K-dramas: Here I come!

[AndyMeg]

Quick update:

Now I study the Memrise's "Talk To Me In Korean" course everyday. Just a few minutes at a time and I try to intercalate this study with exposure to native materials (watching korean TV shows or dramas, or listening to k-songs). I'm really enjoying this course!

I keep working through "Kill Me, Heal Me"'s episode 1 in the way I said before. It is a VERY SLOW process but, just as it happened to me with english, I believe that I'll gradually see the results of all the effort. I also remembered one of Sayonaroo's suggestions and decided to put the audio from "Kill Me, Heal Me"'s episode 1 in my MP4. My plan is to listen to it while doing other activities like exercising or washing the dishes. Last night I listened to it before falling asleep.

I'm also experimenting with different ways to use Viki's Learn Mode. Some ways look very promising, but I'll talk about it after I've settled on something.

And now, some numbers:

- Working with Viki's "Learn Mode" ("Kill Me, Heal Me", Episode 1): I'm on minute 2:15.
- Watching korean-dubbed anime: 1 episode and a half.
- Memrise's "Talk To Me In Korean" course: I'm currently on Level 1, Lesson 10.

[AndyMeg]

- This is my current study routine:

Everyday

1) Viki's Learn Mode (intensive): I work through one sentence a day of the first episode of "Kill Me, Heal Me" (킬미, 힐미).

I put each new word in a excel spreadsheet with its corresponding meaning and the number of repetitions (I'm keepping count on how many times a word appears). I only put the meaning or meanings that make sense within the context of the drama. For this I'm using Wiktionary and Naver's dictionary as my main references (I really like some of the explanations and usage notes I've found on Wiktionary). I also use the pop-up dictionary's audio from Viki's Learn Mode and I listen to it many times while reading the word. Being able to listen to the same phrase/sentence as many times as I want is really useful too.

As I find a lot of new words in each sentence, I think just one sentence a day will be the right amount for a while.

2) Memrise's "Talk To Me In Korean" course

I study it everyday, many times a day. I work with it in very short bursts of time and before I go back to it again, I try to interact with native material (listening to a song, watching part of a k-drama or TV show, etc).

3) Viki's Learn Mode (semi-intensive): I'm going through Rooftop Prince's (옥탑방 왕세자) episodes, working like this:

- First I watch a 20-minutes segment without subs.
- Then I re-watch the same 20 minutes segment with dual subs (korean-english). I notice a lot of things when having both versions (korean and english) on sight.
- I re-watch the same 20-minutes segment again with the dual subs (korean-english). This time I go slower and I use the replay button a lot (it allows me to listen to the same sentence as many times as I want to). I try to follow the korean transcript while listening to a sentence many times. I use the pop-up dictionary's audio to listen to the pronunciation of each individual part of each sentence. If I get curious about something, I use the pop-up dictionary to see the meanings of especific parts or words of the sentence (for example, I got curious about the word 나비 because I heard it in three different sentences. I suspected it meant "butterfly" and I wanted to make sure if my supposition was right or not. And yes, I was right ).

I work on this semi-intensive method everyday, but I don't necessarily go through all the three steps each day or one immediately after the other. So, for example, I can watch the 20-minutes segment for the first time (without subs) and then do other things I have to do, and later come back and watch again the same segment, but this time with the dual subs (korean-english). The third step is the one that takes the longer to complete, so it may take more than one day to go through it.


- I've stopped watching korean-dubbed anime for the time being. But I really like many of the "on-air" k-dramas this season, so I usually watch at least one episode every day (always english-subbed, but sometimes I watch some parts —or even almost the entire episode— first in their raw version).

- This week two words/expressions stood out the most for me:

갑자기 (suddenly, abruptly, unexpectedly, all of a sudden, all at once). I first saw it while working through Kill Me Heal Me first episode in the intensive mode I described before. First, it stood out because it was misspelled in Viki (갑차기) and thus the meaning in the pop-up dictionary didn't make sense (and I couldn't find it in Naver's dictionary or in the Wiktionary). Later it stood out even more because I heard it many times in the k-drama "The Best Hit" (최고의 한방). The first time I heard it in the drama I sensed some familiarity with the word. Then, with the next two times, I remembered the meaning and where I had seen it before.

지금부터 (from now on). I kept hearing this a lot in one episode of "2 Days & 1 Night" (1박 2일). From my study with Memrise I remembered that 지금 meant "now" and I felt really curious as to what 부터 could mean.

- As I wasn't being too consistent with my study before, on June 2 I decided to start again the countdown of the six weeks I'll be focusing on korean (which will be followed by two weeks focusing on japanese).

- While watching "The Best Hit" episodes, I noticed that I'm starting to get the meaning of the constituent parts of some sentences/expressions, and not just a general gist of those sentences/expressions. I still have a long way to go, but noticing this step forward made me feel so happy!

[Sayonaroo]

It sounds like you'd benefit more from learning from song lyrics than the drama dialogue since you're still in the phase of learn all the useful/common words/grammar/construction. I recommend learning from song lyrics that have english translations available online ( that way you don't waste unnecessary time with the dictionary). I personally feel some of the common stuff might be more easily learned via music/song lyrics than dramas since the song itself is repetitive with the chorus or whatever and certain words/phrases etc etc repeat in songs and you get to familiarize yourself with the conjugation. When I learn from korean song lyrics I always first search for wayaku which is the japanese translation so I don't waste unnecessary time with the dictionary.

I'm going to assume you already have already discovered a bunch of neat korean songs just from watching dramas.

I remember trying to learn from secret garden like years ago and I was overwhelmed by so many words they use that I don't know or do know but am not that familiar with (well not as overwhelmed as somebody who doesn't know Japanese because half the time the words had hanja behind them but even then I wasn't used to hanja readings at the time so it was still tough).... but I had no problem understanding most song lyrics because I learned words from song lyrics.

[AndyMeg]

It sounds like you'd benefit more from learning from song lyrics than the drama dialogue since you're still in the phase of learn all the useful/common words/grammar/construction. I recommend learning from song lyrics that have english translations available online ( that way you don't waste unnecessary time with the dictionary). I personally feel some of the common stuff might be more easily learned via music/song lyrics than dramas since the song itself is repetitive with the chorus or whatever and certain words/phrases etc etc repeat in songs and you get to familiarize yourself with the conjugation. When I learn from korean song lyrics I always first search for wayaku which is the japanese translation so I don't waste unnecessary time with the dictionary.

I'm going to assume you already have already discovered a bunch of neat korean songs just from watching dramas.

I remember trying to learn from secret garden like years ago and I was overwhelmed by so many words they use that I don't know or do know but am not that familiar with (well not as overwhelmed as somebody who doesn't know Japanese because half the time the words had hanja behind them but even then I wasn't used to hanja readings at the time so it was still tough).... but I had no problem understanding most song lyrics because I learned words from song lyrics.

When I said that I input all the new words in the spreadsheet I meant that I input all the words the first time I find them in the drama (whether they are words that I already know or not) and then I keep count on how many times I find that same word again. I'm doing this because I would like to have some statistics that maybe I could use in the future. At first this process is slow by nature but eventually, when I'm more advanced in the drama, I think it'll be less time consuming because there'll be a lot of repeated words.

But I agree that I still lack a lot of the common vocabulary/grammar, so I think I'll try to follow your advice and integrate songs to my daily routine. (And I'm actually thinking to start with one of the OST songs from "Secret Garden": 그여자 by 백지영 )

Yeah, knowing japanese helps with korean vocabulary (and also with having a general idea on how basic grammar works)

[Sayonaroo]

By the way I recommend doing songs as in lots and lots of them because it becomes very apparent what words/phrases/grammar repeat. It's easier to do a lot of songs than one drama episode.

I think you'd better off not tallying that stuff because it takes up time and if something is central to the plot or repeats I think you'd notice whether you do that or not.

[AndyMeg]

By the way I recommend doing songs as in lots and lots of them because it becomes very apparent what words/phrases/grammar repeat. It's easier to do a lot of songs than one drama episode.

OK. I'll keep that in mind!

I think you'd better off not tallying that stuff because it takes up time and if something is central to the plot or repeats I think you'd notice whether you do that or not.

I agree with you for the most part; but I've noticed that, at least in my case, some frequent words sometimes slip under the radar and doing this helps me to become aware of them. I'm mostly doing this out of curiosity and because Viki's pop-up dictionary is very far from perfect; but as I agree that it is really time-consuming, I only work on a sentence a day.

[Evita]

But I agree that I still lack a lot of the common vocabulary/grammar, so I think I'll try to follow your advice and integrate songs to my daily routine. (And I'm actually thinking to start with one of the OST songs from "Secret Garden": 그여자 by 백지영 )

It was my first or second song and I found it very difficult. I'm still not sure about some of the grammar in there. But being able to sing along without looking at the lyrics was also rewarding

By the way, have you taken a look at my Anki sentence deck? It also contains most of the TTMIK lessons, but also many other sentences to cover stuff that TTMIK doesn't cover.

[AndyMeg]

By the way, have you taken a look at my Anki sentence deck? It also contains most of the TTMIK lessons, but also many other sentences to cover stuff that TTMIK doesn't cover.

Thanks for the link! I'll check it out!

[AndyMeg]

I've been sick these days, but I've kept studying, which is a sign that I'm really enjoying my current learning strategies/plan.

1) I finished going through the first episode of "Rooftop Prince" (옥탑방 왕세자). Now that I'm working through the second, I decided to change a little bit the way I work with it:

- First I watch a 20-minutes segment with dual subs (korean-english).
- Then I re-watch the same 20-minutes segment again with the dual subs (korean-english). This time I go slower and I use the replay button a lot (it allows me to listen to the same sentence as many times as I want to). I try to follow the korean transcript while listening to a sentence many times. I use the pop-up dictionary's audio to listen to the pronunciation of each individual part of each sentence. If I get curious about something, I use the pop-up dictionary to see the meanings of especific parts or words of the sentence. I compare the korean transcript with the english translation and sometimes, with the help of the pop-up dictionary, I try to make my own english translation before reading the official one. (Thanks to this I've started to notice some patterns and frequent vocabulary. For example, I suspect 면 is related to the meaning of "if...").
- Finally, I rewatch the same 20-minutes segment without subs.

2) I really enjoy working through the TTMIK course in Memrise. Now I'm at lesson 15: Sino-Korean Numbers. I find this lesson very interesting because I was often confused about the two different set of numbers koreans seemed to use. I knew some native korean numbers thanks to the taekwondo (태권도) classes I took many years ago, but in "2 Days & 1 Night" (1박 2일) they used the other numbers (Sino-korean) a lot, so I got confused.

I also started to go through another vocabulary course at Memrise. (I enjoy Memrise a lot!!! )

3) I keep working through one sentence a day of the first episode of "Kill Me, Heal Me" (킬미, 힐미). Well, I don't do this every day, but at least half of the days each week. Now I have more than 100 words/expressions on my excel spreadsheet.

4) I'm finding my way to work with songs. I still listen to korean songs almost everyday (because that's an activity I really enjoy), but now I also try to read the lyrics of some slow songs and I created some Word documents in which I intercalate the hangul version with the english translation.

5) I felt I needed to fill some gaps in my knowledge, so I decided to read the "Getting Ready" section of the "Korean Grammar in Use: Beginning to Early Intermediate" book. It talks about the following topics:

- 이다 (to be)
- 있다 (to exist/be, to have)
- Numbers
- Dates and Days of the Week
- Time

This was also a great complement to the TTMIK Memrise's lesson on Sino-Korean Numbers.

6) I took a look at Evita's Anki sentence deck and I decided to go through it after I finish the TTMIK course in Memrise. But, as I'm not fond of the "traditional Anki's way", I plan to go through it in the way I said before: always marking the "easy" option so that I don't accumulate lots of pending reviews.

[AndyMeg]

Quick update:

I think I need a small break from korean, so I'll be changing my schedule a little bit. From now on my study will be like this:

1) 4 weeks focused on korean
2) 1 week focused on japanese
3) Repeat steps 1 and 2

So let's the japanese focused week start!

(For this week I'll stop all the korean learning activities, but I'll keep watching k-dramas and TV-shows with english subs and listening to songs but without trying to study with them)