Korean - from scratch to B2 in one year

[leosmith]

Now for the important question – have I reached B2 in conversation? I grade myself after every conversation, and I’ve considered only 2 sessions to be B2 (today and one week ago). June average scores were about B1.5, July B1.7 and August B1.8. So I’m very close to the bottom of B2 imo. I hope to get an opportunity to do a video to let you decide if I made it.

I honestly thought I’d be a very, very strong B2 by this time. It might have been due to my health problems, but bottom line is it didn’t happen. I think I’ve done the work required to be B2, and wonder if the bow wave effect is keeping me from realizing it. Maybe I can’t do better than this for any language that’s quite different from English, regardless of apparent difficulty. Maybe when I spend some time in Korea, things will sink in and I’ll wind up with a great improvement. We shall see.

[smallwhite]

You sound like you plan to stop studying Korean right here?

[leosmith]

You sound like you plan to stop studying Korean right here?

Nah. I'm not even sure which city in Australia you live in.

[smallwhite]

You sound like you plan to stop studying Korean right here?

Nah. I'm not even sure which city in Australia you live in.

Good. I'll keep the city name unknown, then.

I'd like to ask you - (1) what were some aspects of Korean you found hard or harder than expected? (2) What constituted the remaining 0.5, 0.3, 0.2 below, ie. what stood in the way between you and B2? (3) Which languge do you like more, Japanese, Chinese or Korean?

June average scores were about B1.5, July B1.7 and August B1.8.

Thanks.

[leosmith]

(1) what were some aspects of Korean you found hard or harder than expected?

The hardest things are the same for all my languages - listening and vocabulary. Harder than expected - I was warned so much about Korean nothing really surprised me about learning it.

(2) What constituted the remaining 0.5, 0.3, 0.2 below, ie. what stood in the way between you and B2?

Mostly me forgetting vocabulary and pausing to think about it. There were other problems too, but if I had better vocabulary recall I'd be comfortably in the middle of B2 right now, instead of right on the edge imo.

(3) Which language do you like more, Japanese, Chinese or Korean?

I don't know; I like them all. Japanese will always have a special place in my heart for being the first language that I let be more important than work. Chinese is really fun to speak because it's tonal. Korean - well, let's just say I'll never forget this amazing challenge.

Thanks for your questions.

[MacGyver]

High B1 or low B2, whatever, your progress is very impressive!

I have a couple of questions about how you did Iyagi. I am just starting out with Iyagi using Lingq myself (actually the beginner Iyagi TTMIK released a few weeks ago as Iyagi is too hard for me right now ).

How many times did you go through each lesson before you moved onto the next?

Roughly what no. of unknown words did you have when starting each lesson?

Did you review the lessons often?

[leosmith]

High B1 or low B2, whatever, your progress is very impressive!

Thank you very much! Iyagi for beginners looks like another good idea from TTMIK; too bad it appears to be pay only, but I don't doubt that it's worth it.

I'll tell you what I did, but keep in mind that it might not be appropriate for you, since our overall language learning programs could be quite different. I think the first time I did one there were over 400 unknown words. The last one I did there were about 100, but keep in mind that they get a bit harder as they go along (maybe B1 to B2 very slowly graduated).

My method with Iyagi was to listen once, read, then listen again. No further reviews, but sometimes I'd load my mp3 player with 10 iyagi and listen to them while walking. I created lingq's but didn't ever try to review them in any way. I also didn't ever go back to any lingqs and try to update their status to "known" because I didn't want to spend the time.

Except for in the very early stages, I avoid repetition because it interferes with beginner's mind.

[MacGyver]

Thanks. I take it you counted on massive input to ensure words stuck eventually. I hope this time next year I am somewhere close to finishing all the Iyagis too.

[leosmith]

I take it you counted on massive input to ensure words stuck eventually.

Partially. It's all in this log if you're interested.

[MacGyver]

Partially. It's all in this log if you're interested.

Thanks, I went back and read through your log again, so much good information in there. I see very early on you took 1.5 hours to grind through an iyagi lesson, I don't know if I have the will power to do that haha!

Now that you are at the end, how many hours do you estimate in total you have spent on Korean to date?