Korean for Fun

[Sizen]

KO1K 340/1000. Today was a more vocab heavy day. Some nice Sino-Korean words like 군대 and 소개 that I was able to guess the meaning of thanks to my Japanese. There were a number of sentences that combined previously learned verb forms, too. Basically, not just "please do this" or "can you do this?" but "Can you please do this?" which combines the auxiliary verb 주다 from yesterday with the potential construction ㄹ 수 있다.

Assimil 21 today. This is the third review lesson of the book, which in theory means three weeks of Assimil, but since I was restarting the book and not starting from zero knowledge, I combined a couple lessons a day early on in my review. But we'll say three weeks of Assimil for simplicity's sake! The grammar notes were fine and mostly things I've become comfortable with already, and the review "dialogue" was a mess of disjointed sentences again. Not the most productive review, but there were two sentences I liked for their utility or because I'd not seen the words combined like that before, so I added them to Anki.

I did have an interesting thought this morning while making breakfast. Korean has a formal/informal distinction for the dative particles 에게 and 한테, which Japanese doesn't really have. Except Japanese does distinguish between に and によって/により in levels of formality when used for passive constructions, so that's not entirely true. As I understand it, によって is actually a calque of the Dutch passive, at least as it was a few hundred years ago when the Dutch were in contact with the Japanese and Japanese scholars were translating western books from the Dutch language. It's a rare bit of grammatical influence from an Indo-European language on Japanese. But the use of によって is interesting because it's both formal and only typically prefers to mark inanimates. So a sentence like 智くんによって壊された is awkward and deemed as "wrong" or at least wrong-ish by Japanese speakers both because 智くん is animate and 壊された has a more informal feel. A more "correct" sentence would be 爆弾によって破壊された as 爆弾 is inanimate and the sentence is more formal in feel due to the verb being of Sino-Japanese origin.

[Sizen]

Mannn, I'm trying to be quick with my posts here so it doesn't take away too much from my studying, but I accidentally lost my post I'd written out, so now it's going to be even more condensed.

KO1K 350/1000. 보이다 is interesting cuz it's just like Japanese 見える. Both made from the verb to see, but with an additional bit that makes it passive. The thing being seen is also marked by the subject particle in both cases. 見える uses the very old passive auxiliary verb ゆ, which for some reason I guess became the irrealis or maybe adverbial form in modern Japanese, so not 見ゆる but 見える. Ra-hen verbs took on the rentaikei form in modern Japanese, so I don't know where this came from. I also don't know if the Korean verb uses an old passive form or if that's how passives are made in modern Korean because I haven't seen passives yet, but it's interesting. Talking about seeing verbs, 보다 is used just like 見る as an auxiliary verb to mean "to try to do X". Although in Korean the verb is conjugated to what looks like the informal present just like with 주다, but it must be some sort of connective form that looks the same.

Assimil 22 today. It was a real Korean children's song about 3 bears living in 1 house. One is fat, one is thin and the other is soooo cute. I get the feeling this week is going to focus on numbers and counters based on today's grammar discussion. I found it interesting that 마리 was used to count animals cuz it sounds like 머리, which means head, and Japanese uses head, 頭(とう), to count large animals as well. Turns out 마리 and 머리 are a yang-yin vowel pair, so they share a similar meaning but with opposing vowel sounds. Wiktionary gives 살 (sal, “age”) and 설 (seol, “Lunar New Year”) as other examples. I guess vowel harmony has some importance other than just conjugations!

[Sizen]

KO1K 360/1000. The order was a bit off here. Sentence 358 includes a word that's introduced later in sentence 490. It came up already in lesson 16 of Assimil, so no big deal. Just surprised by the error. The sentences were a bit easier today, but a grammar point (verb nominalization, e.g. 오다 ->오기 for 오기 전에) was introduced as a side note in a sentence introducing a new word. This feels like it kind of goes against the i+1 promise, but I suppose you can't fit everything into 1000 cards without squishing a few words and concepts together here and there.

A word from a previous day that had been bothering me came up again today: 결정. I was convinced the recording was saying 결쩡 the first time, but I chalked it up to my untrained ear. When it came up again today, though, I became convinced something was up. I looked it up and batchim ㄹ does in fact make the following consonant tense. I guess my ear is better than I thought. But I mean... I thought I knew all the batchim rules by now! I'm glad I'm focusing more on the audio than the text during my reviews, because it could have taken a very long time before I noticed this. I'd like to reiterate with my tinfoil hat on that hangeul isn't as phonetic as they want you to believe! I get why it isn’t, though. There's a lot of etymological and phonotactical reasons for silent letters and a spelling reform that required words to be written as they’re spoken would make for words being spelled all sorts of ways depending on the context, so the way it is now keeps words recognizable in all forms. It’s just a little funny to see how messy it is after being told countless times by pretty much every Korean language resource that hangeul is super easy and straightforward.

Assimil lesson 23. We're into numbers! Today's lesson was about age, which uses native Korean numbers. Of course there was a cultural note on Korean age where babies are born at 1 year old and turn 2 the following January 1st even if it's only a few days away. It was made clear last year, however, that the international age system is the official age system since it made for confusion especially around things like pension eligibility. This article explains the situation: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/6/28/why-are-south-koreans-one-year-younger-today.

I did wonder what my Korean age would be given that I'm born on January 1st. Would I have already been 2 years old when I was born!? Nope. I was 1 "like everyone else."

[lichtrausch]

A word from a previous day that had been bothering me came up again today: 결정. I was convinced the recording was saying 결쩡 the first time, but I chalked it up to my untrained ear. When it came up again today, though, I became convinced something was up. I looked it up and batchim ㄹ does in fact make the following consonant tense. I guess my ear is better than I thought. But I mean... I thought I knew all the batchim rules by now! I'm glad I'm focusing more on the audio than the text during my reviews, because it could have taken a very long time before I noticed this. I'd like to reiterate with my tinfoil hat on that hangeul isn't as phonetic as they want you to believe! I get why it isn’t, though. There's a lot of etymological and phonotactical reasons for silent letters and a spelling reform that required words to be written as they’re spoken would make for words being spelled all sorts of ways depending on the context, so the way it is now keeps words recognizable in all forms. It’s just a little funny to see how messy it is after being told countless times by pretty much every Korean language resource that hangeul is super easy and straightforward.

The real fun is getting used to the intricacies of saitsori.

[Sizen]

The real fun is getting used to the intricacies of saitsori.

lichtrausch, you beautiful, beautiful person. This is why I have this log. This finally explains card 60 in KO1K. I'd legitimately written off the audio thinking there was a mistake. 제 거 IS pronounced 제 꺼!!! There was just no explanation for why it was and the language was too new for me to be certain!

Looks like I need to pay a bit more attention though, because 문법 already came up and I didn't notice it should be 문뻡.

[Sizen]

KO1K 370/1000. FSRS turned on makes this process a little more nerve-racking than I’m used to. A lot of the new sentences don’t feel as front-of-mind as they used to because I’m not seeing them 4-5 times in the first week, just 2 or so times. I end up having to re-listen to some of the sentences I recently learned multiple times until I can hear them clearly again. I’m trying to remind myself of three things. One, I had to do this with sentences that felt impossible to follow a few weeks ago. Two, the point is not to know everything perfectly by heart, but to familiarize myself with the language. Three, it’s okay to not remember everything. Especially with FSRS, the point is that you should only be hitting your target retention and forgetting the small percentage outside that number is just part of the process. My perfectionism hates not seeing 100%, but my brain knows that the time put into getting that extra 10% is just diminishing returns.

I was happy to notice and later confirm that 열심 is actually pronounced 열씸 today. I don’t know if this is saitsori or the ㄹ causing the following letter to be tense, but I suppose it doesn’t really matter as long as I can hear the difference.

Assimil lesson 24 today. This one was actually pretty good as far as very basic lessons are concerned. The focus was telling time, but it was made into a relatively “fun” conversation because the one character has plans that he “까먹었어요.” The other character is then confused and surprised that he “ate” his plans.

I’m going to have to drill the numbers again at some point, because while I know them in theory, it takes me a while to convert them into something meaningful when I hear them. Especially since time is counted in both native Korean and Sino-Korean numbers depending on if it’s hours or minutes.

[Sizen]

KO1K 380/1000. Lots of new verbs and verb forms. -ㄹ 때 came up for the first time in a sentence with a new word. I suppose it’s partly assumed that we should know ㄹ marks the future by now and 때 was introduced the other day so it’s not so bad. It does feel like the sentences are sometimes more than i+1 though.

-지 말다 for negative imperatives was introduced as well. A lot of today’s words were introduced as regular imperatives, so it feels like they planned for today to be a sort of review of the imperative.

동안 was also introduced for concurrent actions.

I feel like all these concepts are being introduced very close to one another and that I should maybe do some drills in 50 règles essentielles – coréen that I bought years ago in a store in Quebec City. More and more words that I’ve learned from Assimil are showing up in the deck, so that sort of balances out the number of new things being introduced at once.

Assimil 25 today. 1/4 of the way there! This lesson kicked my butt. If I didn’t already know a lot of the vocabulary, I might have taken a second day to review the lesson. In the end, I did have to take a small break to let my brain process it. When I came back to it, it all made a lot more sense.

The phrase 얼마 안 남았어요 was introduced and there isn’t really a direct equivalent in Japanese that follows the same pattern, at least not in the sense that it was brought up for “that’s coming up soon,” so my brain struggled to really “feel” the meaning until I took a break.

겠 was also introduced, as in 아직 잘 모르겠어요. This will probably give me a little trouble. I looked up an explanation in Japanese for it, and I liked the explanation that it “softens” the expression it’s used in. It seems to be used as a formality amplifier as well, but I’ll wait to cross that bridge.

ㄹ까요 was also introduced and between ㄹ 거예요, ㄹ게요 and now ㄹ까요, I feel like there’s lots of room for confusion. I’m hoping for more example sentences in the lessons to come, but I might also try to find some exercises to help settle them in my mind.

Also 6월 16일 being yuweol simnyugil is going to take some getting used to. I did find some Korean number decks with audio for Anki, so hopefully that’ll help.

[kundalini]

Assimil 22 today. It was a real Korean children's song about 3 bears living in 1 house. One is fat, one is thin and the other is soooo cute. I get the feeling this week is going to focus on numbers and counters based on today's grammar discussion.

Here's another well-known children's song called 섬집아기 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHIXbkOYXYA&t=469s. I can't listen to it without tearing up, which I think is true of many Koreans. This recording is sung by 이선희 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Sun-hee_(singer).

One of the comments from Youtube:
80을 앞두고 있습니다.
듣고 또 들어도 애절함은 끝이 없네요.
춥고 배고팠던 시절이 너무 그리워 눈시울을 적시지만 감사한 마음으로 외로움을 달랩니다 감사합니다

I'm approaching 80 years of age.
No matter how many times I listen [to these songs], they are endlessly poignant.
I miss the cold and hungry times [I experienced as a child] so much that tears moisten my eyes, but I soothe my loneliness with gratitude. Thank you.

[Sizen]

KO1K 400/1000. More verb forms including 니까 'because' and 러, similar to sticking に to a verb stem in Japanese (it'll never get old that there's a Japanese equivalent of most things). 때문 was also introduced the same day as 니까, so definitely a theme going on.

Assimil 27. The last two lessons have been very useful. Basically example dialogues for interactions in different kinds of shops. I can't be sure, obviously, but they seemed pretty natural with phrases like ~고 싶은데요 which is very similar to Japanese ~たいんですが. Lots of honorific 시 in combination with other "auxiliaries", too.

I was reading up about pronunciation too and relieved to read that ㅎ can in fact be silent after voiced consonants. I was starting to get worried that I was forming bad habits based on mishearing things. I'm still kind of not sure what to think about ㅝ, on the other hand. It really seems like the "w" sound disappears when preceded by a consonant. 줘 is what got me started on trying to figure out what was going on. I found a reddit discussion with mixed responses about what's going on. At the very least, there seems to be a generational divide. But I swear, on one of the KO1K cards, 줬어요 sounds more like 젔어요 to me and not 줬어요 or 좄어요. Then there are words like 원 that sound like 언 to me when preceded by 천, for example. I read something about labialization of the preceding consonant too, but I can't really make out what that's supposed to sound or feel like. I'm pretty sure I hear some sort of "w" in 봤어요. Different vowels, but still. For all I know, it might only be limited to some words like 주다 and 뭐.

And now I'm listening back to that same recording and thinking I might actually hear 좄어요. So I don't know. I think I remember hearing that Korean vowels are still a pretty hot topic among linguists, so if that's true, I can see why.

[Sizen]

KO1K 410/1000. I finally hit optimize for my FSRS settings since I have enough reviews in now. Looks like I won't being seeing new cards until 2 weeks after first learning them now. To be fair, I've still been getting 100% retention since switching, and I should be at 90%, so this will probably do it. I already feel like I'm actually being "tested" on some new words rather than just being reminded of them, but I expect it'll start to feel more like a test for nearly every word now.

것 같다 was introduced today as a soft way to say "I think," but it reminded of Japanese みたい. It looks like that's also one of its meanings.

Assimil lesson 28. The 4th review lesson marking the end of week 4! A jumble of sentences as usual, but in new combinations, so I added 3 to Anki that seemed useful. There was also a review of numbers and counters, since that was the major theme of the week. Japanese also has two counting systems (even if one is used less than in Korean) and counters, so this wasn't too mind blowing. There was also a lot of talk about auxiliary verbs, verb endings and the honorific marker 시. Nothing too new here, either.

I peeked at the next week of lesson titles and it looks like week 5 is big on food, so I look forward to learning more about Korean cuisine!