Post-Beginner Korean - 2020 366 Challenge

[AnneL]

WEEK2
Travelling a lot this week so can't update every day, but I'm at least doing 1h/day anki. I also do a minimum of 10 minutes active listening before bed time.

DAY 8
Anki 1h20
Active listening 10 min (radio)

DAY 9
Anki 1h20
Active listening 30 min (tv series sentence cards, radio)

DAY 10
Anki 30 min
Active listening 10 min (radio)

DAY 11
Anki 1h15
Active listening 10 min (radio)

DAY 12
Anki 1h30
Active listening 20 mins (YT)

DAY 13
Active Listening 3h (열두밤 drama)
Anki 3h

DAY 14
Anki 90min
Reading 20mins
Active Listening 20mins


WEEK 3
DAY 15
Anki 30 mins
Reading 10 mins

DAY 16
Anki 40min
Active Listening 20min

DAY 17
Anki 30min

DAY 18
Anki 30min
Reading 20min

DAY 19
Anki 40min (manga)
Active Listening/Reading 20 min (MasterTopik)

DAY 20
Anki 20min
Active Listening/Reading 60 min (MasterTopik)

DAY 21
Anki 35min
Active listening 20min

[AnneL]

366Challenge (Boring report!)

I've got to say I'm quite happy to do the challenge as it's definitely working to make me do at least a little bit of Anki and active listening even on days when I would normally just do my usual passive listening. But the reports are quite boring, and it's a pain to write down the times etc. I'm not even sure what is the best way to list the days after the end of January, to make sure I've not missed reporting one (so far it's easy, each day number is the same as the date)

WEEK 4
Day 22
Anki 35 min
Active listening 60min

Day 23
Anki 45 min
Active Listening 10min

Day 24
Anki 30 min
Active listening 2h

Day 25
Anki 20min
Active Listening 3h (Drama Lie To Me, recommended for easy dialog, but it was so classic yuk that I couldn't finish)
MasterTopik 20min

Day 26
Anki 1h30
Active Listening MasterTopik 45min


Day 27
Anki 50min

Day 28
Anki 30min
Active Listening (AL) 30min MasterTopik

WEEK 5

Day 29
Anki 140
AL 40

Day 30
Anki 80
AR 2h MT (MasterTopik Korean video class) + Drama

Day 31
Anki 100
AL 1h drama Lucky Romance + 30min Iyagi

Day 32
AL Iyagi 30min
Anki 2h15

Day 33
Anki 4h (catching up)
AL Random podcast
Reading 10min

Day 34
Anki 40min
TTMIK Grammar 20min (level 5)

Day 35
Anki 40min
AL 20min

Thank god I write down on my paper diary what I'm up to, it's far too boring to remember

WEEK 6
수 Day 36
AL Drama 2h
Subs Reading 10min

목 Day 37
AL 2h
AudioVoc 20min
MasterTopic 20min

금 Day 38
AL 2h
Anki 40min
AudioVoc (AV) 20min
MasterTopik (MT) 40min

토 Day 39
MT 1h
Anki 1h
AL 2h
AV 15min

일 Day 40
MT 3h
Anki 40min
AL 2h

월 Day 41
AL 4h 홀로
MT 1h

화 Day 42
AL 1h
MT 30min


WEEKS 7-8
수 Day 43
1 hour of extensive reading to start acquiring specialised words. Glad to see that after one year learning I still have no idea what the whole sentence means. Oh well maybe I'm distracted by the number of new words. Subject: Hair
AL 2h (random + Holo drama)

목 Day 44
1h ER (extensive reading) (Hello Counsellor)
1h AL Holo Love
1/2h kids' class on EBS

금 Day 45
2h AL drama
1/2h AL Kids EBS Math counting

토 Day 46
1h Sound study
Lectures about Mimic Method - I still have a question, how do you learn new vocabulary, with what material?
15min AL Iyagi

일 Day 47
1h AL Kids' education EBS
2h AL Drama
1/2h Sound
Still researching on ways to differentiate sounds, as I still can't distinguish all sounds. Not found anything that works yet.

월 Day 48 to 화 Day 56
AL 2h+ dramas, Kids's EBS or Naver Audioclips everyday: Terrius, Extraordinary You, both ok to follow with 3500 words (as usual, you can *follow*, not get everything!).
I tried Suits today and this is definitely not one to bother with yet for AL, the level is far too high.
During the past week, I have spent time checking my sound comprehension, and I'm still not getting all the sounds.
I stopped doing Anki for some time, while focussing on active listening, and trying to find ways to add to my vocabulary in other ways, but it has to be in audio form. Not very successful so far so I am coming back to the SRS slowly to catch up and add a few more new words every day. I catch a few new words here and there while watching, but between the batchim rules of pronunciation and the fact that I don't differentiate all the sounds, I can spend 10 mins trying to find how a word might be written and it's not very efficient.

WEEK
수 Day
목 Day
금 Day
토 Day
일 Day
월 Day
화 Day

[AnneL]

This past week (Week6) I needed to catch up on my all-in-korean grammar lessons with MasterTopik (you need to finish a full module to have 6 months more access in your subscription) so I prioritised this over Anki and other kinds of active listening.

With Anki at the moment I review the in-learning words first (I set the learned words set for reviewing to very few, and increase that number when I'm mostly done with the fresh words - a little mix is still important so I don't fail every single word I see), just to keep learning words enough that I have seen them and then I have more of a chance to recognise them in my immersion.
As I'm starting to understand enough of some of my input material, I want to be that input (easy dramas) to become my priority, and otherwise videos that deal with a specific subject so I can start learning keywords for various subjects. The Anki reviews will pile up of course but meanwhile, seeing I keep listening to the language, I think it gives time for words to settle or for me to see them in other settings. Sometimes when I go back to a word I'd not seen in a while (because I'd set aside a deck of sentences) the feel of that word becomes different because I realise I saw it in another setting a few days before, and that it's the same one, and I'd completely forgotten about that first instance. This process usually helps memorise the word then.

[AnneL]

I FAILED

WEEK 8 -> WEEK 12 Summary

So yes I failed. Not at studying the language every day. I did that, active listening, passive listening, bits of grammar here and there... but I had stopped Anki for the past few weeks because I wanted to explore other options to acquire vocabulary outside of SRS.

I have tried intensive reading, but as I am using native content that interests me, there are just too many words that I don't know (while I'm at around 4000 words I can recognise) so it ends up being just a session of vocabulary lookup, and I get bored with the subject before getting around to watching more than 10 minutes of video, because it's too vocabulary intensive. There are things I really want to read (a couple of novels) but it is too painfully slow. I have to add that I am using a method that roughly fits MIA (Massive Immersion Approach), so I am not willing to read a lot instead of listening.

I tried just listening more, but again, although I will catch many new words, they just don't stick for very long. And again there are tons of words I don't know, so even though my listening keeps improving, I'm not adding new words to my brain's vocabulary bank.

I have tried just looking at word lists, then reading a text with those in, then trying to learn the word list (with the ways I've seen mentioned in the forum), but it just feels like work.

So after a month I am going back to Anki. Slowly of course because I have a month's worth of backlog, but retention could be worse for words I already knew.


Things I still want to try:

1. I am still planning on trying to keep lists of words used in a video of a specific theme, and keep adding to the list for new videos on the same theme, and just listen to said videos several times, hoping I pick up the new vocabulary listed, with less rounds via Anki.

2. I have a few graded reader texts which I have avoided because it's hard to force myself to seat and study text I don't care about (but at least it's not a f* fairy tale - why do people think this is what I'd like to read as a language learner... because I know the story?).

3. Various classroom books where I pick chapters that seem to fit my current level, where I will get a few new vocab words here and there, but again these words will prob have to end up in Anki to be remembered...

4. Learning by Hanjas - like learning from latin/greek roots of the words in French/English. But it implies too much work for lazy me.


Anki in the end is where I have retention at my elementary level (= i.e. not enough vocabulary to reach 90% comprehension).
I do not see/hear the new words enough for them to just stick in my daily media binge.


If anyone has other ideas about things I could do to learn vocabulary a lazy way... right now the only way to ensure I know today 10 more words than yesterday, is Anki...

[Sayonaroo]

If anyone has other ideas about things I could do to learn vocabulary a lazy way... right now the only way to ensure I know today 10 more words than yesterday, is Anki...

you could use song lyrics since there's lots of songs with translations which will save you dictionary look-ups/interpretation plus the melody/repetition makes it easy to remember. some words/phrases repeat a lot in song lyrics too so you don't have to anki the words to remember it since it's highly likely that they're just going to repeat in another song

https://colorcodedlyrics.com/2016/02/zi ... naneun-neo
https://colorcodedlyrics.com/2017/08/wa ... -eneojetig
https://miraikyun.com/fiesta-izone-lyrics/
https://colorcodedlyrics.com/2016/03/mamamoo-urikkiri
https://colorcodedlyrics.com/2015/08/gi ... oddeon-ohu
https://colorcodedlyrics.com/2017/04/triple-h-365-fresh
https://colorcodedlyrics.com/2013/09/ma ... bajyeosseo
https://colorcodedlyrics.com/2015/09/ik ... ngjeogyeog
https://colorcodedlyrics.com/2017/06/9m ... r-gieoghae
https://colorcodedlyrics.com/2014/06/ao ... anbalmeoli
https://colorcodedlyrics.com/2013/04/la ... eu-dada-la

i think the only way for you to make intensive reading viable is to read a book that has an english translation available so you don't have to waste time looking up words (well sometimes you still need to due to the way they translate stuff). i recommend sticking to fun/intersting web articles until your vocab/grammar skills are stronger. i recommend pasting the article into papago to save yourself manual look-ups. also you might want to look into lingoes off-line pop-up dictionary. i wrote about it on my blog https://choronghi.wordpress.com/2019/01 ... mendation/

maybe look into instagram or twitter for fun/easy/interesting stuff to read.
https://twitter.com/lovetalkinhobi/stat ... 8356605953

i also recommend talk/variety shows or v-live (it comes with english subs and korean subs). i've also come across youtubers with korean subs and sometimes korean and english subs... one i can think of is jessica jung's youtube channel. having subs in both languages definitely saves you time from manually looking up stuff. it's definitely a lazy way to expose yourself to comprehensible input. even if you don't add the words to anki, the words will repeat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yt70In4a7dg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whUdyfNdV0A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3lYVsgCBhI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5Bp9hGiQSc <- 4 min mark

I can't comment on the hanja thing since i knew japanese before I started korean which makes sino-words extremely easy to remember/recognize since there are literally hanja reading conversion rules/patterns.

[ryanheise]

(thank god for copy paste)

Now you got me curious to find out who really invented copy and paste. Sadly, it turns out that the inventor, Larry Tesler, just passed away last month at the age of 74:

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/20/tech/larry-tesler-obituary-copy-paste-trnd/index.html

"One thing he never overcame -- his hatred of modes. He drove around California with the personalized license plate 'NOMODES'."

I'm actually a MODES fan myself, but big respect to the guy, and the company that also invented the mouse and the point and click user interface.

[AnneL]

I'm finally reaching the Monolingual transition as described on the MIA website.

The new Anki cards I am making will have basic English right down at the bottom of the page where you need to scroll to see it, and everything else is pictures, synonyms or definitions from krdict. It's only the 3rd time I've been trying to get going with monolingual but it was always too hard. Then I started reading last month among the things I've been doing to increase my vocabulary, and trying to understand full sentences from grammar decks, subtitles whatever. I did that for a a few days only, because this work happened at the time I burnt out with Anki for other reasons (speed reviewing the wrong kind of cards) - but even the little work I did then seemed to start something in my little brain because not long after that, I started being able to make sense of 30% maybe of the Korean dictionary definitions, and some others also if I translated a few unknown words in them. If the definitions are too hard I try and find a synonym, a picture, and so far I've not had one where I really needed the English translation because everything was too hard.

Now the good thing is once you reach that stage, Anki becomes part of a virtuous circle rather than an isolated tool: your time in Anki is reading time, so the more you Anki the more you improve your reading, and for someone like me who avoided reading for the first few years of my Korean journey (not advised to anyone who doesn't have extremely specific needs/requirements/curiosity - you are much better off reading early) this is a very soft transition.
A few days ago I even reached the flow with my reading. I could read most definitions, I could focus enough to read up missing vocabulary and make sense of things, but that was a one off and the next day it was hard to read again. This said, I painlessly ended up reading and recognising words with no conscious processing in the past few days (not necessarily making sense of the sentence), as if I'm reading English, and I still think it's amazing how much I can do fairly easily (even if at slower learning speed than people who sit down and work hard) just after spending a couple of years watching dramas with English subs (yes, EN) for most of it, and a bit of Anki obsession.
I can't really remember if I said this in a previous post but at the time 부부의 세계 was out (3 months ago?), was the time I started watching most of the dramas without subtitles, so only now am I using a technique that looks a lot more than MIA, and because I have enough vocabulary and listening capacity, my progress is quite good, even though with maybe now 4000 words I still have to pick and choose the right dramas to be able to follow without subs.

I have also been studying many patterns from http://www.koreanpatterns.com I'm sure there are a lot in common with the KGIU, but they are all there, 800 of them, with 3 or 5 example sentences each. Obviously now I'm switching to monolingual I am totally wishing there was a Korean only version for it, so any of you who see this and still feel they don't always get all the grammar from spoken language, have a look at it before you make the monolingual transition if you are planning to do that. The guy has spent a lot of time on it and has saved tons of my time, there are already things I learnt that I noticed immediately in my immersion, and not come across in the grammar books randomly. I think it's quite juicy info for the price.

All in all although I wish I improved quicker, for the amount of actual *work* (like, 0 hours, if it's boring I don't do it, inc Anki, whatever) I'm putting in I can't really complain. I'm a bit jealous of people who started reading much earlier, but then I also feel I may have a better grasp than others of the spoken language - although it seems you *need* to read and sit down and think, to start making sense of full sentences. Or spend another 3 years listening only, but even I am not ready to do that. Since that 1 week spurt of grammar deck reviewing, my understanding on the fly while listening has increased a bit (not just guessing things in between the vocabulary I understand), so I can't imagine how it would be if I actually dedicated some time every day to this (할자 말자? ).

The fact that I understand sentences more means that I have started being interested in books/texts without feeling the need to find a translation for everything (I was too lazy to check anyway even though I'd spent hours tracking down some novels that had both UK and KO text) so all in all I should feel in a good mood. I'll still skip stuff that's too ambiguous (damn you language that's more lazy than me about determinants) and hope that I'll understand them in a few months, because that's the way it's been so far, it just builds up slowly... maybe by the end of the year I will finally feel like my level has reached B1 for input. I do hope that reading keeps multiplying my progress though, because it would be nice to not be spending the next 3 years still only doing input because I don't understand 100% - if that kind of discussion isn't obvious you can refer again to the MIA Mass Immersion Approach website because it reflects a lot of my personal beliefs about language learning.

Anyway, I hope this is useful to someone - know that even starting from scratch it is possible to make semi-immersion work if you're not ready to put in hours of studying ultra boring language coursework. It may also take longer to show results than classic methods or MIA with 70% reading, but unless you're in a hurry it's not a major issue (but you can't show off, so it's a personal decision). Studying grammar if I need to is also a piece of cake in general thanks to immersion, but I think I'll just keep to the patterns for now.


Note: what I call semi-immersion is watching while trying to listen actively, using EN subtitles as comprehensible input, so you learn how things are pronounced and the sounds put together. Not really immersion but whatever.