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

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

Postby rdearman » Sun Dec 11, 2022 6:53 pm

Caromarlyse wrote:In re: getting rid of books you won't read, I had success selling German fiction via one of the UK's sell your old books online sites. I didn't get much, but they paid me to recycle stuff for me so I thought it was worthwhile. After the books had sat in a pile by my bed for two years, I figured I might as well accept I was never going to read them.

Luckily, I have an Italian and a French neighbour who read vicariously, so never a problem getting rid of books. The problem is that they feel obliged to return the favour! Hence, why I end up with bucket loads of them. But often a quick trip to the charity shop solves those problems. :)
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PeterMollenburg
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Re: Rdearman 2016-22 원숭이도 나무에서 떨어질 때가 있다 (Sometimes even monkeys fall from trees)

Postby PeterMollenburg » Sun Dec 11, 2022 8:43 pm

rdearman wrote:Yay, I went over 200,000 views of my log. To celebrate I am going to...

Take a nap. ;)


And then you're to wake to do your language drills for six hours straight, no breaks, no thinking of anything other than language learning! And you will wipe that smirk off your face (with a alcohol-free Italian or French wipe that you will Anki the vocabulary on the packet 6000 times beginning immediately). I expect native-like proficiency ten minutes into your drills. Any later, straight to prison!

Edited: typo
Last edited by PeterMollenburg on Mon Dec 12, 2022 9:35 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Rdearman 2016-22 원숭이도 나무에서 떨어질 때가 있다 (Sometimes even monkeys fall from trees)

Postby DaveAgain » Mon Dec 12, 2022 8:39 am

rdearman wrote:Martin Chuzzlewit (Audiobook) I listen too when I am doing something that allows me to listen to a book. I have to say that I'm not all that impressed with Dickens. Perhaps it is just me, but all this great literature leaves me cold. I know Dickens is trying to be funny in this book, but it isn't funny to me. Still I've managed to get through 6 chapters, so hopefully I'll get this one done by the end of the year. I don't hold out any hope it will get better.
I caught the France-themed episode of write around the world with Richard E Grant the other day. The Italian episode apparently featured a Dickens book, perhaps Italian setting would help?
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Re: Rdearman 2016-22 원숭이도 나무에서 떨어질 때가 있다 (Sometimes even monkeys fall from trees)

Postby rdearman » Wed Dec 14, 2022 12:07 pm

Man, this log is full of stuff! So a long while back, Zenmonkey had written something I wanted to find again. I tried Google search but couldn't come up with it, so I started reading about halfway through my log and went down a rabbit hole. Brought back some memories of past Polyglot Gatherings, and even made me stop and go watch one of my favourite presentations (in Italian). Dizionarietto dei gesti dell'italiano - Stefano Suigo. If you know even a little Italian it is well worth watching!



Then I was reminded of this LR challenge that I was doing with Italian, and a number of other crazy challenges I tried to improve my language skills. Also a lot of good advice from people (Brun Ugle) telling me to stop doing stupid challenges and actually study.

Way back in Feb of 2016 I wrote, "I wonder sometimes why I bother, since I never seem to follow through on anything I start todo." this appears to be an ongoing theme!

If anyone is doing that Esperanto challenge thing, I did a brief flirt with Esperanto and people put some good links into my log. I really should move these into the Esperanto page in the Master List of Resources. https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =60#p31258

I even looked back at some of my Super Challenge scores from way back in the day!

--- SC Statistics ---
French : 3.7 books : 13.6 films
Italian : 11.0 books : 8.4 films
Chinese: 0 books : 1.3 films
Esperanto: 0.1 books : 0.5 films

Anyway, enough memory lane crap, I need to go watch something in Korean for the current Super Challenge!
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Re: Rdearman 2016-22 원숭이도 나무에서 떨어질 때가 있다 (Sometimes even monkeys fall from trees)

Postby IronMike » Wed Dec 14, 2022 11:16 pm

rdearman wrote:
Caromarlyse wrote:In re: getting rid of books you won't read, I had success selling German fiction via one of the UK's sell your old books online sites. I didn't get much, but they paid me to recycle stuff for me so I thought it was worthwhile. After the books had sat in a pile by my bed for two years, I figured I might as well accept I was never going to read them.

Luckily, I have an Italian and a French neighbour who read vicariously, so never a problem getting rid of books. The problem is that they feel obliged to return the favour! Hence, why I end up with bucket loads of them. But often a quick trip to the charity shop solves those problems. :)

There's also the Swap Shop on this very forum...
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Re: Rdearman 2016-22 원숭이도 나무에서 떨어질 때가 있다 (Sometimes even monkeys fall from trees)

Postby rdearman » Wed Dec 14, 2022 11:20 pm

IronMike wrote:
rdearman wrote:
Caromarlyse wrote:In re: getting rid of books you won't read, I had success selling German fiction via one of the UK's sell your old books online sites. I didn't get much, but they paid me to recycle stuff for me so I thought it was worthwhile. After the books had sat in a pile by my bed for two years, I figured I might as well accept I was never going to read them.

Luckily, I have an Italian and a French neighbour who read vicariously, so never a problem getting rid of books. The problem is that they feel obliged to return the favour! Hence, why I end up with bucket loads of them. But often a quick trip to the charity shop solves those problems. :)

There's also the Swap Shop on this very forum...

Good point, well made.
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Re: Rdearman 2016-22 원숭이도 나무에서 떨어질 때가 있다 (Sometimes even monkeys fall from trees)

Postby rdearman » Sat Dec 17, 2022 8:17 pm

I have just completed the Teach Yourself Korean book. I haven't done all the exercises I have just read through the book as a first pass. I have to say, it is not a pleasant experience. This is because I have to teach myself from made up romanisation language, which is supposed to sound like Korean. Honestly! Just use the hangul !!!!

However, the exercises do look good, although about 50% of them can probably be discarded since they are in made up language, so pointless. I should be able to use a lot of the exercises which use English like: "Translate the sentence: I've lost my wallet, can you help me look for it."

I think it wouldn't have bothered me as much if they had just put the actual Korean in parentheses beside the made up language. I learned hangul, so this romanisation thing is a huge leap backward, and very confusing. Simply using both would have been good for complete beginners and people who know hangul.

The jury is still out on the book, because I think I can recover a lot of good exercises and some reading practice from the actual dialogues written in hangul.
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Re: Rdearman 2016-22 원숭이도 나무에서 떨어질 때가 있다 (Sometimes even monkeys fall from trees)

Postby Carmody » Sat Dec 17, 2022 9:14 pm

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

Postby rdearman » Sat Dec 17, 2022 10:01 pm

Carmody wrote:Fighting!!!

화이팅!

Strangely they are using the H sound, hwaiting. ㅎ sounds like H, but I always hear Fighting. :D
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Re: Rdearman 2016-22 원숭이도 나무에서 떨어질 때가 있다 (Sometimes even monkeys fall from trees)

Postby eido » Sun Dec 18, 2022 6:56 pm

There are two systems out there for the romanization of Hangul, of which I'm sure you're aware. They might've picked one you're unfamiliar with seeing and using, or they really may have invented one of their own for the "benefit" of Korean learners. Romanization, in my view, can have a few varying purposes. To native English-speaking ears, Korean-language words can sound quite foreign, so romanization anglicizes them for easier consumption and pronunciation. There's been a trend to move away from romanization in learning at its earliest stages, as the argument goes that it muddies the ability of the learner to pronounce correctly the sounds of any syllabary and/or foreign-scripted language.

I myself am on the fence about the real utility of such a system. "Invented" or "made-up" systems for digesting languages different than ours have always existed, albeit in different forms. (Koreans use to a degree sometimes a form of system that approximates our English alphabet, and that's how we get creative takes on our native words--loanwords, or other borrowings.) The IPA is a system just like that, "made-up" as any other. It claims objectivity, but for the layperson, can be just as clunky and unclear as even the strangest Americanized romanization gambit. If the underlying logic isn't as incisive and clutter-free as possible, the whole thing might crumble. And that means making a system user-friendly for all, which is a grand task not easily undertaken, as you might know from working in IT. Not every person will understand the system designer's intent in building a system, and not every system designer is sensitive to the needs of the users.

That's why I'm guessing (not remembering clearly all of your log posts) your main gripe is the ease of use of the text you chose to buy. It didn't take the human element into account and went straight for the "theoretical jugular", making something unnecessarily hard to understand. In my opinion, romanization is good if you're pairing it with beginning reading. It's been so long I can't remember myself if I used it to learn Hangul. Either way, I still sound non-native. I probably always will. I've been complimented on my pronunciation and prosody, but I know I've much work to do. Another concern of yours might be that you'll never develop the reading skills necessary to function in Korean, whatever goals you may have for yourself.

It's taken me many years to get up to a comfortable reading speed in Korean (with the alphabet not being Latin, or really just different) and I don't understand words so much as I can intuitively zip through them, sometimes without sub-vocalizing, sometimes with (which is to me, personally, a bonus in certain instances). You can read Korean anywhere, and in my experience, reading different types of romanization has only diversified my learning time as opposed to hindering it. I started reading Hangul off videos on YouTube, and once I caught the pattern, I was good to move on to longer passages.

My point here is: not reading full Korean in a textbook won't get you off to a bad start to the Korean marathon, even if you think you're above something that might prove a hurdle. Remember, if you're a track star, you're built for speed, but you must also keep in mind that time is relative and any gains you acquire in the race to the finish line can be stripped from you if you don't train well, or take care of your body (i.e. resting, eating healthily, providing for your mental wellbeing or stamina). It's all psychological, and "whether you think you can, or think you can't--you're right." :)

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