Korean - from scratch to B2 in one year

[qeadz]

I'll be watching this thread with interest. I voted for 'no' because, despite how much I'd like to see you achieve it, B2 by the definitions I've read sounds like a real stretch. I have absolutely no basis for this opinion other than the progress of other Korean learners I've followed over the months... but I think:

B2 for reading/writing, but B1 for conversing.

But I haven't even learnt a second language to fluency so I don't know squat! It'll be both good to see and hard to watch at the same time. When someone who begins studying a year after me overtakes me in a couple month's time... haha. I really don't know how you polyglots find the time, energy or motivation to do what you do!

[PeterMollenburg]

PS: leosmith do you have any favourites in terms what might be the best apps and/or websites for tutoring and conversational practice? I'm rather new to the area and just curious what you'd recommend given your experience.

I'm going to list all the resources I use as I go along here, so you can keep an eye out for them. But just quickly, italki can't be beat for finding conversation tutors/teachers.

Cool, tnx

[leosmith]

I'll be watching this thread with interest. I voted for 'no' because, despite how much I'd like to see you achieve it, B2 by the definitions I've read sounds like a real stretch. I have absolutely no basis for this opinion other than the progress of other Korean learners I've followed over the months... but I think:

B2 for reading/writing, but B1 for conversing.

But I haven't even learnt a second language to fluency so I don't know squat! It'll be both good to see and hard to watch at the same time. When someone who begins studying a year after me overtakes me in a couple month's time... haha. I really don't know how you polyglots find the time, energy or motivation to do what you do!

Welcome! I actually appreciate your honest vote. I was expecting it to be about 50/50, so it's a little surprising how lopsided it is so far. I'm a bit behind on posts here, but I start conversing in less than a week. What I've done up till now is just to prepare myself for the real heart of my learning - conversation with tutors. I get everything from it. After 100 X 1hr sessions with a tutor I've found it's just about impossible not to be B1. But we'll see

[qeadz]

After 100 X 1hr sessions with a tutor I've found it's just about impossible not to be B1. But we'll see

Well I guess compared to 'fluency', despite having more words to define them, the CEFRL language levels are still open to broad interpretation. I'm only newly accustomed to looking at their definitions so I don't know if there is more to them than the short abstract for each level I see on Wikipedia.

They're also geared (it seems) toward being functional in the environment. If you're not living in Korea, what would a 'regular interaction' be? How would you know when you've achieved it? I guess the best test is spending some time living there and needing to get through life - warts and all - with the language. At the end it'd be a subjective rating of ones own comfort level in doing the various exchanges which life presented.

It's one of the things I've thought about a fair bit - what is my end goal with the language? Being 'functional' in it with regard to sorting out Visa issues, or having to go through describing medical symptoms to some healthcare person are not things I envisage needing to do.

So I'll sooner be able to talk about the history of Korea and her traditions than I would either of the previous two problems. And I've decided I am okay with this - but it means I might have difficulty passing a relevant TOPIK level or meeting the requirements for B2.

[leosmith]

A couple of additional notes on orthography and pronunciation. With very few exceptions, I recommend learning the actual script of a language from the beginning, rather than starting off with transliteration and weaning yourself off of it. Although actual script will be harder than transliteration at first, you will get used to it soon, and you will actually be able to use it when you encounter the real language. Transliteration is rarely used in target countries or anything having to do with real languages in general, so they aren’t very useful outside of learning. Also, if you learn transliteration first, you’ll sort of have to unlearn it when you learn the real script. This can be painful and time consuming, and it feels much like correcting fossilized errors. Avoid making this mistake if possible.

The last comment I have on this at the moment is learning the actual script early on improves pronunciation in a way I haven’t mentioned yet. Spelling. If you can spell a word you have a chance of pronouncing it correctly. If you can’t spell it, you often can’t pronounce it either. Of course there are many exceptions; sometimes a phoneme can be spelled in more than one way, for example, but being able to spell is a great help to correct pronunciation. I’ll talk more about the techniques I use to get on top of spelling later.

[leosmith]

After 100 X 1hr sessions with a tutor I've found it's just about impossible not to be B1. But we'll see

Well I guess compared to 'fluency', despite having more words to define them, the CEFRL language levels are still open to broad interpretation.

That's a very good point. First, I should have said "After 100 X 1hr sessions with a tutor the way I do it". But yeah, and to confound matters I'm not planning on taking any standard test. Instead I'll make videos and let people decide what my level is. I'm open to suggestions. I'm thinking random, unscripted conversations are the best, but maybe record some sessions with my tutors too to balance things out.

[leosmith]

To close out step 1(a), the other thing I did in the first week was to begin listening. Of course there was some listening going on with my textbook work, but I don’t even count that. I wrote a post about listening a long time ago here which talks about what things I like to count. My philosophy has changed a bit since then, but the post is still pretty useful. I started watching dramas and movies with English subtitles, language learning videos, and pod casts. I selected dramas and movies in a pretty random fashion, so I won’t list them here. I mainly used these to get used to the rhythm of the real language; sometimes I glanced at the subtitles, sometimes not. I found a nice way to “watch” language learning videos – I’d find big play lists and just let them run while I eat and cook. So about half the time I’d be listening intently. These learning videos were much more comprehensible than normal dramas or movies - they were usually in simpler language and had either English explanations or subtitles in English and/or Korean. Some of my favorite play lists were TTMIK Talk, Korean Q&A, koreanclass101 and Real Korean.

I was happy to find a large treasure trove of Korean pod casts. Incidentally, I found Korean resources in general to be quite superb. They have vastly improved over the past few years according to what I’ve read, which mercifully softens the language. Anyway, after listening to hundreds of pod casts from about a dozen sites, I settled on two that were absolutely superb. No surprises regarding number one. Talk to me in Korean (TTMIK). A great all around site which makes it’s money off of textbook sales so everything else is free, including hundreds of 10 min intermediate conversation pod casts with transcripts, hundreds of graduated grammar pod casts with transcripts, and the first 2 video links I listed above, amongst many other things. I alternated streaming the intermediate conversations, which I understood very little of at this point, and the grammar pod casts, which were quite comprehensible with their English banter, in a loop so I was free to do other tasks when I needed to.

The second site, a close runner up for producing hundreds of high quality grammar pod casts, is koreanclass101. Unlike TTMIK, koreanclass101 grammar pod casts start out with a sample dialogue, a little drama which is often one part of a multi-part story, so the banter is quite different. I don’t necessarily prefer one type over the other, but I do enjoy variety, so I use the koreanclass101 pod casts to play in my little mp3 player when I exercise, which is separate from TTMIK in my apartment. Although they only have a few dozen free pod casts, which I linked to above, if you join the site for free, they will give you a one time opportunity to get a one month premium membership for $1. With that membership, you can download all their pod casts, videos, etc in a single download. This took about 20min if I recall. I now have hundreds of free pod casts in a folder on my computer, and I unsubscribed after that, hehe.

[leosmith]

Since were still on the topic of listening, I just posted regarding my new way of thinking about it here. This might help someone decide what to do on their learning path.

[PeterMollenburg]

I'm not really interested in learning Korean (sorry). Nothing against the language, I just haven't got the room- our lives are too short for how many languages there are out there! However, I just want to say that I find this log already particularly interesting from a methods perspective. I'm on the lookout for improving my language skills by proven methods (anecdotal, scientific, insightful, theoretical), and your log is a valuable source of information for such. Thanks for the insights into listening you've provided on the "LIE to a polyglot" thread. Valuable stuff indeed

[leosmith]

I just want to say that I find this log already particularly interesting from a methods perspective. I'm on the lookout for improving my language skills by proven methods (anecdotal, scientific, insightful, theoretical), and your log is a valuable source of information for such. Thanks for the insights into listening you've provided on the "LIE to a polyglot" thread. Valuable stuff indeed

Thanks very much! Glad to have you here.