The ‘I don't Hate Korean’ Thread

General discussion about learning languages
AndyMeg
Blue Belt
Posts: 633
Joined: Sat Jan 28, 2017 2:44 pm
Languages: Spanish (N), English (B2-C1), Japanese (A2-B1), Korean (Lower Intermediate?)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 02#p201902
x 1302

Re: The ‘I don't Hate Korean’ Thread

Postby AndyMeg » Tue Nov 21, 2017 1:37 pm

qeadz wrote:월초 beginning of the month
월말 end of the month

학기 (semester) + 말 (end of some period) --> 기말 end of the semester
학기 (semester) + 초 (beginning of some period) --> not what one might expect because 기초 actually means foundation or basis :x

qeadz wrote:Recently I've tried to improve my ability to retain vocab. It was suggested on Reddit by some experienced learners that I should learn the roots. However consensus was that I would not have to learn the actual chinese characters - just the sounds and Hangeul form. So I have made this a focus as of late.

I think you may benefit more if you actually learned to recognize the chinese characters. You don't have to be able to write them, but I do think that being able to recognize them can be of great help because a korean syllable may be associated with more than one hanja and thus, with more than one meaning. For example:

As you said, 기초 actually means "foundation, basis". These are the hanjas for 기초: 基礎

基 --> foundation, base
礎 --> foundation stone, plinth

But there's another word: 초기. These are the hanjas for 초기: 初期

初 --> beginning, initial, primary
期 --> period of time; date; time limit

What's the meaning of 초기?
the early days, initial period

For studying hanja and word families "Hanja Explorer" can be of great use.
Last edited by AndyMeg on Wed Nov 22, 2017 2:26 am, edited 1 time in total.
1 x
Beyond The Story 10 Year Record of BTS Korean version: 36 / 522

Sayonaroo
Green Belt
Posts: 256
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2017 12:13 am
Languages: English(N), Japanese -fluent?, Korean - advanced?, Spanish (b1?)
Language Log: http://choronghi.wordpress.com
x 319
Contact:

Re: The ‘I don't Hate Korean’ Thread

Postby Sayonaroo » Wed Nov 22, 2017 12:08 am

qeadz wrote:
Sayonaroo wrote:I don't think this problem is unique to Korean. I think it has to due with your study method at least with anki. why don't you just suspend them? Seeing them used in the same way over and over ( IS the format word on the front and meaning on the back) in anki is clearly not working. What will help is seeing those words being used over and over in different contexts in your reading/listening like you said and/or seeing other words that contain the same root hanja. the words you gave as example are pretty common as well as the individual hanja roots so I don't think it's worth reviewing them in anki... all that time and effort could be spent learning other words that are more easily remembered/retained VIA ANKI. are you trying to learn words off a list or learning words you encounter from reading/listening? learning words off a list is problematic for any language...

And maybe you should consider doing remember the hanzi to help you remember the meanings of the hanja. It's even more worth doing if you plan on learning mandarin, cantonese, or Japanese in the future.


I don't want to derail this thread, but feel compelled to reply even though I clearly have derailed it a bit. I am a person that appreciates measurements and as such I prefer them to however I might *feel* about how things are going.

So the very brief history which lead me to where I am now:

I began only reading and listening. Reading old material more than once as well as new material. Upon reviewing my progress, I found that this had not lead to a large vocabulary. After some rigorous testing, it seems I had learned new words at a rate of 4 or 5 per hour of 'Korean exposure'.

So I *added* Anki to the mix - being I continue to read content, but also do Anki. With Anki I found it very tough to get high correct rates. However I have doubled my passive vocabulary in the last 6 months! So even though words _are_ tough, its getting much more to stick than when I was just reading/listening.

Recently I've tried to improve my ability to retain vocab. It was suggested on Reddit by some experienced learners that I should learn the roots. However consensus was that I would not have to learn the actual chinese characters - just the sounds and Hangeul form. So I have made this a focus as of late.

Presently the focus on roots does not seem to appreciably change my actual Anki statistics and as such I don't think its having a measurable result.

Lastly I want to mention that the words you suggest I could leave out of Anki because they're not worth reviewing ARE words I encounter BOTH in Anki AND in the text I read... yet I am getting them wrong. So I conclude that I need _more_ focus on them, not less. I just am unsure what to do.

Hence my final conclusion: Korean is hard. Its vocab is hard. I'm sure other languages might be similarly hard for me too - so Korean might not be alone in this. But that may be the case... Korean and its vocab is still (IMHO) difficult.


I suggested considering remember the hanzi since it helps you remember the meaning via story that is based off the radicals that make up the character rather than brute force memorization of sound and associated meaning which is what it sounds like you're doing with the anki reviews. Another reason I'm suggesting it it because I personally enjoyed remember the kanji because I liked how I could break up learning Japanese into different types of activities like anki deck for learning vocab, learning sentences, and fun, wacky stories with remember the kanji. For me rtk just worked because some stories are damn memorable and it's more fun than memorization. I suggested suspending so that you can focus that time on other words that are more easily learned/remembered to get the most out of anki (learn max number of words you can from anki instead of wasting time on words you can't remember via anki) and to make anki more enjoyable. it's one of the basic anki rules that I try to follow. The rules include suspend/delete anything I want to for whatever reason because ultimately that time could be used towards other cards and those "bad" anki cards make anki reviews feel like torture.

I haven't done remember the hanzi myself so I don't know the availability of decks with stories included but for remember the kanji there's a website callled https://kanji.koohii.com/ that has shared stories and there is a shared deck available with stories.
3 x

ironfist
White Belt
Posts: 15
Joined: Sat Oct 06, 2018 2:25 am
Languages: English (N)
Different
x 11

Re: The ‘I don't Hate Korean’ Thread

Postby ironfist » Sat Oct 06, 2018 2:35 am

Hi guys,

I was so ecstatic to see my descriptions mentioned in this thread.

I stick by everything I said in the previous thread. I'm glad Korean isn't difficult for you. But you're crazy if you think looking up Japanese words is harder than Korean. If you hear a Japanese word you can probably spell it. If you hear a Korean word, you probably can't. They're all extremely similar to each other.

From my experience that's how it is.

For anyone here who doesn't like Korean dramas, check out W. I'm definitely a fan of that show.
2 x

User avatar
eido
Blue Belt
Posts: 841
Joined: Tue Jan 30, 2018 8:31 pm
Languages: English (N), Spanish (C1)
x 3181

Re: The ‘I don't Hate Korean’ Thread

Postby eido » Mon Oct 08, 2018 5:57 pm

I don’t hate Korean, but it can frustrate me at times. I find it to have a very beautiful sound system and flow, which are the main reasons I’m interested in speaking it.
2 x

lichtrausch
Blue Belt
Posts: 511
Joined: Thu Jul 23, 2015 3:21 pm
Languages: English (N), German, Japanese, Mandarin, Korean
x 1381

Re: The ‘I don't Hate Korean’ Thread

Postby lichtrausch » Fri Aug 04, 2023 5:40 am

0 x

Picaboo
Orange Belt
Posts: 122
Joined: Sun Nov 20, 2022 4:06 pm
Location: Canada
Languages: English (native). Korean (upper intermediate). French (early intermediate), Japanese (early beginner)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=19516
x 359

Re: The ‘I don't Hate Korean’ Thread

Postby Picaboo » Sun Aug 06, 2023 4:08 pm

I don't hate Korean. ;)
I have no other language to compare it to as it is my first second language. In 19 months I have gotten decent at it, and I am horrible at languages, most likely. But that was a shit-ton of hours. I assume with most other languages I'd be much further along by now. But there is nothing "hard" about it. Nothing mysterious. Nothing complicated. But it takes a lot of time because it is so different-- it took me a very long time to "process is as language" which with something like French is very natural.

I think it's a pretty cool language.
2 x

Picaboo
Orange Belt
Posts: 122
Joined: Sun Nov 20, 2022 4:06 pm
Location: Canada
Languages: English (native). Korean (upper intermediate). French (early intermediate), Japanese (early beginner)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=19516
x 359

Re: The ‘I don't Hate Korean’ Thread

Postby Picaboo » Sun Aug 06, 2023 5:30 pm

This guy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VcrX9P4EwU makes a good point about the way verbs works in Korean. Such as 가시었겠지요. Which is the word go (가) appended with a whole bunch of stuff such as tense, respect for the actor (person doing the going)), certainty that it happened, mutual agreement that it happened, and respect for who you are talking to.

Personally, I don't find this hard except for the fact that they are all single syllables that get blurred together. So it takes quite a bit of experience to unpack it all on the fly. You need a lot of independent experience with 시, 었, 겠, 지, and 요. Not that its hard per say, and understanding inflection takes you a long way. But this makes it hard on the beginner trying to understand real Korean content. They learn 가 and 요, but are lost on native content for children where people would seldom even say 가요 and even picking out 가 in the word flow can be challenging.
0 x


Return to “General Language Discussion”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: GawainStan and 2 guests