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

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

Postby daveprine » Fri Apr 22, 2022 6:49 pm

rdearman wrote:
I thought I would do a little round up of the trip if anyone is planning to visit, but doesn't speak Korean. Pimsleur is your friend if you want to get to a basic level quick. Learn some stock phrases from a phrase book like the lonely planet one. Learn numbers (both sets). Learn the infinitive form of some common verbs, and most people can figure it out. e.g. to buy, to sell, to eat, to go, to take, to give, etc. That should do you just fine. It helps A LOT to learn the Hangul alphabet and the pronunciation of the letters.


How far did you get with Pimsleur Korean? I've got access to Levels I-III (90 lessons in total) but I probably won't get to use them all before my anticipated travel date. I'm curious how far you got and how useful it was the further you went. As much as I love Pimsleur, I've only just recently started making it to Level II of any of their courses. Even a full 30-course Level I set will have some diminishing returns (this is natural, of course). But I recently made it to Hindi Level II. A good portion of Level I stalled with lengthy discussions of how many rupees I owe someone (or someone owes me) combined with numbers between 20-100 at random. Level II uses different speakers so all the words are pronounced a little differently, so that was a bit jarring. Other Pimsleur courses take different directions after the initial lessons, so they all vary greatly.

Anyway, just curious how much you did and how well it worked. Asking for a friend. A friend who will probably just learn 10 words and use those ad nauseam....
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Re: Rdearman 2016-22 원숭이도 나무에서 떨어질 때가 있다 (Sometimes even monkeys fall from trees)

Postby rdearman » Sat Apr 23, 2022 1:29 am

I only did the first two CDs from the library so set number I.
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Re: Rdearman 2016-22 원숭이도 나무에서 떨어질 때가 있다 (Sometimes even monkeys fall from trees)

Postby rdearman » Sun Apr 24, 2022 8:26 pm

I've managed to get back safety to the UK and had a good night's sleep. Today I unpacked the case and thought I'd get out the couple of books I bought and discovered I'd actually bought a dozen books in Korean!

korean_books1.png


Most of these are fairly substantial books which add up to about 3300 pages or 66% of a super challenge... humm.....

Just to expand on the Pimsleur answer, I didn't really use much. I had access to all the CD's but only really used the first set, e.g. the level I course. I was pretty selective and put the MP3 in to workaudiobook program and drilled the crap out of some sentences until I could say them perfectly. The shining example of that was "Do you speak English" which I had down 110% before I got on the plane. There are a couple of other sentences which I could usefully have drilled into the brain. You'll probably want different sentences from me.
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Re: Rdearman 2016-22 원숭이도 나무에서 떨어질 때가 있다 (Sometimes even monkeys fall from trees)

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Mon Apr 25, 2022 3:44 pm

You just inspired me to learn Korean. One day. As it happens, I watched the film Minari the other day. I also have a copy of Elementary Korean (King & Yeon). One day...
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Re: Rdearman 2016-22 원숭이도 나무에서 떨어질 때가 있다 (Sometimes even monkeys fall from trees)

Postby Cerebral_Arbitrage » Mon Apr 25, 2022 4:04 pm

Rdearman, just wanted to say that I've loved reading about your Korean adventures!
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Re: Rdearman 2016-22 원숭이도 나무에서 떨어질 때가 있다 (Sometimes even monkeys fall from trees)

Postby rdearman » Wed Apr 27, 2022 1:51 pm

I don't really know what to do with myself now. I am a little sick of languages at the moment, and I'm not really too keen on continuing. However, I'm probably going to have a lot of time on my hands soon. Like most people I like the idea of speaking many languages, but unlike many of the people here I don't like the hard work that goes into it. I have seriously considered taking s_allards advice and just quit.
I will repeat myself here, if you find learning a language or learning languages boring, do something else.

The issue here for me is of course the sunk cost fallacy. Which although I realise it is a fallacy and faulty thinking, I still have it. I know that if I stop then I'll lose it. Having said that, however, sunk costs have already been incurred and no longer have any relevance to a decision, since the cost will remain the same, irrespective of the outcome of that decision. Conversely, a relevant cost only relates to a decision, since the cost will change in the future as a result of that decision. For example, a company wants to close one of its subsidiaries. A relevant cost associated with this decision is the severance pay that will be incurred if the subsidiary is closed, since the cost would not be incurred if the entity were to remain in operation. So the loss of the language ability isn't actually a sunken cost, but a relevant cost. It would only be a sunk cost if the language ability didn't deteriorate.

I've also been thinking about Korean and if I want to continue. Changes are very slim that I can afford another trip to Korea, and the chances of using it here where I live are slim and none. I also cannot afford to carry on with personal tuition in Korean. Korean isn't spoken much outside of Korea. So unlike Spanish, Portuguese or English, the demographic is limited.

I decided to be a bit more rigorous in my decision-making. So I listed out the decisions:
  • Stop all language learning. {FR, IT, KO, ZH}
  • Stop some languages.
  • Focus on a single language.
  • Do nothing, change nothing.

I listed the criterial against which I would judge the decisions, and I would put a monetary value against each criterial between a cost of £5 (-5) or a gain of £5.
  • Time gained for reinvestment.
  • Relevant language cost.
  • Relevant language gain.

The result was a table which I can't show here, but the amounts for each were:
  • Stop all language learning. -(£5)
  • Stop some languages. £3
  • Focus on a single language. £3
  • Do nothing, change nothing. £0

Arbitrarily assigning a value to things just lets me quantify something that is unquantifiable. This just told me that I'd be loosing money to quit everything and that dropping some, or focusing only on one have the same pay-off, and staying as I am is break-even. So this tells me I should probably drop some or all but one language. But which ones? Again, I decided to put money against each language and score them. +/- £0-5
  • Enjoyment
  • Usefulness
  • Difficulty
  • Resources
  • Cost
  • Opportunity for use
  • Cultural Interest
  • Time commitment
  • Current baseline

The results:
  • IT= £36
  • KO = £18
  • FR = £16
  • ZH = £14

Admittedly, these are just made up numbers based on my feelings at the time. But French didn't score well because it got negatives in enjoyment, and cultural interest. Korean got a low score based mostly on difficulty and opportunity for use, as well as my current baseline. The relevant cost for Korean and Chinese was a factor also, mainly because in French and Italian it would take longer for them to degrade since they are more firmly fixed in my mind.

These are decisions on what to study, not use, but I'm not going to actively study French. That is an easy decision to make. But what and how to study the others are still yet to be determined. So I need to go away and make more decisions about studying and take into account other factors for each language.
  • What am I trying to achieve with the study of the language? Conversation, watching films, reading, etc.?
  • What level am I trying to achieve?
  • What is the time commitment?
  • Based on my goals what methods should I use? e.g. if I only want to talk, how do I do that?
  • If I park this language, how much knowledge deterioration should I expect? Can it be avoided?

So now that I have written this long ass post, I am considering deleting it. I still have not really come to a conclusion, other than I am not going to do any French, but we all knew that anyway, didn't we? Oh well, I'll leave this navel-gazing post in hopes someone might find it useful or interesting.
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Re: Rdearman 2016-22 원숭이도 나무에서 떨어질 때가 있다 (Sometimes even monkeys fall from trees)

Postby zenmonkey » Wed Apr 27, 2022 2:28 pm

Please don’t delete it. It’s nice to see your thoughts on the topic.

Given the gap in £s I’d suggest you only stick with Italian for a while, if you truly enjoy the language. Otherwise, take a pause for a month and see if it makes sense.
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Re: Rdearman 2016-22 원숭이도 나무에서 떨어질 때가 있다 (Sometimes even monkeys fall from trees)

Postby daveprine » Wed Apr 27, 2022 7:37 pm

I agree with Zen. Give it time. I think it's easy to have short-term burnout and mistake it for a life change.

And don't confuse the joys of learning a LANGUAGE with the joys of LEARNING a language. You are a perpetual learner, and languages is one of the things that you love to do, especially if you don't have to. (Setswana, anyone?) Take a break--you used a ton on your trip, and using a new language in situ can be exhausting, taxing, and even frustrating. You done real good. Reward yourself.

You'll be back to your old tricks soon. It's part of who you are.

Besides, if you give up languages, we'll exclude you from polyglot events, kick you off the forum, and talk about you behind your back. Why do you think I never give up language learning...?
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Re: Rdearman 2016-22 원숭이도 나무에서 떨어질 때가 있다 (Sometimes even monkeys fall from trees)

Postby rdearman » Thu Apr 28, 2022 1:45 pm

daveprine wrote:Besides, if you give up languages, we'll exclude you from polyglot events, kick you off the forum, and talk about you behind your back.

You probably shouldn't provide incentives if you don't want people to do things. :lol:
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Re: Rdearman 2016-22 원숭이도 나무에서 떨어질 때가 있다 (Sometimes even monkeys fall from trees)

Postby rdearman » Sat Apr 30, 2022 7:48 pm

I need to find a better way to learn languages. I don't mean a better way for humanity to learn languages, I mean just me. Furthermore, I need some customisation of learning that will keep me interested and on track. So I have been racking my brain trying to think of a way. But what I have actually thought is there simply isn't anyway that I am ever going to enjoy studying languages. Much like mowing my lawn, I don't enjoy the process, but I do like the smell of fresh cut grass and the nice even lawn. In order to get one, you have to do the other.

However, I want to put in the minimum amount of effort to get the greatest result. So I've spent a lot of time thinking about what that means to me. When I look at what I want to do with all the languages I've learned, or I am learning, it is conversations. I want to speak to other humans. Not interested in reading, or writing. Listening and speaking are what I need. Obviously, you need vocabulary to speak, and the quickest way to get that is reading and listening. I'm also not interested in being at a C1/2 or near native level, I just need to hold my own in most conversations about typical stuff.

I played around for a couple of hours with the study-time calculator thing. I realise it isn't accurate and is an indicator only. But here were some of the estimates I looked at.

Korean, 2 hours per day = 2 and bit years to get to B2
French, 2 hours per day = 9 months from B1/2 => C1
Italian, 2 hours per day = 6 months from B1/2 => C1

In theory, the best move for me would be to spend 6 months getting Italian to C1. But to what end? It isn't like this will magically change everyone in my neighbourhood to be Italian. Also, this is 2 hours out of every single day, and time is a precious commodity. There is also maintenance. If I want to park French and not lose what I spent time learning, then I need to maintain it.

I've basically settled on the idea of focusing on one language since as noted in my previous post that gives me the most bang for my buck. Since I don't want to lose what I've gained in Italian and French, the plan is to maintain them. I have more or less determined that I will do this:

  • 30 minutes of French, either listening or reading. Then one language exchange with my friend, which will give me 30 minutes of conversation each week.
  • 30 minutes of Italian, either listening or reading, plus working my way through the block of Italian books I have. Then one language exchange with my friend, which will give me 30 minutes of conversation each week.

Any work did previously with Mandarin, Setswana, or other languages will be lost to the wind. I'll have to just start from scratch again if I ever decide to pick those back up.

Having made those decisions, and having decided that I'll put in the 2 hours a day into Korean, I need to come up with this "better way" to learn. This I'm not really sure about. I've been thinking I would continue with my teacher, but stretch those lessons out to bi-weekly instead of twice a week. But how to study in the meanwhile? When I was in Korea, I bought two books for English learners in a second-hand store. (SOS7200, book 2 and 3) These books have sentences to sentence translations, and some simple dialogues. For example:

A: Which one do you want, this one or that one?
B: Either will be fine.
A: Are you sure?
B: I'm not picky.
A: Don't blame me if you really don't like it.

There are also numerous individual sentences. So I'm thinking this would be very useful for sentence mining. I have read a lot about sentence mining to learn Japanese. But I've never really tried it for language learning. I did find many of the stock phrases from Pimsleur useful while in Korea. I've also made some "Islands" before in French and Italian when I first started doing language exchanges, which always gave me a bit of breathing room when speaking. Not only that, but I like the way Leosmith used the Korean Pimsleur and I considered doing something along those lines, and also grabbing audio from the FSI / DLI tapes.

I have two Korean grammar books, basic and intermediate, with workbooks. So I don't think I'll lack for resources. I also already have 2 conversation partners lined-up for Korean. The real problem is going to be doing 2 hours of Korean and 1 hour of French & Italian every day.

This isn't a well formulated and thought out plan, so I would actually like your opinion. Anyone used sentence mining? I have no issue with using Anki for an hour or so every day. I like the Pimsleur workout that Leosmith did, and I have a dozen physical books in Korean and access to a bucket load of Korean dramas. What else should I be doing in the two hours a day between lessons?

Also, what about language maintenance? Anyone got any suggestions? Is my 30 minutes going to cut it? Should I be doing something else?

What about my decision? Should I actually ignore Korean and get a C1 in Italian? Should I be doing Italian and Korean?
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