want to share it with *someone*, *anyone*. Let me be an exception. I begin this log somewhat frustrated and not quite so new :)

I am certainly still a beginner at the language and will likely be so for quite some time to come. However when the learning gets rough I like to know that someone somewhere is in the same boat as me. More-so I like to to know that someone somewhere *was* in the same boat and can attest that progress is still possible!

This is both intended to be an outlet for me as well as a data point for anyone else in a similar position who wants to see "what can I expect if I begin learning this language!". Let me begin with an introduction:

Many years ago I didn't even know where Korea was on a map. It's not that I had no interest, but rather that it sat alongside a great number of countries I had next to no knowledge of. I have no special love of K-Pop, K-dramas nor a desire to live in Korea.

However I did end up meeting a Korean lady, whom I married and started a family with. Initially I learnt some Korean mostly in an attempt to impress her. She never really was impressed, but her friends were and showered me with praise for being able to coherently utter a word or phrase in the language.

Over the following years I did make some attempts at learning the language. I bought books (& CD's) on my visits to Korea. I had a short stint with Rosetta Stone. But I discovered two important things:

- I needed to have sufficient reason to learn it because its a massive, massive undertaking
- I need to be doing it for myself because doing it for someone else means one's motivation is always bound to that persons acknowledgement.

Multiple things happened last year which set me off on this journey proper.

First I realized that my brief attempts at learning the language clustered around visits to Korea and while this is understandable, it clearly has begun to cast me in a poor light with my relatives there. I'm always making a show of appearing to learn the language, but seemingly never making any progress. It felt kind of bad.

Second my wife plainly told me she doesn't really care whether I learn the language or not. In fact so far as she is concerned, everything else is higher priority - so she's fine with me learning it, as long as it doesn't start to encroach on every day life. She then uttered the words which would fuel me. "Korean is very hard. You won't be able to learn it."

Hah!

And so the reasons which were to be my own and not dependent on someone else were born:

* I've always wanted to learn a second language.
* English isn't that widely spoken in Korea, and I'll be visiting a lot. My visits would be much easier if I could speak a little.
* My parents-in-law don't speak English. My visits would be much easier if I could speak a little ("Im outside the house without a key!")
* I've been challenged that I cannot learn it.

It's been 7 months and counting. The story of how I've gotten to where I am now is another story entirely, but my language learning is underway!
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qeadz
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Re: Slow-cooked Korean

Postby qeadz » Mon Aug 15, 2016 10:25 pm

For the past several months I have mostly been listening and reading. I'd say that comprises 99% of my time spent. I've filled in various little corners of my day with bits of Korean here and there, boasting a respectable 5 - 10 hours per week despite not specifically setting aside any chunk of time to study it.

I've looked up grammar along the way and kept notes.

Just recently I signed up for iTalki and started to pay for a lesson or two each week - the intent is to start doing some output.

Now the journey thus far has been a real rollercoaster ride. There are texts which, 7 months ago, were like a word salad to me which today I can read and listen to without a problem. Some concepts I could not imagine gaining a natural feeling for are starting to feel natural when I am listening to Korean.

However starting to actually speak has tripped me up. It's so strange that I can understand every bit of "When I was a child, we played soccer at school." Yet confuse myself so easily when applying those grammatical principles.

I understand, on an intellectual level, that there will be 'on days' and 'off days'. The more one practices, the better both kinds of days become. But the last iTalki session was really a crash and burn. It felt like I was back in month 1. I had trouble even understanding simple things being asked of me, and could not for the life of me form a complete sentence or recall vocab.

I was so annoyed with myself, especially after recent progress.

To top it off, we have a shared Kakaotalk with my wife's family and yours truly decided (against his better judgement) to try reply to something in Korean. To quote my wife directly "I have absolutely no idea what you are trying to say".

*sigh*

It's not that I doubt my original reasoning for learning the language - that still holds true - but sometimes instead of admiring how many footsteps you've taken, someone makes you look up at Everest and it dawns on you that it's almost as if you had never started.
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qeadz
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Re: Slow-cooked Korean

Postby qeadz » Tue Aug 16, 2016 2:22 am

My wife is very practically focused. For example she doesn't really understand 'hobbies' per se. So she would be supportive if there were a need for Korean, but so far as she is concerned its a massive time-sink for very little payoff considering she will be in Korea with me on our visits and in *theory* translates (in practice the translator can get a little broken and is not always present...)

So far my language learning has been mostly Talk To Me in Korean content, some news articles I work through from Korea Times, and content from LingQ (podcasts and other).

I really have no way of measuring my knowledge short of attempting an online test TOPIK test, which I have not done yet.

Both tutors I have on iTalki have commented multiple times that my vocabulary is really good for someone who has been studying for less than a year. Perhaps they are just paying me a compliment. I like to think that all this reading is paying off!!

I see you're learning Korean too (yay! fellow learner!) so you already know the resources I am using :) HowToStudyKorean, TTMIK, KoreanLanguageNerd, iTalki forums, etc.
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Re: Slow-cooked Korean

Postby druckfehler » Tue Aug 16, 2016 10:45 am

qeadz wrote:It's not that I doubt my original reasoning for learning the language - that still holds true - but sometimes instead of admiring how many footsteps you've taken, someone makes you look up at Everest and it dawns on you that it's almost as if you had never started.


I felt that way about Korean when I had studied the language for some time and noticed how much more time it would take to get anywhere near comprehension. But for some reason or another I kept spending time with Korean and now I'm reading novels and watching TV without subtitles. My active skills can still be horrible sometimes, but yesterday I used Korean for a work email, so that's pretty cool. And at least I talk to myself in Korean all the time :D Studying Korean could be a mental health hazard, I'm not sure... But certainly a fun one. What I want to say: it seems like a long road while you're on it, but looking back I can say it wasn't all that bad - and the view from halfway up the mountain is already breathtaking. And the best thing: It took me about 6 years to get to this point and now I can enjoy it for the rest of my life, which will hopefully be a lot longer than that ;)
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Re: Slow-cooked Korean

Postby BOLIO » Tue Aug 16, 2016 12:40 pm

My wife is a native Spanish speaker who was very "practical" about things as well. She did not help me at all for the first year and much of my motivation was to prove her wrong. I don't think I missed a day the first year.

Something funny happened after the first year. She saw I was serious unlike the times before when I mentioned I wanted to learn the language. 2.5 years into it and even though I am the worst student ever, she is my biggest advocate for my learning.

Stick with it. She came to me expressing the idea of the next language I want to learn, we could learn together. I would have bet everything short of my life that would have never happened. KEEP AT IT.

I am watching your log closely. All the best.

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Re: Slow-cooked Korean

Postby LadyGrey1986 » Tue Aug 16, 2016 3:19 pm

ロータス wrote:Wow, your wife is very ... unsupportive.


100% this. I felt sorry for the OP reading it. Maybe there are other friends or relatives willing to help?
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qeadz
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Re: Slow-cooked Korean

Postby qeadz » Tue Aug 16, 2016 6:26 pm

Thank you all for your comments and support. Forums like this are great motivators - all the discussion is quite interesting. The other language logs are good reads too. I am very much in awe of people who have managed to tuck multiple years of study under their belt! Sometimes I lament the fact that I have been married for 5 years and only this year begun actually learning in earnest.

How far would I be had I actually starter proper on day 1???

ロータス wrote:How are you liking iTalki? I nevered understood how a tutor works. Do they teach you the language or you have to bring questions with you to the session and they talk you through them?


It varies. I tried a few, settled on two. All of them used the initial 30 minute trial session to either assess my knowledge or give me the rundown on how they like to operate. Of course I am paying for the trial session, so each one included at least 15 minutes of 'sample practice'.

I was pretty clear with them from the outset what I was looking for: no textbooks, focus on speaking. To be frank if I am paying for someone who can _speak_ the language, I'm not going to do "fill in the blank" exercises in front of them. I can do that on my own time.

Many tutors have preset lessons and materials they can use if the learner is very new. Some may insist on using their materials regardless. So the trial lesson is a very important window in which (I think) the learner needs to assess the teaching materials and see if it's the kind of thing they want to pay for.

The tutor I am having a lesson with later this week has given me some vocab (at my request) in advance which we will be using. I am familiarizing myself with it before the lesson. She may have other aids during the lesson to provide the context for us using the vocabulary. BUT the key is that we will be doing off-the-cuff talk, but more Q&A style as she likes to be a bit more focused.

The other tutor I have tends a lot more toward actual conversation. She readily drops materials she has if I have something I want to talk about, have prepared, or want to say. I like to be prepared, so I've always got some mini conversation topic to chat about.

As always, YMMV, but I think iTalki is a great tool. I can't speak to the free exchange partners because I am willing to pay some money to ensure my time is entirely in Korean.
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qeadz
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Re: Slow-cooked Korean

Postby qeadz » Tue Aug 16, 2016 6:54 pm

I don't want to spam this log, but having written about how it all began and what brings me to this point, I want to log about what is currently happening at this point!

Today, in part because of this log, I am feeling enthusiastic. I've long held the view that perfection is a fools errand, so making mistakes and correcting them along the way should be embraced.

My google docs 'grammar summary' document has served me well for the past 7 months. I have over 90 particles and conjugations for verbs listed alone! Each with a little one sentence summary of its meaning. It's been good enough for my reading so far, but I am starting to write a lot more in Korean.

Writing I am finding demands more than a ball-park understanding. I am challenged, for example, to be really careful regarding the Korean versions of "but, although, due to, owing to" and their nuances.

To this end I have begun a new document in which I am adding more detail to each entry - and sorting entries so that ones with similar meaning are side-by-side for easy comparison.

It's going to be a lot of work so I think I'll build it up gradually as I did with the original: adding entries when I need to look them up.
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Re: Slow-cooked Korean

Postby rdearman » Tue Aug 16, 2016 7:15 pm

qeadz wrote:Sometimes I lament the fact that I have been married for 5 years and only this year begun actually learning in earnest.

How far would I be had I actually starter proper on day 1???

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When is the next best time to plant a tree? Right now.

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druckfehler
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Re: Slow-cooked Korean

Postby druckfehler » Wed Aug 17, 2016 11:00 am

qeadz wrote:I am very much in awe of people who have managed to tuck multiple years of study under their belt!

I definitely was as well. Until I became one of them simply by virtue of not stopping. Looking back, this is just something that inevitably happens, right along with getting older and other such unpleasant things ;) My guess is that you will have this experience as well and that you will be surprised at how fast your progress seems in hindsight.
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