And now Korean!

[Lawyer&Mom]

Yeah, it cracks me up to how bad the English speaking actors are... at acting. I think the directors can't speak English so don't realize?

I’ve read a lot about this and apparently the two groups of English speakers most present in Korea, US soldiers and English language teachers, are *not* legally allowed to work in Korea (other than their official jobs, obviously.) So that leaves tourists? I really appreciate shows that give these non-actors the absolute least amount of dialogue possible!

I recently watched The K2, which has scenes filmed on location in Spain. They used real Spanish actors and even though their scenes are short you can *totally* tell. (And then then have non-actors as American soldiers in the Iraq scenes, and well, at least it’s over quickly!)

I’m looking forward to doing things like language reactor and dual subs, but I just don’t have the vocab yet. Maybe when I finish the first thousand words deck. I’ve told myself I’m turning off subs after I know 2,000 words! (Gulp! We’ll see how that goes!)

[Picaboo]

Maybe when I finish the first thousand words deck. I’ve told myself I’m turning off subs after I know 2,000 words! (Gulp! We’ll see how that goes!)

I don't know how many words I can give a definition to when reading them, but it's definitely over 2000. My guess would be 4000. I'm not ready to turn off English subs, that's for sure. On a simple show like Business Proposal if I export the subtitle file I can understand (80%-90%?) of the sentences without looking anything up. But at the speed of talking, I just can't read and process that fast. And pausing gets boring fast. And my listening accuracy is far, far below my reading skill, especially for native materials. I watched Physical last night with only Korean subtitles and didn't pause and I missed stuff. And that show is the epitome of simplistic. You could follow it without language. I can't believe it said it was number 3 on Netflix Canada.

Hopefully, you will be more agile.

That's interesting about the actors. It makes some sense of it.

[golyplot]

It's not that effective though if you like the show. I miss things I know quite well when I'm reading in English and absorbed, although, now that I'm getting better at Korean it sometimes confuses me and brings me out of the show, because most of the sentences are backwards and the long ones get broken up so my brain processes a mismatch because it's actually two different things... until you see/hear the second half and the whole thought converges.

I've been watching lots of shows in Japanese with English subtitles. Mostly for entertainment, but it does help you learn a bit as well. For short sentences, you can just quickly read the subtitles as soon as they appear on screen and then listen to the dialogue in between. For longer sentences, you can't hope to do that, but you can at least recognize bits of what is said in between reading the subtitles.


Also, the lack of English speaking actors isn't just a problem in South Korea. I recently ran into a story arc in the anime Sword Art Online which features American gamers, and the "Americans"' English is so bad that a few lines are literally unintelligible, as in I couldn't even guess out what they were trying to say.

[Picaboo]

For short sentences, you can just quickly read the subtitles as soon as they appear on screen and then listen to the dialogue in between. For longer sentences, you can't hope to do that, but you can at least recognize bits of what is said in between reading the subtitles.

I definitely agree. There is also the fact it you are reinforcing the words you know when they pop out and you hear them so clearly. As you say, it seems good to glimpse at the English, build a bit of expectation and then listen. I just find once I get caught up in the story, my learning declines. I need to be somewhat effortful to make the most of it.

[Lawyer&Mom]

Maybe when I finish the first thousand words deck. I’ve told myself I’m turning off subs after I know 2,000 words! (Gulp! We’ll see how that goes!)

I don't know how many words I can give a definition to when reading them, but it's definitely over 2000. My guess would be 4000. I'm not ready to turn off English subs, that's for sure. On a simple show like Business Proposal if I export the subtitle file I can understand (80%-90%?) of the sentences without looking anything up. But at the speed of talking, I just can't read and process that fast. And pausing gets boring fast. And my listening accuracy is far, far below my reading skill, especially for native materials. I watched Physical last night with only Korean subtitles and didn't pause and I missed stuff. And that show is the epitome of simplistic. You could follow it without language. I can't believe it said it was number 3 on Netflix Canada.

Hopefully, you will be more agile.

That's interesting about the actors. It makes some sense of it.

Based on my experience with French, if you can more or less read the script it’s time to turn off subtitles all-together and just focus on listening. It’s rough sledding at first, but it quickly gets so much better. L2 subs are hard, even in “easy” languages like French, obviously we can read much, much faster in English! When I said I would turn off subs when I knew 2,000 words, I meant *all* subs, not just English subs. Whether or not I’ll be ready at 2,000 words is still up in the air, right now I really know about 200!

I understand the reluctance to turn off subs with KDrama. These are tightly plotted shows and you don’t want to miss anything. It’s easier to tolerate ambiguity with a procedural show. It doesn’t much matter if you miss the details of the crime of the week, the plot around the main cast moves very, very slowly. I watched all 15 seasons of ER dubbed in French and didn’t really care if I missed something. I don’t know if Korea has procedural shows like Law and Order or ER, but I know they have sitcoms. It’s easier when there are 100+ episodes and you just don’t care as much!

[Lawyer&Mom]

Finally put together a spreadsheet. I’ve watched just over 300 hours of KDrama in three months. This is insane. It took me *years* to watch this much French. Some thoughts:

1) Korea simply has a lot of good TV. Amazing production values. Great casts, clothes, soundtracks…
2) KDramas are tightly plotted and very, very bingeable.
3) Korea makes it very, very easy to consume its content. I’m looking at you here, France! You have a massive dedicated on-demand library, SALTO, but you don’t make it available to overseas viewers. Thank you KoCoWa!
4) I’m watching with English subs. I never did that with French, and therefore consuming French media was more cognitively taxing.
5) I’m a sucker for Romance, and Korea is here for me. I’m not just stuck watching murders in dark forests. Which, hey, I like murders in dark forests, the Ardennes are great, but I like romance more.
6) I’m clearly watching an insane amount of TV. But it is paying off. I’m understanding way more Korean than I did even a few weeks ago. If only I had more vocabulary. I can’t seem to add new words fast enough. Almost every day I hear the Anki words I just learned on one of my shows. When I learned French I started with thousands of words up my sleeve, it took a lot longer to encounter a newly discovered word in the wild.
7) This is insane, and I love it.

[Lawyer&Mom]

So after 300+ hours of watching the word “grape” was finally a relevant plot point in my latest drama, Backstreet Rookie. This was like the third Korean word I ever learned. This was right after “cucumber,” the second word I learned, made an important appearance in Romance is a Bonus Book. Thanks LingoDeer thematic word lists! I knew you would pay off eventually!

As easy and fun as it is to dunk on lists of household nouns, the alternative approach has its own downsides. I’m 500 words into my drama frequency Anki deck and I have like 12 different words for “first,” “all” and “again.” I’m sure they all have important shades of meaning, but it’s all so much mush in my head. The occasional concrete noun that does appear is a treasured gift. Thanks “sky”, “letter” and “ring!”

[Picaboo]

Lol, I had a similar experience. I remember TTMIK teaching the word for green onion in my first 500 words, and me thinking it wasn't really something I would see much and then it made an important appearance in Romance is a Bonus Book, as a 선물, no less. Although I think it might have been 대파 not 파.

[Lawyer&Mom]

Lol, I had a similar experience. I remember TTMIK teaching the word for green onion in my first 500 words, and me thinking it wasn't really something I would see much and then it made an important appearance in Romance is a Bonus Book, as a 선물, no less. Although I think it might have been 대파 not 파.

Green onion comes up all the time! I didn’t learn it on the LingoDeer food list, it was later when I started the Anki frequency deck. But it showed up in both Backstreet Rookie and Romance is a Bonus Book *and* my current drama When my Love Blooms, and probably a bunch of others as well. It’s the drama ramyeon garnish of choice!

[Lawyer&Mom]

I recently celebrated my 100th day with Korean. My daughter asked me, on a scale of 1 to 100, how much Korean I now know. I very generously gave myself a two… She then asked me how much I understand when I watch my Korean dramas. I told her I’m pretty good with the basic commands. “Sit!” “Stop!” “Speak!” “Eat!” “Get in!” “Go home!” I’m ready to be a puppy in Korea. I aspire to be a toddler someday, but honestly I would need to know way more colors, shapes and animals to reach even that low bar. The vocabulary is really the problem. I knew so much more French before I even started studying than I know Korean after putting in hundreds of hours. It’s not category V for nothing!