Cloud's 2017 Korean Log

Continue or start your personal language log here, including logs for challenge participants
User avatar
Cloud
White Belt
Posts: 48
Joined: Wed May 04, 2016 9:33 pm
Languages: English (N)
Studying: Korean
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=5358
x 52

Re: Cloud's 2017 Korean Log

Postby Cloud » Tue Apr 04, 2017 4:26 pm

Something I've noticed with language learning is that my enthusiasm and motivation comes in waves. I get really into studying for weeks or months, and then my interest wanes, only to reappear weeks or months later. I often wonder whether to go with the flow and just do whatever interests me at the time, or to try and maintain my study habits regardless of motivation. Right now I'm experiencing a lull in motivation to study Korean, and I've decided just to do whatever. I know my enthusiasm for studying will return, and I'm in no rush. I think I'm still clinging onto this misconception that you can only learn languages through textbooks – has my 아는형님 binge taught me nothing? :roll: So I'm just reading and watching Korean stuff, occasionally looking up vocab and grammar as I go. Generally this means watching a couple of hours of Korean tv every day, reading entertainment articles, and watching clips on Naver TV (thankfully I found ad blockers that work on Korean sites).

One thing that surprised me was a construction that is in almost every article I read, and yet I've never come across it before while studying: -ㄴ 바 있다 . I'm pretty sure it doesn't appear in TTMIK's grammar lessons or How to Study Korean, and I couldn't find anything in the intermediate or advanced Korean Grammar in Use books. The only book I have that explains it is Korean Grammar for International Learners (which I love and really recommend as a great reference) - "바 way, means; a thing, that (which)". It's also in the Korean Grammar Dictionary, though their example sentences never seem to be very enlightening. For something that seems so common, it just seems surprising it's difficult to find in textbooks.

I discovered a great music channel called ONSTAGE which is full of live performances from artists of various genres, and many of the videos include the lyrics. Having mostly outgrown Kpop (was obsessed from 2008 to 2012, a golden age), I haven't really found a lot of Korean music I like, but this channel is full of amazing music that's more to my taste.



So although I haven't been "studying" Korean, I'm still consuming it every day. Omnomnom :lol:

I've been using Duolingo a lot recently, mostly for Norwegian and Italian (although of course it's fun to play around with different languages). I'd love to make some progress and finish the courses, but right now I feel like I'm constantly stuck reviewing - my own fault for being so inconsistent. I'm looking forward to when the Korean course is released – I think I'll already know most of it, but I like the Duolingo format, so I think it'll be a fun way to practice.

I've also been reviewing a bit of Chinese. Previously I've worked through 4 volumes of the NPCR, learned vocab up to HSK4(ish), and used Anki to work through sentences. Right now I want to focus more on consolidation – I tend to get a bit caught up in learning vocab and grammar without really putting it into practice. So I've been going through some graded readers that aren't too challenging in order to review, since I haven't really touched Chinese since the middle of last year.

There are more languages that I want to get back to, but there just aren't enough hours in the day!
4 x
: 4484 / 15000 : ko anki
: 627 / 10000 : ko read


집은 책으로, 정원은 꽃으로 가득 채워라.

User avatar
rdearman
Site Admin
Posts: 7231
Joined: Thu May 14, 2015 4:18 pm
Location: United Kingdom
Languages: English (N)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1836
x 23123
Contact:

Re: Cloud's 2017 Korean Log

Postby rdearman » Thu Apr 06, 2017 3:44 pm

I flip-flop in waves of enthusiasms too, I wouldn't worry to much about it.
2 x
: 0 / 150 Read 150 books in 2024

My YouTube Channel
The Autodidactic Podcast
My Author's Newsletter

I post on this forum with mobile devices, so excuse short msgs and typos.

User avatar
Elenia
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1888
Joined: Sun Jul 19, 2015 1:22 am
Location: London
Languages: English (N), Swedish (C1), French (Massively Atrophied) German (lowly beginner, somehow learnt to read)


Finnish?!
Language Log: viewtopic.php?t=708
x 3280
Contact:

Re: Cloud's 2017 Korean Log

Postby Elenia » Sat Apr 08, 2017 2:20 pm

Cloud wrote:I discovered a great music channel called ONSTAGE which is full of live performances from artists of various genres, and many of the videos include the lyrics. Having mostly outgrown Kpop (was obsessed from 2008 to 2012, a golden age), I haven't really found a lot of Korean music I like, but this channel is full of amazing music that's more to my taste.





Thanks for sharing this! This is a really lovely song - it makes me want to restart my Korean experiment!
1 x

User avatar
Cloud
White Belt
Posts: 48
Joined: Wed May 04, 2016 9:33 pm
Languages: English (N)
Studying: Korean
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=5358
x 52

Re: Cloud's 2017 Korean Log

Postby Cloud » Sun Apr 16, 2017 2:41 pm

I've been binge-watching 은밀하게 위대하게 recently, which is difficult because it's so hilariously cringey. I keep having to pause it and do some Duolingoing while I recover. It's a great show to watch without subs though, it's really easy to follow what's going on and pick up new vocab. I've also been watching the new 프로두스101, which again is easy enough to follow without English subs, since a lot of the time it has Korean subs.

As much as I love binge-watching, I find it helpful to have series that I follow every week to keep a routine and guarantee I have new material to watch. After all, I'm so picky it takes me a long time to find new series I enjoy. So this is my current tv schedule:

Fri: 프로두스101 시즌2
Sat: 아는형님
Sun: 은밀하게 위대하게

I've started reading some news news (as opposed to just my usual entertainment news), and I like that the video clips are short with Korean subtitles and transcripts. The only thing that bothers me a little is how robotically the presenters speak, but I suppose that's just how news is.

While looking up hanja in the naver dictionary, I suddenly remembered a great site that I found really useful. I've had difficulty in the past trying to find a method to learn hanja (and wondering if it's even worth my time), as my usual Anki method didn't seem very effective. Although I'm fine learning Chinese words using SRS, hanja seems more difficult, probably because I can go on to practice reading Chinese sentences, but I only come across hanja randomly. When I was doing the TTMIK hanja lessons, I liked that they gave you lots of examples so you could make connections between words, making new vocab much easier to remember, and that's what's useful about this site. Every time I visit the site, I usually end up spending lots of time exploring characters and the connections between words – it's fascinating! So I think I'm just going to look up hanja as I come across them rather than try to learn them systematically.

And now I feel like I've had enough of a break from studying, and am almost desperate to get back to it. So I'll be resuming Anki and Korean Grammar in Use first, and perhaps some other methods if I feel like it.
2 x
: 4484 / 15000 : ko anki
: 627 / 10000 : ko read


집은 책으로, 정원은 꽃으로 가득 채워라.


Return to “Language logs”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests