Slow-cooked Korean

[qeadz]

... discussion on comprehensible input, vocabulary, and grammar...

Sorry for not explicitly quoting parts of your post. I'm not really sure how to reply in part to anything you've said, so I think maybe replying to the whole is better.

I first off want to clarify that I'm not saying that the 95% input has failed to help me learn Korean. I have progressed and I believe if I continue with the same paradigm, I will continue to learn and progress.

More to the point is that my time is very limited. 1 hr a day (roughly) is not a lot of time for language learning. So I really want to ensure I get the most out of the time I spend because it may well be the difference between being able to hold a conversation in x years time versus x * 2 years time. The savings in calendar days drive my desire to make the most of my time.

To put it succinctly: This is about whether I could have made more progress in the past 300+ hours if I had spent my time differently.

I am very taken aback by your suggestion that I should know 10000+ words. I don't even think it would have been humanly possible for me to achieve this in the time I've spent! Maybe if all I did with my time was study flashcards. So clearly we're not quite on the same page at some level for either the meaning of 'known', or 'word'.

First off my estimate is really just a 'best guess'. I have absolutely no way to know or measure it, but I've chosen a conservative range because I think language learners have a tendency to overestimate their skills.

My definition of 'word' is exclusively the base form of it only. So for Korean the unconjugated (or dictionary form) of a verb would count as a single item. I am excluding all the various grammatical principles which might transform it in some way. Similarly for nouns - the pluralization of them is a very simple and fixed rule so I don't include the pluralized form of the noun in my vocabulary estimation.

My definition for 'known' is that I should be able to immediately recognize and understand a word in its written form. So you could show that word to me without any context on a piece of paper and I would know at least one meaning for it. My recollection of its meaning should be fairly close to immediate because a text comprising of only known words to me should be something I can freely read, spending very little mental energy trying to remember definitions for words.

So this being said, if I were to expect myself to know 10000 words it would mean:

Every day during my 1 hour split between reading/listening and looking up grammar, I'll know 27 new words such that I can immediately recognize them. If this _is_ where I should be, I would expect that (grammar not withstanding) I'd be able to freely read a novel by now and that seems a little too incredible.

Now you do mention the i+1 Comprehensible Input. A year ago when I discovered Steve Kaufmann, he mentioned Krashen whom I then looked up and watched various lectures given by him. So it's not a definition I'm unfamiliar with.

It makes a lot of sense. I entirely agree - in part when I look back at the difference between how well I did in English during my school years and how poorly I did in Afrikaans, it wasn't just that I was reading in English. It was that I was working through text I largely understood. Understanding the meaning of what is being written being the important part (I think).

For example I read The Hobbit at an early age and the language was a little beyond me but I understood the meaning and followed the story. However I also used to read The Hardy Boys - perhaps not at the same age I read The Hobbit but I dont recall. What I do recall is that the books were pretty easy for me to read and thats in part why I enjoyed them so much. However one book kept talking about them going to the 'island' and I read it every time as "is land". I finished that book and the last few chapters were very confusing. They were talking a lot about this "is land" place and it made little sense. Just that one word did a lot of damage to my ability to follow the story.

So I've stopped searching for the holy grail of "i+1" because I feel the definition is very nebulous and more specifically this content does not exist in large quantities for the beginner learner. I think it applies very much to the intermediate learner and this is why Krashen mentions (in the 3 or 4 talks I've watched of his) examples of students free-reading story books. It kind of implies they are already passed the beginner level and this is where they have opened up a large volume of potential material to themselves which more or less can be shoe-horned into an "i+1" definition.

You may be correct that the material I have used is not ideal. I have, however, bought the TTMIK beginner material with translations. I have worked through it numerous times over the year. Similarly I've gone through all the beginner material I can find on LingQ. I have also worked through many of the TTMIK Iyagi ("natural conversation" series). Some of them read very easily to me and some of them I can even listen to and have large sections where I understand everything they are saying.

The easy way I've tested how well I understand the text is by translating sections of it and then comparing with the English translations (which I bought some of from TTMIK for this purpose).

So you are right that I need comprehensible input. You may be right that I should try find input which is more comprehensible than that which I am working with. However I don't think the difference would be as marked as if I had incorporated more output into my language learning. Or at least this is my conclusion after looking back and taking everything into consideration.

[qeadz]

Thank you all for the input, corrections (Jiwon, leosmith), comments and for just reading this log.

I've made it plain that the past year after review is left wanting. So I gave things some consideration and what I am going to do is this:

A tweak to my Korean study going forward coupled with an intent to do this kind of review in another 6 months. Thats roughly June/July next year. I would like to see that the intervening 150+ hours of study corrects a number of the fundamental problems I have. If all goes well then at that point I might tweak further based on the review I do at that time, but if it's not working then I'll throw in the towel.

First off I took at look at how my language learning is currently structured:

I listen while walking to/from work. I make use of my phone a fair bit (I'm happy that LingQ is cross-device) for reading as well as looking up grammar. I don't often have place to speak out loud now so I've been doing my 5 minutes of recorded talking in the mornings since I am usually first in the office (although this has been sporadic but I do at least 3 a week now).

This all poses a little problem for me deciding to do a 66/33 split between input and output for example. The places and times where I can do some Korean dictates that this split may be a goal rather than an actuality.

So:

Weekdays:
- 30 minutes of listening (total) to/from work
- 5 minutes of speaking and/or reading practice out loud when I get in the office
- 10-15 minutes of scriptorium or other work in notebook at lunch (I'll have to find somewhere)
- Reading before bed or other slots during the day

Weekends:
- whatever I can fit in. probably just some late night reading or listening.

At least once a week I should use an entire lunch hour to work on Korean. I'll allow this to be 'free' time in which I can work on whatever. If I can get a biweekly iTalki tutor going in the new year, this would be ideal. Of course I have no idea where I'll find some quiet area to do this.

However also during a 'language lunch' in which I am not using iTalki, I'll do work involving my notebook or possibly writing (to get corrected). This will help bring the balance of input/output I'd like across the week.

What I intend on doing in the notebook is:

- Scriptorium for sentences which I can work out but don't sit right with me.

- Practice grammar or useful sentence structures. This will be reading, writing and re-reading of some examples but THEN I'm going to try do some variations myself using the same grammar/structure which I'll get corrected (just to be sure).

For all activities involving output (which I'm including Scriptorium, grammar practice, speaking, writing diary entries, etc) I'll be using them primarily to bring things which I am already somewhat familiar with, but a little hazy on, into the spotlight.

Among the many things my 1 year review has highlighted is that all the disparate things I've read and listened to have given me a lot of ground which is somewhat familiar to me. There are lots of words which I either know only when in context or don't know the exact meaning of, or am unable to differentiate their use from another similar word... you get the idea. These are all ripe for me to throw into my output so that I can firm up my understanding of them. It may even bring them into my 'active' use which is ultimately where everything wants to end up.

So I'm going to give something like this a whirl. You have no idea how much I despise doing exercises or mini-tests or that kind of thing. SO my goal is to find the intersection of many different ideals. I want to continue reading and listening a lot because I think these are very key. I want to find a way of fixing the shortcomings I see as stemming from focusing too much on input. However I also want to find something which I can do every single day for years on end. I don't have to like it, but I don't want to hate it.

If anyone has suggestions or comments, please feel free to reply. I will always consider reasoned or well-argued opinions, but as obstinate as it sounds I still need to decide what I think is going to work for me.

[qeadz]

It seems that my language learning is going to be reduced. Life is very busy now with things at work which need finishing and last minute Christmas related things which need doing.

The bluetooth headphones are perhaps the best investment I have made because while everything else has dropped off a bit, I'm getting a lot of listening done.

My little Korean notebook has only a few pages of writing in it. I'm kind of not sure where to begin so I just began with whatever took my fancy. For this week I have selected a variety of words related to the home. I already had a smattering of words I knew: bed, pillow, table, chair, knife, pot, cup, toilet (room), kitchen, and a few others.

However, as always, my vocabulary is incomplete. Yes, I know the names for two rooms in a house. However one would reasonably expect a beginner would have learnt all the common ones together. But I didn't know 'bedroom' for example.

Similarly I knew the word for 'wall', but not for 'ceiling' or 'floor'.

It's as crazy as someone knowing the words for 'Monday' and 'Wednesday' but not the other days of the week!

On the grammar front, I started simple. I read up (AGAIN for the millionth time) on 은 는 and 이 가 usages. To be frank, it's still a little hazy.

It's commonly said that 이/가 is used to put emphasis on the noun. So "WHO bought this car?" "I + 이/가 bought this car". Whereas "what did you DO?". "I + 은/는 bought this car."

However when things are being *compared*, you can emphasize the comparison by using 은\는. "Apples + 은 는 are tasty, but pears + 은 는 are tastier."

But there is a lot of grey area because you can give half of the comparison, perhaps in response to what somebody said and use 은/는 to indicate this. You can also stick 은/는 multiple times in a sentence when it is a subject marker, but of course only one use is the subject and the remaining uses are for emphasis on this comparison that is being made. A common one would be to attach to 오늘 (today) as a means of drawing an implicit comparison against other days. I understand it to be a bit like "today in particular..."

In general if something is simply stated, usually if it has an adjective as the verb in the sentence, 이/가 is used.

It seems to make some sense when I write it all down but even with *all* the reading I've done (both about these markers, and also Korean texts which use them everywhere) I still get them wrong. It's basic basic stuff. Korean 101 if you will. I feel like the English language learner must feel when, after years of study, they still have issues with "the" and "a" either appearing where they shouldnt or being omitted where they should appear.

Anyway I suspect this log will lie dormant until I return to work next year. I may do another update end of this week but I don't think there will be anything of note to add.

[qeadz]

If there is one thing that my review of this year has shown up, it's that one's output does not necessarily reflect one's ability to understand the input. For example I have trouble remembering the rules for transforming/conjugating verbs - depending on the usage, different irregulars come into play. So when I write or speak, I can become confused. However if I see the verb in its correct form within a sentence I am able to immediately recognize it and understand it.

In a similar way it's been the same for the 'because' words in Korean. The language has many ways of conveying the meaning of 'because'. There are 서, 니까, 때문에, ~는 바람에 and probably others I'm forgetting right now as of writing this post. For all of them I think its possible to create an English translation which would use the word 'because', however many times there is a better or more accurate translation. I don't think any of them map exclusively to the word 'because' since the relationship is complex due to the way English breaking down different ways of expressing 'because' differs from how Korean breaks them down.

I am able to read or listen to content which uses any of these and I have not gotten translations wrong because of them. However one could argue that if I cannot use them in the correct situations when I write or speak that there are nuances I am not understanding which are part of the message even if they would not affect an English translation.

Fair enough. However I feel confident to say that, as far as input goes, none of the mentioned grammar principles have caused me issues in understanding the content I have worked through thus far.

However I would not use them correctly. So in my quest to fix the gaps from the past year, I'm going over these grammar patterns specifically right now.

They are interesting because every source seems to differ slightly and in some cases they can be contradictory even in their explanations of them. So after reading HTSK, TTMIK, kimchicloud, reddit, Korean Grammar in Use and other sources I've come to the list of usages that I *think* they all agree on:

Clause1 + verb + 서 + Clause2
1) Subject has to be the same between the two clauses
2) Second clause cannot happen without the first (the first enables the second to be true)
3) Never used with a propositive or imperative Clause2
4) Sequential in nature (clause1 happens or is true and then clause2 happens)
5) This is _always_ used for greetings and saying thank you (possibly this can be generalized to: used when clause 2 is tied to emotion?)

Clause1 + verb + 니까 + Clause2
1) Second clause cannot happen without the first. (clause1 enables clause2 to occur)
2) Tends to be used with propositive or imperatives (I'm hungry so lets go eat!)
My *personal* take on this is that maybe its a more general principle, so maybe 서 takes preference for use but all other situations wherein 서 doesn't apply, this one can be used???

noun + 때문에 + Clause 2
1) can be preceded by simple nouns
This one is confusing to me because I've read it cannot be used for imperative or propositve clause 2's, that it's almost _blaming_ the noun for Clause 2, that it's a very strong relationship in that noun almost _forces_ clause 2 to occur. However for every one of these reasons I can see a native-vetted example sentence which *seems* to contradict.
Furthermore since any clause can be converted into a noun in Korean, just about any of the 니까 sentences can be made to use 때문에. So I'm still researching this one because I'm sure a native would have a feeling of when this is preferred to the former grammatical pattern.

There are other patterns which all have some niche for filling the 'because' space in a sentence, however the above are (IMHO) by far the most common so I want to straighten these up first. Its a WIP.

Funny thing about the subjective aspect is that I've read both that 니까 is usually tied more to opinion rather than fact AND THAT 서 is usually tied more to opinion rather than fact. So due to contradictory takes on the topic, I'm going to guess that which one feels that way kind of depends on what kind of examples are popping up at the moment.

Certainly the restrictions I've mentioned in my bullet points above seem to trump all the other subjective opinions. That is if a statement requires two different subjects then 서 cannot be used regardless.

In part all of this is showing me that what I really want is not Korean Grammar In Use, but rather Korean: A Comprehensive Grammar. I don't have the latter but I wonder what it might say on the topic.

[wnint]

However, as always, my vocabulary is incomplete. Yes, I know the names for two rooms in a house. However one would reasonably expect a beginner would have learnt all the common ones together. But I didn't know 'bedroom' for example.

Similarly I knew the word for 'wall', but not for 'ceiling' or 'floor'.

It's as crazy as someone knowing the words for 'Monday' and 'Wednesday' but not the other days of the week!

I looked up bedroom in a frequency list I found [1]. It showed up a bit later than I first thought it would. I think in pretty much every category you can find a lot of these basic words and it adds up. So the fact that you don't know one of these when you have studied for less that a year (?) is nothing you should feel any stress about I think.

4526 창피하다
4527 친절
4528 침실
4529 태권도
4530 토론하다

Anyway. I'm looking forward to see your progress in the new year!

[Evita]

In part all of this is showing me that what I really want is not Korean Grammar In Use, but rather Korean: A Comprehensive Grammar. I don't have the latter but I wonder what it might say on the topic.

I checked. It says that -서 is for "natural consequences" and "generally accepted opinions". For example: City X is close to the equator so it's always warm there. If you want to say something that is contrary to the general opinion, you should use -니까. For example: I'm rich so I have many worries. You should also use -니까 when you make a guess or an assumption. For example: She's good-looking so she probably has a boyfriend.

-니까 marks subjective reasoning. That's what it all boils down to. If you say "prices are high so life is hard" using -서, it means that you think it's a generally accepted truth. If you say the same sentence using -니까, it means you are just expressing your opinion.

-기 때문에 is more similar to -서, it can't be used in commands. It's more often used in writing and formal speech.

[qeadz]

A fresh year begins. At least according to the Gregorian calendar. Really the change-over is arbitrary and society just decided to make the end of the year into a big deal. Even so I suspect even the most staunch anti-New Years Resolutions kind of person still feels a breath of fresh air at upon the closure of 2016 with 2017 being somehow disjoint from it as if this is a new chapter, even if the characters still remain the same.

I didn't get much time for Korean over my break. I did some. I imagine it amounts to 15 minutes per day (if averaged). Comprised mostly of listening and some reading.

I'm always very wary of a break in routine. In my experience anything one has to make a routine out of is typically something which otherwise might not get done. It might not get done because its not that exciting and one would rather be doing other things. This is learning Korean for me. I don't particularly enjoy the process right now, but there are things I do enjoy which could be enjoyed in Korean. They are a long ways off though.

So here I am back at work. This may be a shorter week so I'll aim for 5 hours this week and then resume 7 hours per week beginning next week.

I really want to shift off the TalkToMeInKorean Iyagi series this year. Its been great. I've covered about half of what they have. But it accounts for the majority of my input and I do want to get more varied sources. I keep teasing myself that I'll try watch some Korean drama. If I can find one with Hangeul captioning then I shall (or a transcript).

[leosmith]

I really want to shift off the TalkToMeInKorean Iyagi series this year. Its been great. I've covered about half of what they have. But it accounts for the majority of my input and I do want to get more varied sources. I keep teasing myself that I'll try watch some Korean drama. If I can find one with Hangeul captioning then I shall (or a transcript).

It's interesting that you bring this up, because I'm looking for other reading sources to maintain some variety. I'm actually hoping to find news that has both audio and transcripts. Regarding dramas with texts, there used to be a way to download subtitles from viki even without becoming an editor. About 2 years ago when I checked it out, there were quite a few K dramas with K subtitles.

[iguanamon]

...I'm actually hoping to find news that has both audio and transcripts. ...

NHK World has a Korean Service. Their other language services have audio with a transcript. NHK is a little tricky to use. You generally have to open the audio in another tab, pause it and click each individual story to listen and read. Obviously, I know nothing about Asian languages but it might be worth checking out.

[leosmith]

NHK is a little tricky to use.

Not too bad though; the article I checked turned out to be 1 of 7 mini articles that all went with a single 14 min audio recording. Actually quite handy to use in LingQ - thanks!
(edit - loaded that article just for fun....700 unknown words. That's 50/min, or 5 times what I feel is optimal, haha. Looks like I know where to go to expand my vocab a bit)