Re: Yuurei's Language Log (ZH, KO, FR, JA, ES) [Now with more LR]

[Christi]

Mmmm, I took a look at the Korean Huffingtonpost and kid's news. Especially Huffpost can sometimes have really fun and short articles on entertainment or lifestyle. There's no audio of course but it could function as nice reading material.

I also took a look at Yonsei's reading books, if you buy one let me know because I have been wondering if it's any good or not!

[AndyMeg]

I've also started to experiment with Viki's Learn Mode by watching a k-drama with dual subs while using the integrated pop-up dictionary and the replaying buttom for each line. You could also give that a try if you wish .

OMG thanks for that. You should mention it somewhere in the resources section. I'm not learning Korean, but it would help with Mandarin. Wicked cool!

Thanks for the suggestion! I was already thinking of doing that but I always forget in the end. I'll do it today

[jeff_lindqvist]

Well, it depends on what you do. There's ways to speed up just the tempo without raising the pitch and as long as you don't speed it up to much there's basically no perceptable distortion. I've done that before with early Assimil recordings, which have a tendency to be frustratingly slow and also recently with some of my Chinese readers and found it very helpful. But if you don't find it helpful that can't be helped I suppose.

I don't think there's a major change in pitch (the narrators don't sound like chipmunks), but there's something about the shorter breaks between word boundaries. It's a bit like using a speed reader tool which feeds you one. word. at. a. time. at. the. speed. of. light. That's not the way I read. (Nor do I think such a tool is a good way to increase reading speed since it still works on word level instead of sentence level.) Anyway, maybe just a slightly faster audio track and a slightly trickier text (in a weaker language, perhaps?) is the optimal solution for me.

[Yuurei]

Well, it's JLPT results day and I found out that I passed N2 with 160/180 points! \o/
I even got full points on the listening section - all that anime watching finally payed off.

Have you checked the Yonsei Korean Reading series? There are 6 books, and in each book, there are short articles/stories. Not as interesting as Chinese graded readers, but that's the closest thing I've seen for Korean.

Yep, unfortunately that does seem to be the closest thing. :/ I did in fact buy the first two volumes last year and read about 20 chapters of the first volume (each volume has 40 chapters) and was just about bored to tears. It's all rather textbook-y and boring unfortunately - like a textbook that uses prose lesson texts instead of dialogues. I had a brief look at volume 2 again this morning, but it didn't seem like it gets any more interesting. I suppose it's not unhelpful if you can get through it, but personally I just can't make myself work through that kind of boring text anymore. Still, thanks a lot for your input.

I've encountered the same difficulties in finding the right material for learning korean. I'm currently experimenting a lot to find enjoyable activities that don't take too much time or energy (but I don't know yet how effective they are or they'll be) so you could take a look at my korean language learning log in case it gives you some ideas . So far, I seem to enjoy a lot working with dual texts.

Heh, I have of course been following your log.

Also, as you know spanish, you could try going through an easy series of dual-text textbooks like "맞춤 스페인어권 한국어: Coreano para la Comunidad Coreana Hispanohablante" or this series for english speakers: "재외동포를위한 한국어 (영어권)". You can get both for free at the 누리-세종학당 website.

I did actually look at those briefly back when I first saw them mentioned (might have been on your old log?), but I'm not really into textbooks. I feel like I've already seen enough language textbooks for the rest of my life, and try to go about my language-learning in more enjoyable ways. From time to time I give textbooks a try, but I can nexer make myself stick to it.

Mmmm, I took a look at the Korean Huffingtonpost and kid's news. Especially Huffpost can sometimes have really fun and short articles on entertainment or lifestyle. There's no audio of course but it could function as nice reading material.

I also took a look at Yonsei's reading books, if you buy one let me know because I have been wondering if it's any good or not!

Hmm, I do like the English Huffington Post, so I guess I might like the Korean one as well. I fear that it's still above my level right now though.
As for the Yonsei books, I already wrote a bit about them above, but I uploaded some sample pages so you can form your own opinion. It's the texts of chapters 15 & 19 of volume 1 and chapter 9 of volume 2. The text never exceeds a single page, so each volume is essentially just 40 pages of reading text. There's also a vocab list (with the new words) and some excercises in each chapter.

However, there is some good news. Yesterday I ended up creating a readlang account and working through one of the TTMIK Iyagi transcripts there & listening to the audio a couple of times and that worked pretty well - plus the dialogue was enjoyable enough. I would have thought it'd still be too early for the Iyagis, but the grammar seemed fine and I knew enough vocab that working through it didn't feel like a slog and that I could actually follow the audio after having worked through the transcript. So this might just be a solution to my Korean conundrum.

[Brun Ugle]

Wow! Congratulations on passing the JLPT! It almost inspires me to get back to Japanese, but only almost. Maybe I need cookies.

[AndyMeg]

Congratulations on passing the JLPT!!!

[rdearman]

Congratulations. I've spoken to two people recently who've given up and didn't manage to pass, so you've done something impressive.

[Nandemonai]

Well, it's JLPT results day and I found out that I passed N2 with 160/180 points! \o/

That's a really nice score! Congratulations on passing. =)

I managed to find a second hand copy of the Yonsei Reading 1 book, but it seems like copies of 2-6 are really expensive over here in Japan. Gonna have to see if it's worth the money after I try the first one.

[Yuurei]

Thanks guys! ^^#

Wow! Congratulations on passing the JLPT! It almost inspires me to get back to Japanese, but only almost. Maybe I need cookies.

XD I thought you were going to to Japanese LR in summer? Or was I imagining that? The good news is, I heard someone may or may not have promised people cookies for that, so ...

That's a really nice score! Congratulations on passing. =)

I managed to find a second hand copy of the Yonsei Reading 1 book, but it seems like copies of 2-6 are really expensive over here in Japan. Gonna have to see if it's worth the money after I try the first one.

Thank you! Congrats to you as well for passing N1!

As for the Yonsei books being expensive in Japan - have you considered ordering directly from Korea? That's what I did and I imagine that the shipping costs from Korean to Japan would be quite a bit cheaper than they were to Europe.

[Nandemonai]

Thank you! Congrats to you as well for passing N1!

As for the Yonsei books being expensive in Japan - have you considered ordering directly from Korea? That's what I did and I imagine that the shipping costs from Korean to Japan would be quite a bit cheaper than they were to Europe.

Thanks =)

I'll have to look into that, haven't ordered anything from Korean sites ever since I left Seoul. Would have to figure out what my shipping options are. Thanks for the suggestion.