More Korean than Japanese in 2022 - 2023

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dadofchos
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Re: More Korean than Japanese in 2022

Postby dadofchos » Mon Oct 03, 2022 10:54 am

Just wanted to pop in and say thanks for keeping this log going. It's always helpful and relatable to see the process other people have gone through when learning languages. I found some of your videos on YouTube way back when, and binge-read through your log here earlier this year. Hope the class is going well!
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golyplot
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Re: More Korean than Japanese in 2022

Postby golyplot » Sat Oct 08, 2022 5:08 pm

kraemder wrote:I would argue that even people who focus on immersion or consuming material in the language like listening and reading over outputting, if they're learning quickly, they probably ARE outputting - just in their head and not out loud with other people.


As someone who focuses on input-only learning, that is not my experience at all. I've been studying Japanese for three years, but I don't think I've ever done internal vocalization in Japanese.
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kraemder
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Re: More Korean than Japanese in 2022

Postby kraemder » Sat Dec 03, 2022 8:08 pm

golyplot wrote:
kraemder wrote:I would argue that even people who focus on immersion or consuming material in the language like listening and reading over outputting, if they're learning quickly, they probably ARE outputting - just in their head and not out loud with other people.


As someone who focuses on input-only learning, that is not my experience at all. I've been studying Japanese for three years, but I don't think I've ever done internal vocalization in Japanese.


Maybe the reason why I do "output" in my head a lot but not with other people is because I want to output, I'm just too shy to do it with people.
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kraemder
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Re: More Korean than Japanese in 2022

Postby kraemder » Sat Dec 03, 2022 10:27 pm

Near the end of the year update. Towards the end of September, I decided that I was going stir crazy and wanted to use my accrued time off to go somewhere abroad. I was mostly split between Korea and Japan but Japan was still closed then and I was getting tired of waiting so I went online spur of the moment and setup and paid for a trip to study at a small language school in Seoul for 3 weeks. Korea technically has a Visa requirement like Japan but they have this tourist visa type option called KETA where you just go onto a website, enter your passport information and reason for travel etc, then pay a small fee (I think $20.00) and you are good to go. It gets reviewed and approved so in theory you could be rejected but I was approved one hour later and that wasn't even expedited or anything. I setup the school through some random website online that coordinated this sort of thing. I live in Arizona (USA) and the guy helping me was a dude in Berlin although they also had a Boston office which made little sense since due to the time difference it took us about a day to reply to each other's messages. But it worked out.

I arrived in Seoul Sunday morning at about 4:30 AM local time. I only brought carry on luggage for my three week stay. I had barely slept at all on the plane so I was exhausted but I headed out to the luggage area looking for the guy who was supposed to meet me. It was just a taxi person the school reserved for me. Well, he had a van but I was the only one he was picking up. He spoke no English. My Korean is very bad despite being several years into my studies technically but it didn't really matter. It was a little over an hour I think from the airport to where I was staying. I was staying at a sort of share house apartment type building in Gangnam Seoul which was 10 minutes by foot from the school. The guy dropped me off outside. He walked me into the lobby, couldn't find an elevator, and just said this was the place and left. It was still dark outside and there was nobody anywhere. I had a room number and I knew I was on the fourth floor I think or something. So I started walking up the stairs hoping this was the right address. I passed a dentist's office. Not the best sign I thought but kept going. On the third floor there was a sort of sign in desk window which made me think it was the right place after all. Thank goodness. I went wandering around looking at room numbers and eventually found mine. The door was open, the key was on the desk, and there was a piece of paper with some information in Korean. I used Papago to take a picture of it and read the translation. Thankfully it made sense. I would be using Papago for a lot of translation over the next few weeks.

The room was unbelievably small. I had travelled to Seoul for a weekend visit when I was living in Japan so I was prepared for this but I was still surprised at how they made the room look so much bigger in the pictures. There was almost no floor space to stand on due to the chair at the desk. The chair took up all the standing/walking space in the room. There was a small bed. I'm six foot 1 inch or 185 cm and thankfully it was plenty long enough for me to lie down on. There was a big bar over the bed for me to hang up my clothes (yes, right above the bed.. so they would be in my face sitting up..) and a closet at the foot of the bed. You couldn't reach the closet if you were standing on the floor - you had to be sitting on the bed to reach the closet. As I mentioned there was a chair and a desk to go with the chair. Next to the chair and the bed was a small shower/toilet. It's hard to say but I would guess the building was at least 40 years old probably older. My room was next to the outside of the building so I had a very very small window that I could open and it would let in air from outside. The other rooms on my floor (there were several) did not have an outside window but instead had windows that opened into the hallway. There were some fans in each of the units that you could turn on for some more ventilation too.

I unpacked, setup my wifi, looked online for a bit, and then at 8:00 AM I headed out to explore. Gangnam turned out to be a great neighborhood for walking. There's restaurants and other stores everywhere. They all looked really interesting and not run down or shady or scary or anything of the sort. I ate at McDonalds for breakfast with a promise that I wouldn't eat there for lunch but would make the effort to speak Korean and eat at an authentic restaurant. It's a bit intimidating to this alone however. I was looking forward to meeting people at school. At McDonalds you can just order at the kiosk and there's an option for English to make it easier for foreigners.

I really liked the coffee. I got Korean "Americano" (hot) for breakfast every day. It's really tasty. I'm not sure how they prepare it but it's different than any coffee drink you get in the US. I found out that although you can sometimes get cream and sugar, you can't always get it. Starbucks people would often have to check in several places to find it because they didn't remember where it was kept. The coffee shop at the top of the Seoul Tower didn't have any sugar, cream, or milk at all. Just straight up black. When I looked online to get more information on this phenomenon, one person offered this explanation: Korean people are too worried about getting fat so they don't like any milk, cream, or sugar in their coffee. It kind of makes sense but sometimes I like some cream or sugar especially if I'm not eating anything just straight up can taste a little bitter.

Later that day when people had woken up I met the Korean lady in charge. She did speak some English but it was worse than my Korean (which is really bad) so we had to use Papago to say anything that wasn't really basic. Luckily another foreigner walked by who was also a student at my school. She ended up doing a quick introduction tour and explained all the basics in English for me. She had been studying at the school for a couple months it seemed but would be off that week to go sightseeing in Busan. I managed to stay awake all day and went to sleep about 9 PM. I'm a terrible sleeper and I was very concerned I wouldn't sleep through the night but I did. Mostly. This was mid October and my unit was pretty high up but there was a small mosquito infestation there so just when you're about to fall asleep you would often hear the loud buzzing of a Mosquito near your face ready to chow down on your flesh.

I arrived at school on time without any issues at all - I had already walked by it the day before. Even though I had walked by it I was still using Google maps to go everywhere. The city streets seem to be mostly setup in a grid (until you get to the small side streets) but it's still confusing for a newbie I think and wouldn't be until after two weeks or so that I would know my way around enough to confidently just walk to where I was going without checking Google even once. The school was on the 14th floor and 16th floor of an office building. There were two elevators out front and later I think I saw a "secret" entrance and elevator on the side of the building, but I never tried it. It could be pretty crowded in the morning when everyone was showing up at once and there were several Korean Businesses there too who shared the elevators with us.

I showed up at the front desk. It being Monday they were expecting lots of new students and they immediately asked if I were new. I told them I was. We spoke English. It seemed like maybe a bunch of young Korean people volunteered to help out on Mondays maybe. The person helping me didn't really seem to know what to do and ended up just walking me to a desk with my name on it in a large room just down the hall. I later found out the school offers English classes for Koreans for IELTS in particular and maybe some more classes too. It would make sense that these people would be willing to volunteer to help out for this so they could practice their English. I have no idea however it's just my speculation.

My seat was in the back of the room - the 2nd to last row. There wasn't anyone on my right but across the aisle there was a young guy who turned out to be a doctor from Belgium and behind me was a young lady from Columbia. They both spoke English. I was still jet lagged and tired but immediately started talking to them in English. I haven't mentioned masks yet. I had been wearing a mask pretty much non-stop since I boarded the airplane in San Francisco headed to Seoul. The flights within the US did not require anyone to wear a mask even in the airplane but Korea is Asia and Asia is all about wearing masks. I think I probably complained about my mask because he started talking to me about how stupid masks are if it's not done correctly - you can't all wear a mask but then take them off to eat and drink and then put them back on and expect to be protected. Of course he's right. I agreed with him. This is probably why wearing masks is not preventing the spread of the virus the way we all hoped it would. But people want to eat and drink. So it's a halfway measure. Nothing we can do to change it but just do what everyone does.

He said something that made me laugh. He didn't immediately realize I was from the US so when I told him he said, "THAT'S why your English is so good!" Yeah, that's why. I'm not talented unfortunately. But he did seem duly impressed that I was studying Korean after getting Japanese to a pretty good level. It's unusual for someone to learn a foreign language like Japanese well and even more unusual for them to learn a 2nd hard language on top of that. I haven't really learned Korean yet - he was giving me credit for my future self I guess. The young lady behind me turned out to be a psychologist who worked with prisoners. You get the most random professions when you go to language school. I told them I work in insurance and don't need Japanese/Korean for my job at all either. Korean was just a hobby for all of us. It seemed us first day people all were happy to meet new friends and the whole room was really loud with talking people.

They did a video presentation and then later a young lady (who was a volunteer I think) finished up the presentation in English and then explained she would read off our names one by one for us to come to the front of the room to speak to a language teacher for a placement test. This girl seemed a bit nervous and shy and she was not projecting her voice. When the room was quiet and everyone was listening to her I could understand her but I as immediately worried about hearing my name when she called me. They didn't just read off all our names. We were sitting there for almost an hour and so everyone was talking etc. I haven't had my hearing tested but I probably should - I can hear ok in most situations but in a crowded bar or restaurant I really struggle to hear people. I almost want to hold my hand to my ear to hear a little better (it actually helps). Anyway, I told myself that even if I didn't hear then she would have to speak up and it might be a little awkward, but it would be fine.

Wrong. It turns out she read my name, I didn't hear her, and she just decided I wasn't there. Even though I had presented my passport at the front desk, signed in, then signed in on their online app, and was sitting at a desk with my name on it, but she assumed I wasn't there. When everyone started standing up to go and I still hadn't heard my name I went to the front desk to find out what happened. I'm still a little upset over how this was handled as you can probably tell. The administrator in charge told me they called my name but I didn't answer and looked at me like I should just go home or something because he didn't know what to do with me. I got pretty upset and told him that if she called my name and I didn't respond then it's her responsibility to repeat it louder and then find me or check to verify that I'm really not there. And I need to be placed because the class I paid for should be starting in 5 to 10 minutes.

He wasn't a teacher but he did a quick test - he switched to Korean and asked me when I arrived in Korea and if I had studied Korean before. I told him. He then put me in the 2nd to lowest class just above a complete beginner who can't read the alphabet. I had doubts but I didn't know the real level of the different classes so I just nodded and went to the class as instructed.

The class was conducted all in Korean which was an immediate big step up from the classes I had taken in the US at my local community college. But even though it was all in Korean it was obviously way too easy for me. Sure, since it was my first time in a real Korean class room with a native Korean speaker using all Korean I was bound to learn some but the hand outs were just basic conjugations for vocabulary I already knew. I knew most of the conjugations too except for maybe one or two which were exceptions and, yeah, I had forgotten them. But having been reminded I wasn't concerned and didn't want to spend weeks reviewing them. I've always been aware that at these schools you can complain if you're not happy with the level they place you in but never complained before. I prefer to go along with what they ask me to do and not be a squeaky wheel. But this was too much even for me. I complained. The teacher wanted to know why I was placed into the class if I already knew everything and I just said I didn't know why - the placement test was odd. She said she would investigate and get back to me. Eventually she gave permission for me to up a level the next day.

I went to the new more advanced class the next day. It was harder but still seemed a little too easy for me. I didn't want to complain a second time - especially when I knew my ability to output in Korean was pretty bad. At least in this class there was the occasional word I didn't know and although I'd seen the grammar before it was not insultingly basic. I stayed with this class. However, for most of the other students, they were being introduced to this grammar and vocabulary for the first time. Really, it wasn't the right level for me either. I did have concerns though that if I went up another level it really might be too hard. If I could go back and do it again I would go up to the front of the room to that girl who was in charge of reading the names and say my name is Paul and it's hard to hear you but don't forget me when my name is called if I don't answer. And then maybe I would have been properly placed into the right class. I think anyone doing a placement test is going to also ask the student what level they want to be placed in and take that into account. I know I would if I were doing the placement.

I was in Seoul for three weeks total. Overall it was a really good experience although I'm probably forever wonder what it would have been like if I were in the low intermediate class instead. I was in Seoul for the tragedy in Itaewon but I was a party pooper and stayed home that evening. Who knew I was actually being really smart. Some of the students including the doctor I sat next to in the orientation went and witnessed the tragedy and all the bodies and it was very traumatic for them. I'm glad I wasn't there for that.

I made friends with a language partner on Tandem. Initially I was thinking I would be very social and aggressive about meeting new people but I mostly limited it to classmates and this one partner due to my low level of Korean. I took a bus and drove out to spend the day with my language partner. Rather than a language exchange it turned into a cultural exchange where she introduced me to Korean culture and we spoke English. She was very friendly and tried speaking Korean to me a lot but I just wasn't able to talk or even understand her Korean consistently. I could understand my teachers because they had a lot of experience speaking really basic Korean and she tried but it just made me feel bad about my Korean level. Her English sounded quite basic because she couldn't output too well but she could understand me so we had a good time. Actually, we used Japanese some of the time too. We were both conversational in Japanese but her English was good enough that we didn't need to use Japanese.

I ended up getting Corona form the trip. I noticed during my layover in Los Angeles that my throat was getting odd and bought some cough drops. I got home, hoped it wasn't Covid and since I didn't have a fever I thought it probably wasn't but I was too sick to work Monday and Tuesday so I got tested and it was Covid after all. I missed a week of work due to Covid but more than that I stopped studying Korean. I really just couldn't focus on it and watched English Netflix and read (actually listened to) English fantasy novels instead. I'm just starting to get back into studying Korean again this week and the three week hiatus was more damaging than I thought it would be. When I was in Korea, Korean really just stuck in my head more easily and I was motivated to study. It felt like I lost the progress I had made due to the three weeks off but at least I'm back into it again now.

I am currently reading a light novel translated from Japanese into Korean from the Google Play books store. My LingQ subscription has run out and I won't be renewing it. Google Play Books has Google Translate built into it and frankly that's what most of the "dictionary" translations in LingQ is anyway. It's a little inconvenient to copy and paste from the app into Naver or my flash cards app but you can do it by highlighting to search for a term and when it comes up in the search box you can then copy and paste the text. I also got an app from the appstore called Easy Korean News. It's surprisingly good. It is probably just like setting Google News to Korean but it searches and finds the latest news online for you and it has a nice built in dictionary that's better than LingQ I think and Google Translate too. The past few days I've been in the zone so to speak and reading quite a bit while making way too many flash cards. I don't mind making too many flash cards. I've done this in the past and it just means I'm really focused on reading. If the reviews pile up too much I'll just delete the deck and start over. If I were disciplined about only adding 5 to 10 words/phrases/sentences per day so as to never have too many reviews I don't think this would necessarily be better anyway as it's the immersion that is really important.

I'd really like to speak to my language partner from Seoul in Korean. I don't know how far away I am if I work hard but hopefully I'll stay on track so it will be as soon as possible. I signed up to take classes with the tutor I was using on iTalki for grammar and I tried a conversation teacher as well - the first lesson went ok. I don't know if I will be able to keep up the conversation lessons or not with my Korean level I might run out of things to say. I'm hoping not. (since she's an iTalki tutor even if she's not a real teacher she's easier to talk to than my language partner in Korean)
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golyplot
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Re: More Korean than Japanese in 2022

Postby golyplot » Sun Dec 04, 2022 7:04 am

I don't have much to say, but it's really interesting to read about people's experiences traveling and studying abroad.
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kraemder
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Re: More Korean than Japanese in 2022

Postby kraemder » Sun Dec 04, 2022 4:01 pm

golyplot wrote:I don't have much to say, but it's really interesting to read about people's experiences traveling and studying abroad.



I might write some more about it. I think it’s interesting too. But it’s also time consuming to write it out in detail.
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kraemder
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Re: More Korean than Japanese in 2022

Postby kraemder » Sun Dec 04, 2022 7:43 pm

I got about 1/3 of the way through my light novel translated into Korean from Japanese before I finally decided I wanted to read the Japanese too. I got the book on the Kindle store last night and I'm reading it now. I am still getting caught up to where I am in the Korean version. I think I was doing ok with the novel but there were some parts I just didn't get even with all the dictionary lookups and Google translate. I don't know every word of the Japanese version but it's so much easier to read. And I'm brushing up my Japanese at the same time. This could be a good thing. I'll have to monitor how it goes. If it works out well it could make reading better. There are two more books in this series. I could look for other light novels translated into Korean too.
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kraemder
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Re: More Korean than Japanese in 2022

Postby kraemder » Sat Feb 04, 2023 6:17 pm

Well time is flying and I don't update here enough. I've been pretty consistent with my studies with a brief World of Warcraft break for a couple weeks. I joined Go Billy's discord and it has a room for posting stuff like this but it doesn't get as much traffic and I haven't had a single reply to any of my posts there so I don't know if i will continue posting. I like his YouTube channel though. Just like I enjoy howtostudykorean.com because it's written by a native English speaker who went through what I am going through. TTMIK podcasts are great but it's not the same. They relate to their learners by thinking back to their experience learning English but they learned English growing up in school and it's just not the same as an adult learning from scratch.

I got a lifetime membership to LingQ for Korean. Too bad I didn't get that years ago. It comes out to roughly a 2 year subscription in cost and I've paid that and a bit more already. I don't think I'm even using LingQ to its fullest. I think you can import videos maybe and not just texts. I'm going to look into that. I'm currently using it to read Japanese light novels translated into Korean. Whatever I can find on the Google Play store. This is basically my resource for native material. Google Play is very easy to use, familiar, and doesn't have any weird fees or surprises. I have a tool to remove the DRM also which helps. The series is called Goblin Survivor. It's about a Japanese dude who got reincarnated as a goblin in an RPG game. I think the premis is a little clever twist on the reborn in a video game / fantasy world genre and the language is really stupid low level and simple. He unfortunately ends half of his sentences with Gob! though which actually might carry over to my Korean. Also, he has a crush on this blind human girl with big boobs. During the first book he can't speak human language and just calls her "Boobs" since he doesn't know her name and then later keeps calling her that half the time after he learns how to speak human. I think she's a terribly weak character and the series was much more interesting before he learned human and started talking to her. I took a break after finishing the first book but I'm back at it again. Even though the 2nd book is now more boring thanks to the introduction of this terribly weak character interaction the language level is super low. It's by far the easiest Korean actually written for natives I've found to date. And I've found that any material written for language learners is way worse than the worst material written for natives. I have some graded readers from the Amazon store and I hate them. Part of me says I should read them anyway but I hate them so much. They are so politically correct and dry and dull and the authors didn't even discipline them selves and include only basic vocabulary. They mix in a few very uncommon words which totally defeats the purpose. Granted, not as many uncommon words as native material but combine that with the terribly boring plots and topics and I can't find the energy to make myself read.

It really blows my mind how boring the material written for learners is. There is no exception to this rule ever. When writing the stories they prioritize practicality over fun and they're probably not really talented writers to begin with. I know I'm ranting but it's really frustrating.


I have a couple other light novels I found translated from Japanese to Korean. They're easier to read than the native Korean book I found. I probably should keep looking. I also have a pile of childrens books given to me but I have a hard time getting interested in childrens stories. They were given to me by a Korean mom who is practicing her English by reading English childrens novels with her kids. I think these books are more fun when you read them with children. But they seem ok. The biggest reason I haven't been reading them is that it's a pain to lookup words written in a book as compared to an e-book on LingQ.

I'm still tweaking my SRS flash card routine. You'd think by this time I'd have figured out what works best for me but no. I don't think I ever will figure it out. The default setting for Anki currently (I think?) is 10m which means it will show a failed card again 10 minutes later and then the next day after you get it right. I think the default may have been 2m 10m years and years ago although maybe not I might have done that myself. Back in the day when I was trying my best to learn Japanese and kanji I had this idea that I needed to decrease the intervals down to where I couldn't get them wrong even if I were very tired from lots of studying or whatever and then increase the intervals from there. This led me to an interval of about 20 seconds to start and then 5m and then 15 minutes or something and then the next day. I experimented with removing the extra reps throughout that same day and maybe even just the 20/30 seconds and then moving onto the next day. To me, 10 minutes just seemed to long by far for focused studying new material. Ok for reviewing old material that you may be rusty on but not new material. Well, I've changed my mind on that. Reducing the initial interval to force yourself to never miss it no matter what actually is really exhausting on your short term memory. The 10 minute (actually I'm doing 15 minutes now) interval is much more relaxing. It does mean that you probably won't finish all your reps in one session and will have to come back to Anki later throughout the day to finish up but I'm enjoying Anki so much more as a result.

But I still don't like sentence cards. I seem to like them for a few days but then as they add up and if I'm having an off day they just get exhausting. I think this is in part because when I sentence mine I invariably will grab some longer sentences that aren't truly bite size flash card worthy but that's just how they're written so what can I do. I'm trying a new compromise to this. I can't remember if I tried this once in the past or not but I'm essentially doing two decks for mining. One deck is just straight vocabulary with NO sentences anywhere and the other deck is that same material but all sentences (I use google translate to translate the sentence on the back). The idea is that I can do the sentence deck just once a week on the weekend or whatever and as long as I do it once a week then it's all good. The vocabulary deck is my daily grind. I'm just trying this out so even writing about it here is a bit premature. If I ever did do this previously I think I decided the sentence deck was too hard after all and gave up. I am pretty sure I tried mixing the vocab and sentences into one deck before and I know that didn't work for me.

Here's a link to Lamont's latest YouTube video on him doing Anki. He's one of my favorite YouTubers, a language learner I respect, and he wants to like Anki but struggles to do so a lot like me.

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kraemder
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Re: More Korean than Japanese in 2022

Postby kraemder » Thu Feb 09, 2023 4:17 am

I just tried out a new tutor on iTalki. I feel a little guilty about leaving me other tutor but I may take more lessons with her later if she's still teaching. I sent an email to iTalki complaining that the tutors always switched to English and I needed a teacher who would push me to speak Korean and who would also only use Korean with me. I wanted the ability to filter my search for teachers not just for the languages they speak but the languages they don't speak. Obviously no English was what I was after but even more than that I wanted no other foreign languages period. The response was typical - sorry we don't offer that. The support person did recommend 3 tutors however. 2 of whom also spoke Chinese however and looking at their bio they it was in Chinese and they were clearly targeting Chinese students. They did not give vibes that they wanted to teach Korean in Korean to a beginner or low intermediate student.

One tutor did though. At $28 it's more than I usually spend per lesson - I usually spend $8 to $18. But she only speaks Korean although her bio is in English and Korean. And she states that she uses Korean to teach Korean and only uses English when absolutely necessary. I signed up. $28.00 is higher than a lot of the competition but it's not too bad either. You may or may not know what I'm complaining about when I say all my teachers just speak English but the struggle is real. My spoken Korean sucks. I get that. But it's not THAT bad. When I was in Korea at a language school the teachers there spoke all Korean to me and it was no problem. Granted, I couldn't speak Korean to ANYONE else at all but for people who had lots of experience it was quite doable.

Well this tutor was just like the teachers at the language school. She was very comfortable speaking Korean to a foreigner who has some Korean knowledge but is very obviously learning and not fluent. She did have me do some sort of a placement test which appeared to be on a website somewhere. She didn't send me a link but rather shared her screen and I just told her the numbers for each answer. Aside from saying 4 when I meant 3 a lot (and I mean a lot), I did really well and only got one wrong. I am not sure but I think it was the one I told her to go back immediately after she answered it but she explained with false sympathy that there was no back button.

She showed me a PDF of the textbook she wants to use. She also has a copy of the Korean Context in Use series book too but felt it's not a good textbook to use for class. I agree I think it's meant to be a supplement book. We could use it however but it's not my first choice. She prepared a lesson for me using ㄹ테니까 which I have seen before but have been meaning to review so worked out well. The lesson was overall pretty easy but it blows my mind how big the gap is between my passive Korean and my ability to speak. For sure I focus on input when I study but I did that for all my languages and I don't recall the gap ever being this big. At this rate I could totally see myself being one of those people who pass a high level proficiency test with no speaking component and lo and behold... I can't speak! For sure my ability to output Japanese lags behind my ability to understand it but the gap is really not too big. Actually the gap was almost non existent when I was in Japan I think and I was trying to speak it every day. I literally could understand words that I could say and couldn't understand words unless they were part of my active vocabulary. Or recognize them in books. Flash card passive understanding was a bit ahead of the rest of my skills but it's not a real skill so I don't count it.

My passive understanding while much better than my speaking is still not good enough for proper immersion yet so I'm hoping once it gets better I'll start seeing my active ability play catch up. Or maybe doing more iTalki lessons will also help jump start it. I'm pretty happy with this tutor and plan to continue lessons. I'm glad she can't speak English well. I think if she could she would want to speak English with me.

I'm not sure how much this will affect my studies but I saw a YouTuber recommending audio vocabulary cards for Chinese and figured I'd give it a shot with my Korean. I have tried these in the past and stuck with it more than sentence cards but ultimately went back to having text and audio on side one to make it as easy as possible for myself since Korean is hard etc. I also figured if my Korean leveled up I could change the format - hence I keep trying to mix it up. The audio vocab flash cards seem pretty good so far. I wonder if I should have used these for Japanese back in the day. It may have helped my passive listening ability when I was beginner/low intermediate. I was obsessed with learning to read so it was always kanji on side one. Maybe not a bad thing ultimately I got pretty good at reading kanji.
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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
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Re: More Korean than Japanese in 2022

Postby Picaboo » Thu Feb 09, 2023 5:25 pm

I've enjoyed reading your blog. I've given up on Anki for the time being. I simply don't enjoy it. That said, which audio deck are you using?

I agree learner materials are pretty boring, especially because I go over them a few times.

If you want actual YouTube classes following a curriculum in all Korean, these two are good:
https://www.youtube.com/@Korean_DreamSower/playlists
https://www.youtube.com/@study2734/playlists
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