Rdearman 2016-24 You Can't Have Your Kate and Edith Too.

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Carmody
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Re: Rdearman 2016-22 원숭이도 나무에서 떨어질 때가 있다 (Sometimes even monkeys fall from trees)

Postby Carmody » Fri Jan 21, 2022 5:34 pm

Rick

My wife and I watch a Lot of K-dramas and love the language although we do not understand it.

Could you tell us what it means in Korean when people use a very "gutteral" slur to their words; it is as if to spit from deep in the throat. It sounds impressive but we don't know what it means..........
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Re: Rdearman 2016-21 [Presto e bene non marciano insieme]

Postby zenmonkey » Fri Jan 21, 2022 6:21 pm

daveprine wrote:
I'm also a firm believer in "multiple passes." I've been doing that with a number of resources: First pass: read through and absorb what makes sense and sinks in, and allow some things to just not make sense. Second pass: same thing, but more sinks in. This is really working well when I have multiple resources, and there's usually a lot of overlap (thus reinforcement) of many concepts and patterns. There are definitely many "AHA" moments on the 2nd or 3rd pass!

How's the grammar in your opinion of Korean overall? What's the hardest part of speaking for you?


I'm a firm believer of multipass too.


Seriously, agree that multiple passes reinforce and give you ways to understand things that you didn't get the first time.
ASSIMIL, FSi, etc have the concept of multiple overviews built-in. But even so, I'm slow enough, that doing [different beginner] material a few times works for me.

As to Korean - my niece loves it. For the Kpop, she's 12. And my youngest daughter was doing it for the dramas, but just informed me she's focusing on Russian for now.

Routledge - I've mixed experience - the Colloquial series books are a mixed bag. The conversations for Tibetan were not memorable or understandable for me - just very opaque and frustrating. However, the 'Grammar and Workbook' seem much more structured for my speed. Looking forward to attacking the Persian one when I'm ready.
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Re: Rdearman 2016-22 원숭이도 나무에서 떨어질 때가 있다 (Sometimes even monkeys fall from trees)

Postby rdearman » Fri Jan 21, 2022 11:50 pm

daveprine wrote:How's the grammar in your opinion of Korean overall? What's the hardest part of speaking for you?

This is my first SOV language and so far it isn't too bad. I think this is because my teacher is introducing grammar points little by little. Sometimes without an explanation, just saying to trust him, he'll tell me later. Although of course, on occasion, I hit one of these in the grammar book and think, ah... it is the object particle I'm doing.

I'm doing multiple passes of the grammar book. Most of it has gone over my head, but after a lesson I might think, "oh, I saw that before in the book" and go back to that chapter to reread it. This grammar book is very good actually, which is tremendous praise from me, because I hate grammar books with a passion.

Carmody wrote:Could you tell us what it means in Korean when people use a very "gutteral" slur to their words; it is as if to spit from deep in the throat. It sounds impressive but we don't know what it means..........

Yeah, I don't believe it has a meaning, it is more an emphasis marker, I can't really think of an English equivalent. I do know what you mean, although I mostly find it more annoying than impressive.

============
So a quick update. I've discovered that memory palaces are better than anki, in some ways. I do remember reading the SRS is only to memorise things you already know. But for vocabulary, I didn't really think that. But what I have found is that I did some words with memory palaces, and then put them in to anki. Others I put straight into anki, and I have to say the ones where I used a memory palace first have stuck more than the others. The others slip out of my mind like eels.

With that in mind, I have decided to put all my vocabulary in various memory palaces, and then review with anki as well. To that end, I need a lot more memory palaces! So I've decided to build a memory palace city. What I am doing now is sticking words into buildings where they would be naturally found. So all different words for meat (beef, chicken, pork) etc go in the butchers shop, all the stationary goes into the school (Pen, paper, pencil), animals are on the farm or in the park or zoo.

The first stage of this is actually building the buildings in my head and walking through the city. I start at the library, walk toward the police station, to the local market, then the school.... The next step is to go into each place and walk around. The library in my head is actually the British library, it is huge and lots of space to put things. The school is my old high-school, etc. Some places I don't have a ready-made place I can plop in, so I have to invent a building, or find some kind of virtual tour.

As I get words and sentences, I will populate the appropriate building. Then I can just have a little trip through the city and the buildings when I am out walking or driving somewhere. I don't need my phone, or a notebook or whatever. If I can't recall something, then I note it down and come back and make a better image.

When I did this before with the basic vocabulary my teacher gave me, it was easy to remember. And I knew it when anki prompted me. The issue I'm having at the moment is spelling in Korean. I need to start to "see" the words in Hangul not in the Roman alphabet. This will take a lot more practice. I don't immediately recognize the shape of the words. I've been doing a lot of what you'd call scriptorium to try and write everything down, so I get used to seeing the letters in Hangul and associate the sounds.

I don't think I'm going to be very good at this when I land in Korea. I don't really have time. I have less than 90 days now to learn Korean. :shock:

I can now construct some basic sentences, although it takes me forever, and people will get bored and wander off long before I finish the sentence. But I can do stuff like:
Where is the library (coffee shop, café, doctors, etc.)
Do you speak English?
My friend and I are learning Korean.
Where is the toilet?
One beer please. (or soju)

OK, back to wandering around my imaginary thematic city dictionary.
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Re: Rdearman 2016-22 원숭이도 나무에서 떨어질 때가 있다 (Sometimes even monkeys fall from trees)

Postby Carmody » Sat Jan 22, 2022 1:39 am

Many thanks for the answer.

The building of the memory palaces sounds fascinating; thanks.
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Re: Rdearman 2016-22 원숭이도 나무에서 떨어질 때가 있다 (Sometimes even monkeys fall from trees)

Postby Xenops » Sat Jan 22, 2022 2:44 am

rdearman wrote:
daveprine wrote:How's the grammar in your opinion of Korean overall? What's the hardest part of speaking for you?

This is my first SOV language and so far it isn't too bad.


:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Oooh just wait my friend, just wait. I'm finding the more I go down the Japanese rabbit hole, the more convoluted it becomes, and I hear Korean is worse. ;)
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Re: Rdearman 2016-22 원숭이도 나무에서 떨어질 때가 있다 (Sometimes even monkeys fall from trees)

Postby Beli Tsar » Sat Jan 22, 2022 6:26 am

rdearman wrote:So a quick update. I've discovered that memory palaces are better than anki, in some ways. I do remember reading the SRS is only to memorise things you already know. But for vocabulary, I didn't really think that. But what I have found is that I did some words with memory palaces, and then put them in to anki. Others I put straight into anki, and I have to say the ones where I used a memory palace first have stuck more than the others. The others slip out of my mind like eels.

With that in mind, I have decided to put all my vocabulary in various memory palaces, and then review with anki as well. To that end, I need a lot more memory palaces! So I've decided to build a memory palace city.

Will be fascinated to hear how this goes. What you are saying makes total sense - memory palaces do sound like by far the most powerful memory technique.

It just sounds like an awful lot of work to build a memory city, far more, potentially, than brute-forcing it with Anki/Goldlists/Iversen's lists/whatever!

Nonetheless I've been thinking I should experiment some day, and I'm glad someone else is doing it first! And it probably makes more sense with a really distant language like Korean, too, where vocab is harder.
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Re: Rdearman 2016-22 원숭이도 나무에서 떨어질 때가 있다 (Sometimes even monkeys fall from trees)

Postby rdearman » Sat Jan 22, 2022 8:47 pm

Beli Tsar wrote:Will be fascinated to hear how this goes. What you are saying makes total sense - memory palaces do sound like by far the most powerful memory technique.

It just sounds like an awful lot of work to build a memory city, far more, potentially, than brute-forcing it with Anki/Goldlists/Iversen's lists/whatever!

Nonetheless I've been thinking I should experiment some day, and I'm glad someone else is doing it first! And it probably makes more sense with a really distant language like Korean, too, where vocab is harder.


Well there are some shortcuts. I drew out as much of the city as I need right now, (32 places) by assigning all the vocabulary I have to a building, and building up the list of buildings I needed from that.

20220122_200959_1.jpg


I then assigned the building to buildings of the same type I have already been in and know well. My old school, etc. You'll notice a lot of embassy buildings, this is because I couldn't think of a single building to put all the country names, so I just gave them their own buildings, working on the theory that if I need to ever learn the Korean word for Eiffel Tower or Oxford Circus, etc. Then I have a place to stick them.

Because I need to know the Korean words for all these buildings, including the ones my teacher hasn't given me, I looked them up, and I'm spelling them all out. I'm using the method smallwhite taught me for Hanzi (Chinese) characters, where you have them in greyscale, so you can practice writing by overwriting the greyscale text.
screen_1.png

I do want to point out that I'm not doing this in isolation, I'm also putting all the words into Anki, and I'm reviewing my anki cards every day. It is a larger investment in time than just doing anki cards, but the advantage is I can walk through the mind palace anywhere anytime simply because even if my hands are full, I can still use my imagination.

I also sort of use wordlists, because most nights I sit down with a pencil and notebook (연필과 공책) and I walk through the memory palace and I try to WRITE the word for the image in Korean. This is really hard, but it is forcing me to get better at the sounds of the Korean alphabet. Because even if I know how to say it, doesn't mean I know how to spell it. (Before anyone begins to hate on me and tell me how easy and phonetic the Korean alphabet is, I will tell you the problem is with the learner, not the alphabet)

So it has been probably 2 days and I have the path through my imaginary city down, and I've probably learned about 50% of the names of the buildings. I'm now going into the buildings and putting in the words I already know, and any new ones. I have also pulled out about 50 phrases that I want to memorise before I go to Korea (I will not learn the spelling of these, just how to say them) and I'm putting them into their associated building.

e.g.
식당 (Cafe/Diner) - Please, can I have the bill?
성 (Castle, which represents all tourist attractions) - Would you take a photo of us?
기차역 (Train Station) - Two return tickets to Busan.
병원 (Hospital) - My (eye, ear, stomach, foot, etc) hurts.
옷가게 (Clothes shop, represents most shopping transactions) How much? What size? Do you have a bigger size?

In the school I plan for a room with the numbers on square cards around the walls and I'll sing out the numbers like I used to do way back in grade school.

So that is the plan, but I don't know if I'll cram all this into the small amount of time left before I fly. :o
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Re: Rdearman 2016-22 원숭이도 나무에서 떨어질 때가 있다 (Sometimes even monkeys fall from trees)

Postby Le Baron » Sat Jan 22, 2022 9:07 pm

Memory palaces are very good for nouns (verbs even), though perhaps not for abstract concepts and abstract nouns. Not that those are all that important right now. 90 days and counting! I used to use memory palace or 'routes' to remember stuff after I read an article about that British memory feat man Dominic O'Brien. Before that I was trying all kinds of 'systems', but they lacked the visual imagery element.
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Re: Rdearman 2016-22 원숭이도 나무에서 떨어질 때가 있다 (Sometimes even monkeys fall from trees)

Postby rdearman » Sat Jan 22, 2022 10:39 pm

Le Baron wrote:Memory palaces are very good for nouns (verbs even), though perhaps not for abstract concepts and abstract nouns. Not that those are all that important right now. 90 days and counting! I used to use memory palace or 'routes' to remember stuff after I read an article about that British memory feat man Dominic O'Brien. Before that I was trying all kinds of 'systems', but they lacked the visual imagery element.

Yes, I use the Dominic O'Brien method for remembering numbers. (like PI). I disagree about the abstract concept suggestion however. Let's look at a few:

  • Love - I imagine my wife. (anki can't make me feel a feeling, but my imagination can)
  • Democracy - I keep an image of people voting at a polling station
  • Freedom - I imagine someone bursting out of chains
  • Confidence - I see a smiling, confident person who gives me a wink and points a finger at me.
  • Friendship - I imagine one of my friends who hug me.
  • Happiness - imagine me opening a Christmas present when I was a kid.
  • Faith - I see my aunt kneeling and praying in church.
  • Anger - Think about how I feel when I get cut off in traffic.

I disagree because I think it is easier to picture abstract concepts based on actions, feelings and situations you can imagine. You can have a whole storyboard in your head to describe one word. "A picture paints a thousand words", as they say, even if the picture is only in your head. :)
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Re: Rdearman 2016-22 원숭이도 나무에서 떨어질 때가 있다 (Sometimes even monkeys fall from trees)

Postby stell » Sat Jan 22, 2022 11:43 pm

rdearman wrote:
Well there are some shortcuts. I drew out as much of the city as I need right now, (32 places) by assigning all the vocabulary I have to a building, and building up the list of buildings I needed from that.

20220122_200959_1.jpg


I then assigned the building to buildings of the same type I have already been in and know well. My old school, etc. You'll notice a lot of embassy buildings, this is because I couldn't think of a single building to put all the country names, so I just gave them their own buildings, working on the theory that if I need to ever learn the Korean word for Eiffel Tower or Oxford Circus, etc. Then I have a place to stick them.

This is so cool! Looking forward to seeing how it goes.
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