Slow-cooked Korean

[AndyMeg]

This is so interesting!

There seems to be a downward tendency in your errors.

Now that you are at your revision time, maybe you could try to implement "imitation practice" (I think it could be a good complement to what you are already doing).

If you want to improve your writing, for example, you could select native samples of the kind of texts you would like to produce and practice by copying them by hand.

I think imitation practice (lots and lots of it with intense focus and especial attention to errors and the "correct" forms) is a great bridge between input and output because it help us internalize things on a subconscious level. Similar to what happens with natives, it helps us get a sense of what feels right or wrong even if we can't exactly explain why.

Lately I've been re-reading a book and it has given me lots of food for thought in my learning endeavor. Maybe it could give you some interesting ideas or perspectives too :

"The Little Book of Talent: 52 Tips for Improving Your Skills" by Daniel Coyle

[qeadz]

Since all the discussion on vocabulary broke out, I ended up taking Evita's fantastic vocab deck. I removed hundreds of words I felt I already knew really well and stuck the rest into Anki.

I very much appreciate all the feedback people gave and the discussion relating to word lists, gold lists and other methods which were touched on in this thread but also spoken about in detail in other historical threads on this site.

In the end Anki won out because I can do the reviews with just my phone handy.

I was *hoping* to spend 5 - 10 minutes a day doing review, however with default settings my review count was just climbing with no apparent end in sight! I'm sure it would level off *somewhere*, but I do have a time cap. It turns out Anki defaulted to 20 new cards per day! As you can tell from my review count graph above, I halved the number of new cards introduced per day.

If I am able to keep this up for a year both in terms of motivation and ability to remember words at this rate, next year this time I could even be around 6k known words.

Time will tell whether this is all I need to do. Its too early to review how its going but I hope at year end to find I am having an easier time reading childrens articles off the internet.

[Sayonaroo]

Perhaps you should edit anki settings like review easy bonus and steps. I personally hate the default setting for steps

[qeadz]

Perhaps you should edit anki settings like review easy bonus and steps. I personally hate the default setting for steps

This would probably be a good thing to do too. I don't really know what might be good settings for them... do you have suggestions?

[Evita]

Perhaps you should edit anki settings like review easy bonus and steps. I personally hate the default setting for steps

This would probably be a good thing to do too. I don't really know what might be good settings for them... do you have suggestions?

I've never changed the easy bonus, but adding one or two learning steps can be very beneficial. If you have never seen a word and you have only two learning steps, chances are you will have forgotten it by the next day. My steps for vocabulary are "8 30 80 210", but you should experiment to find your own optimal settings. If you have no problems remembering new words then there's no need to change the default steps.

In the Lapses section, I have "60 180" for steps and 30% for New interval.

[Sayonaroo]

I just remember changing my settings to minimize anki reviews as in push them OUT further than if I had kept the default settings. I suggest googling the settings and tweaking whatever you're comfortable with.

For steps I make it one step of 2440 because seeing the same card 10 minutes later does nothing for me except aggravate me. I don't rely on anki to memorize cards so i do not do the multiple steps to torture myself. Seeing the word being used in native media makes the word memorable.

I should check my lapse section of my settings to make sure it's a huge number for the steps...

[leosmith]

I hope qeadz doesn't mind me asking here, but do you guys know if there is a way to make all cards simply pass/fail, instead of 3 or 4 grading options? Also, is there a way to make all cards auto-suspend as soon as they are 30days old?

[Evita]

I hope qeadz doesn't mind me asking here, but do you guys know if there is a way to make all cards simply pass/fail, instead of 3 or 4 grading options?

I don't think so. It would require an add-on. You can check them here. I saw a couple of add-ons that promise to make the Good and Again buttons bigger or in color - maybe that could help you?

Also, is there a way to make all cards auto-suspend as soon as they are 30days old?

This would also require an add-on, I think. As a workaround, maybe you can set the easy bonus to really high? Then press the Easy button when you don't want to see the card any more.

[qeadz]

So my review week is wrapping up. I have tried to do a bit of free-talking as I did last time for comparison, but its just too embarrassing to post. Suffice to say that, having tried a few different topics (which is really cheating because it's cherry-picking) I was unable to get very far without running aground.

Thus for the speaking portion I am going to conclude that the volume of writing I have done does not appear to have pushed my speaking ability along - at least not without my actually speaking alongside the writing. There might still be a case where speaking ability improves when done alongside regular writing. This is, of course, not the case for me.

Now to recap in the briefest possible terms my experience in language learning:

Prior to 2016: Attempted work in introductory text books, some vocab study, Rosetta Stone. Very little time spent overall with large gaps between each of the different attempts leaving me in a place where I was unable to even write or read a basic sentence.

CONCLUSION: I was unable to make the time to work through proper study periods with textbooks and also unmotivated. I felt the "heres a rule now apply it to these example sentences" was not getting me anywhere.

2016: Vast majority of time spent reading and listening via LingQ. I did *some* writing for correction. No formal grammar study - I read some chapters of HowToStudyKorean for the basic sentence structure and verb conjugations, but followed that up with just googling grammatical patterns as I noticed them.

Did a number of iTalki sessions (LingQ shows 16 hours of speaking all up, most would be iTalki). Focus was on me trying to converse rather than the tutors taking me through an online syllabus.

CONCLUSION: Clearly I was making progress in being able to both read and listen to Korean, but my ability to apply grammar (which could be argued as: my actual understanding of the grammar) was poor. It was brought to my attention multiple times that I was making very fundamental errors - unexpectedly fundamental considering the time I had committed to learning Korean.

I felt depressed and demotivated to the point where I really felt like just throwing in the towel... however I decided to give myself 6 more months to see if some of my issues could be rectified...

2016 Dec -> Now: Introduced more formal grammar study in terms of working through graded grammar (HTSK providing the ordering) and writing regularly for output. Writing would include specific focus on a grammar point, translation, free-writing. I concluded a short while ago that my vocabulary is not where it should be and after some debate, have settled on using Anki in scraps of spare time to focus on getting my vocab up.

So to review my full language learning experience so far, it would appear that I began in what might be called 'full study' - doing exercises, targeted study by working through workbooks and using their material. It was something I strongly disliked and I heard the call of 'input based learning' (whatever that means) loud and clear!

However it would appear I am beginning to come full circle. While I am not doing someone elses grammar exercises, I am never-the-less doing grammar exercises. I am working through graded material. I am doing focused vocabulary flashcards where last year I railed against them, arguing that simply reading was just as effective. I have added in more focus on output where once I believed that "with sufficient input, the output just happens".

However, crucially, plentiful reading and listening to native material is still essential. It is the strong backbone which was entirely absent in my long-ago times of working through workbooks and Rosetta stone. The materials in the books I have are but scraps compared to what I consumed when I began LingQ.

So the question is:

Upon reviewing my progress in the last 6 months, and considering my progress before that, what do I think it takes to learn Korean? Because whatever that is, I need to work out whether it is feasible for me to do.

If it is not, it is wisest to stop now or my future self will be more frustrated and depressed at 'wasted' time investment.

[Sayonaroo]

Well it seems you've learned how not to learn a language as well as how to learn a language. For myself the question I ask myself is what is it that I want to do in Korean... ultimately learning Koreans takes a long time so you're gonna have to enjoy it after all it's about the journey and not the destination. There are content that is only accessible if you know Korean since not everything is subtitles or translated to English

for me currently it's watching show me the money 6 which I watch with lingoes Japanese Korean dictionary open along with anki and chiebukuro. I like Korean tv and music and so I learn from tv and music and it's really effective