My korean adventure: fun and enjoyment as a guide

[AndyMeg]

But I’ve also noticed that, with my current approach, instead of procrastinating I’m continuously trying to find and squeeze time for engaging in my korean language related activities. It’s just so much fun!!!

Maybe I need more of this "fun approach"...I might procrastinate less

Try it! It's really worth it!

[AndyMeg]

I went out of town for a few days and I've also been sick these past days. I didn't get any real interaction with korean during my trip, except for reading the name of a korean restaurant I found but which was actually closed that day and would not open again until the next week, when I would already be back home (my poor happy self had already started to make plans to eat lunch there ).

On the last day of my trip I found a nice japanese restaurant which also happened to be closed that day, but I got to speak a tiny bit of japanese with a native who was watering the restaurant's plants. I felt really happy to see his reaction when I spoke to him in that tiny bit of japanese (just some greetings and a thanks after he handed me the restaurant's card and information).

For the time being I decided to stop doing the following activities:

- Using Memrise: I don't enjoy it as much as other activities.
- Dabbling in the book "재외동포를위한 한국어 (영어권) 1.2" (PDF): I decided that I want to properly tackle this series of books later.
- The second step I used to do with the book "맞춤 스페인어권 한국어-1: Coreano para la Comunidad Coreana Hispanohablante" (this book is a dual-text textbook: korean-spanish):

Go back to the beginning of the lesson/unit and look for things I don’t know or for which I have doubts about (vocabulary, grammar, etc.). Here I go beyond what the lesson/unit is teaching because I try to learn from every piece of text in the lesson/unit, be it the instructions for each activity or, for example, the short text at the end that usually talks about one aspect of the korean culture and how it compares with the hispanic culture. I enjoy this activity a lot, but it is pretty intensive and it usually takes me many days before I can move on to a new lesson/unit.

I enjoy this activity a lot (some days ago I even spent 4 straight hours engaged in this activity), but it is too intensive and it drains my mental energy too much, and I currently need that mental energy for other not-language-learning-related higher priority activities in my life.

Activities I did these past days:

- Reading the “Easy to Learn Korean” series: I’m currently on page 24.

- Working with the book "맞춤 스페인어권 한국어-1: Coreano para la Comunidad Coreana Hispanohablante" (an adapted version of step 1: doing the lessons and analizing and comparing the dual texts, but without going out of my way to look for things I don't know, except for things strictly related to what each lesson is trying to teach): I finished page 40 and now I'm ready to start unit 4.

- Transcribing dual text (korean-english) from some TTMIK videos: Just a few lines.

- Taking the Viki's K-drama Vocabulary Quiz once a day

- LingoDeer: I skipped the Alphabet section and went straight to the second unit (Nationality). Now I'm on lesson 2 of the third unit (Determiner).

- I've been experimenting a bit with Viki's Learn Mode: I started to watch a k-drama with dual subs (korean-english), pausing at each line, comparing both texts and analizing them, using the pop-up integrated dictionary and replaying each line many times while focusing on the sounds, pronunciation and prosody. I started with this drama 밀회 (Secret Love Affair) but there was so much unknown vocabulary so, after 45 seconds of video, I decided to change to a somehow easier k-drama which I have already partially watched: 아버지가 이상해 (My Father is Strange). I'm currently on minute 1:19 of the first episode.

- I continue to watch korean TV (mainly with english subs) and listening to korean songs.

Others:

- Going to my once-a-week korean classes and doing related activities: For various reasons I have not had classes these past weekends.

- I also do other activities that are hard to measure: for example, when watching a TV program with english subs I often find myself comparing the korean I hear with the english subs I read and I analize them both. Sometimes, also while watching korean TV, I repeat outloud short lines of korean dialogue, and sometimes I pause the video to pay special attention to things like street signs and any hangul I find there (for example in uniforms, supermarkets, etc.).

[qeadz]

I've seen the viki drama quiz mentioned by you a number of times, and yesterday - just for the fun of it - I gave it a whirl.

I did it once and got estimated 58%. That felt a little high given my vocab is not really that large.

So I did it again and got 92%. I marked 3 words as unknown and got 1 of them wrong. But clearly the score is way too high!

On a 3rd try I scored 39% (which I figure is probably closer to the truth!). There were many I marked as unknown.

With only 30 words per test, its always going to be highly variable. It was kind of fun though. Good luck with your new approach for the new year!

[AndyMeg]

I've seen the viki drama quiz mentioned by you a number of times, and yesterday - just for the fun of it - I gave it a whirl.

I did it once and got estimated 58%. That felt a little high given my vocab is not really that large.

So I did it again and got 92%. I marked 3 words as unknown and got 1 of them wrong. But clearly the score is way too high!

On a 3rd try I scored 39% (which I figure is probably closer to the truth!). There were many I marked as unknown.

With only 30 words per test, its always going to be highly variable. It was kind of fun though. Good luck with your new approach for the new year!

Yes, the results vary a lot, and the words are also divided by three categories of difficulty and each category has a different weight on the final score.

The good thing about taking the quiz daily is that I can notice some patterns and I can somehow see my progress. At first I would almost always get really low scores (below the mean in all categories), but now I often get scores above the mean in at least two categories.

Thanks for your good wishes!

[AndyMeg]

After experimenting a bit with Viki's Learn Mode I decided to give myself a special challenge:

I want to re-watch "W" (a k-drama I liked A LOT) with dual subs (korean-english), pausing at each line, comparing both texts and analizing them, using the pop-up integrated dictionary and replaying each line many times while focusing on the sounds, pronunciation and prosody. And I also want to transcribe, by hand, both lines (korean-english) while paying attention to their simmilitues and differences and modifying the english version if I think something is missing from the english sub. I chose this k-drama among many others because it is in a genre that I enjoy a lot, it is one of my favorite k-dramas and it has korean subs for all the episodes. I also chose it because it has a very special particularity: at the time it was aired, I was scared that it could have a sad ending, so I stopped watching it around episode 12. But now I finally feel prepared to watch it until the end, so I'll use that as a motivation to first go through the old episodes in the way I described before. When I arrive at the new episodes I'll decide what to do with them (Watch them first with english subs? Watch them first with korean subs? Watch them without subs? I think it would be interesting to see how much I can understand after going through the older episodes the way I plan to).

I won't set a time frame because, from past experiences, I know that's one of my paths towards procrastination. What I'll do is just to set a challenging objective: to do what I described before for the whole 16 episodes of the drama.

As I'm trying to keep things fun and interesting, and to not overwhelm myself, I won't try to work on this everyday, I'll just work on this whenever I feel like it.

I won't use progress bars for this special challenge because when I use them I tend to focus more on what I still have left to do than on what I've achieved so far. I'll just track my progress the way I'm doing with the other activities.

Of course, besides this special challenge, I'll continue doing other activities I find fun

I'll keep you updated!

[Christi]

After experimenting a bit with Viki's Learn Mode I decided to give myself a special challenge:

I want to re-watch "W" (a k-drama I liked A LOT) with dual subs (korean-english), pausing at each line, comparing both texts and analizing them, using the pop-up integrated dictionary and replaying each line many times while focusing on the sounds, pronunciation and prosody. And I also want to transcribe, by hand, both lines (korean-english) while paying attention to their simmilitues and differences and modifying the english version if I think something is missing from the english sub.

Wow! That sounds like a large undertaking! I tried watching Entertainer with dual subs but my vocabulary and grammar knowledge just wasn't large enough. Perhaps I'll try again in a few months.

Btw, if you liked W, maybe you'll also like While you were sleeping. I thought this one was very exciting too!

[AndyMeg]

Wow! That sounds like a large undertaking! I tried watching Entertainer with dual subs but my vocabulary and grammar knowledge just wasn't large enough. Perhaps I'll try again in a few months.

Yes. That's one of the reasons why I decided not to establish a deadline for the challenge. I just want to enjoy the journey, however long it takes.

While trying different dramas in order to choose one for my challenge, I noticed that my level of engagement with the story is very important for me to stick to it (even more important than how difficult it is the vocabulary or the grammar).

Btw, if you liked W, maybe you'll also like While you were sleeping. I thought this one was very exciting too!

I have "While you were sleeping" on my to-watch list! I'm actually a fan of Lee Jong-suk (the male lead in both dramas), but when watching his dramas I often get scared they will have a sad ending. I had started watching "While you were sleeping" when it was airing, but I stopped after a few episodes in order to wait and read comments to see if it would have a sad ending or not. For me it's Ok that not all endings are completely happy ones, but sad endings (specially the tragic ones) are hard to overcome.

If you liked "W" and "While you were sleeping" maybe you'll like other Lee Jong-suk's dramas like "I Can Hear Your Voice" and "Pinocchio".

[Christi]

If you liked "W" and "While you were sleeping" maybe you'll like other Lee Jong-suk's dramas like "I Can Hear Your Voice" and "Pinocchio".

They are on my to-watch list. I'm finally watching My love from the stars (별에서 온 그대). I really need to make time to watch series again, there are so many I'd like to watch and it's also good for becoming familiar with the language!

[AndyMeg]

- Finished watching [Duel - 듀얼] (Detective, crime, thriller, science fiction): A detective's sick daughter is kidnapped, at first the detective thinks he has caught the culprit but then he finds out there are two of them. Who is the real culprit? Why are both of them identical? Where is his daughter and why was she kidnapped?

It was an awesome drama. Every one acted so well!!! And there were lots of tension in each episode. It has become one of my top favorites!

- Finished watching [I'm Not a Robot - 로봇이 아니야] (Science fiction, romance, comedy, melodrama): Kim Min Gyu, the largest shareholder of a finance company, has a unusual allergy: he can't touch people. For the past 15 years, since the onset of his allergy, he has lived without any deep human interaction; but everything changes when a "robot" enters his life. But the thing is, the robot is not a real robot but a human avatar for the real robot that got accidentally damaged.

I enjoyed this drama a lot. It gave an interesting twist to the love story. All the characters were very relatable and there were not boring parts for me.

[AndyMeg]

- Finished watching [I'm Not a Robot - 로봇이 아니야] (Science fiction, romance, comedy, melodrama): Kim Min Gyu, the largest shareholder of a finance company, has a unusual allergy: he can't touch people. For the past 15 years, since the onset of his allergy, he has lived without any deep human interaction; but everything changes when a "robot" enters his life. But the thing is, the robot is not a real robot but a human avatar for the real robot that got accidentally damaged.

I enjoyed this drama a lot. It gave an interesting twist to the love story. All the characters were very relatable and there were not boring parts for me.

I was interested in this drama but how long does it take for the guy to find out she is not a robot? If it drags all the way to the end and the last episode is just him being mad but forgiving her bc he loves her so much, I'll pass x.x

I think instead of a simple answer, this question merits a nuanced one. So that's what I'll give you.

Strictly speaking, he realises that she is not a robot at the beginning of the last quarter of the drama. But I didn't feel any of the episodes before that were a drag.

Kim Min Gyu's allergy started because of a psychological trauma he had as a kid. Since then and for the past 15 years he has not had any deep human interaction, which makes him awkward around people and naive in many aspects (and sometimes as innocent and gullible as a kid).

There's a real robot that really looks as a human: Aji-3. The robot looks exactly the same as the human Ji-Ah because it was modeled after her.

Kim Min Gyu first sees and interacts with the real robot (Aji-3) but, soon after, Aji-3 gets broken and Ji-Ah is commissioned to replace Aji-3 as its avatar until they can repair it. In order for her to successfully fulfill her mission, they equip her with the latest technology (contact lenses with a camera, an integrated communication system and search fuctions, and a metal corset). After that they tell Kim Min Gyu that the robot its only functional for a few hours a day and then it needs to be recharged, which minimize the risk of him figuring out the farse and also allows Ji-Ah to continue her life as a human as well.

Kim Min Gyu sees the real Aji-3 being connected to her charger from time to time, wich adds to the probability of him believing that Ji-As is the robot. But of course, from time to time, some things feel suspicious for him or not quite right. And then it's when the humor kicks in because Ji-Ah creatively tries to mantain the charade while also continuing her double life as "a robot" and as a normal human.

The drama is about much more than just him falling in love with "a robot". It's about trust, and healing, and growing up, and taking responsibility for mistakes and past actions. And it's also about choosing your own path in spite of others' expectations of you. And this is true not just for the main leads but also for other characters as well.

As I said before, for me there were not boring parts in the drama. I felt it had the right pace: no too fast too feel rushed, not too slow to feel dragged. But that's just my opinion and yours may differ. So I would say this: give the drama a chance, if you find it boring or dragging you can stop at any time