Christi's Spanish and Korean studies

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Re: Christi's Korean studies

Postby tarvos » Fri Jun 26, 2020 10:12 pm

The forum is slow, don't worry about it :)
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Re: Christi's Korean studies

Postby Christi » Thu Jul 02, 2020 5:45 am

tarvos wrote:The forum is slow, don't worry about it :)


Well that's good, because I'm also slow in case you hadn't noticed :lol:

I did two Italki classes this week to get used to speaking Korean again. I signed up for an online language course so am a bit afraid of having to speak and write and being unable to or not being fast enough. The class starts next week so just doing well on it will be this month's most important goal.

I also want to finish two children's books I'm reading: 안읽어 씨 가족과 책 요리점 for kids of around 8 years old and am now reading a comic about a Korean independence activist. It's aimed at kids too, but the vocab is definitely advanced! So far I've run into words like 의회제도 (parliamentary system), 공화국(republic), 폭동을 진압하다(to quell a protest) etc. I only need to read about 50 more pages, so I'm trying to read 2-3 pages a day. Unsure if I will manage to do any more reading though once my course starts.

So this week I'll just focus on reviewing and reading (also finally started 연세 읽기 3 and am planning on finishing the whole series. Finishing book 3 might become August's aim).
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Re: Christi's Korean studies

Postby Christi » Sat May 08, 2021 9:01 pm

It's been a while :lol:

I had a lot of things going on and basically didn't study much. I'm trying to get back to it though. I think we might get back ''almost normal'' around July and I want to sign up for a Korean or Spanish language course for the socialisation aspect.
Which means I have a kind of deadline and need to polish my Korean and my Spanish. I started learning Spanish a while ago. It takes a lot less effort than Korean so far and it was just something I could manage to do despite being busy, stressed etc. I think I'm a low A2, I know about 1k words and some basic tenses and grammar and am able to play Stardew Valley and Pokemon in Spanish.
I've also been going through a textbook (Gente Hoy). I still have about 10 chapters to go, so want to finish one chapter a week. Hopefully I can then join a somewhat interesting language class :D

As for my Korean goals.... I think I should focus on some revision and get back to one of my already finished textbooks. I'm thinking of trying to read Almond in Korean though. The Korean should be relatively simple, but still pretty useful. Plus, the book is a bit thin, about 180 pages.

Anyways, I think I should work on doing some revising first and actually doing some studying every week. Get back into some kind of routine first.

I did some Spanish today and here's a bit of what I learned:
irregular gerunds:
decir > diciendo
dormir > durmiendo
ir > yendo
leer > leyendo
pedir > pidiendo
seguir > siguiendo
Oír > oyendo

Tomorrow I will do some easy TTMIK courses as revision ( I think I forgot a lot..) and start chapter 3 of my Spanish textbook. I already know all the grammar of that chapter, but it's good for building more vocabulary and consolidating my knowledge :)
I think I will also go through all my missed notifications and read some new study logs.
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Re: Christi's Korean and Spanish studies

Postby Christi » Sun May 09, 2021 8:22 pm

Today was a bit chaotic. I had to do some care work for relatives so am super tired. But since this will probably occur much more often in the future, I just need to get used to it and adapt.
I still managed to study a bit. Apparently I had already done chapter 3 of Gente Hoy, so I just spent some time reviewing those words and old grammar (mostly verb conjugations) and writing down the vocab of chapter 4 to study this week. This textbook has a wordlist for each chapter and I think each chapter's list contains about a 100 words or more sometimes. I wrote down 40 new words of chapter 4 and am sure that I will discover more while studying. Such a difference compared to Korean books. There's just so much more content available.
I read a short news item on Beelingua (free) and also found a site with simple new in Spanish. I'm planning on reading one article a day since they are super short, there's audio and it's midly interesting and low-effort. I like low-effort :lol:
Another low-effort activity of mine is watching Velvet with dual subs. This way I can watch the show, but still match the Spanish sounds with the way words are written AND understand what's going on. I don't write down new vocabulary, so it's a very chill activity.

As for Korean, I'm just going to focus on getting used to the language again and refresh my knowledge. So I don't want to do any new activities besides going over books, videos etc that I've already covered before. This week I'm going to spend watching some videos by TTMIK and then review the vocab for those courses. I watched two Iyagi videos today, the beginning was a bit hard but then I suddenly understood everything again. I hope this will keep happening. I think there are about 30 of these videos, some are 10 minutes long, others take an hour to watch. I'm unsure if I will actually finish all those videos this week, but if I do I will reread some stories and review the accompanying vocab.

I'm unsure if it's actually smart or effective to go about reviewing things this way. Rereading stuff and rewatching videos. But my Korean feels quite rusty and I'm worried about forgetting everything or most of it. Unsure if this is a legitimate fear :?:

That's it for today. Might update again tomorrow or some other time this week.

Btw, how do I change the title of my log? There doesn't seem to be a button for it.
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Re: Christi's Korean studies

Postby rdearman » Sun May 09, 2021 9:34 pm

Christi wrote:Btw, how do I change the title of my log? There doesn't seem to be a button for it.

Go to the very first post of your log and click on the edit button. Change the title and it will change the title on all of the subsequent posts.
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Re: Christi's Korean and Spanish studies

Postby Christi » Wed May 12, 2021 9:41 pm

I was right about having to do a lot of care work. It's a bit exhausting, I'm tired all the time and got reminded of why I took such a long break :|

I still managed to get some studying done, but not as much as I would have liked. But it's fine. My new motto is any studying is better than nothing.
So far my routine is just reading a short news item in Spanish in the morning, then reviewing some vocab in the afternoon, go through my textbook in chunks and read one chapter of my graded reader. I'm reading a book at A1 level. It's super easy, but useful for covering my vocab base. There are 18 chapters of about 1-2,5 pages, so if I read one chapter a day I'll have finished it by the end of this month. Then I'll start on the A2 book.

I also discovered I already know most of the grammar in my Spanish textbook. Perhaps I might be able to cover 2 chapters a week instead of just 1. I finished chapter 4 and will start chapter 5, about health and exercise, tomorrow. I'm considering looking for a teacher on iTalki so I can practice my productive skills. If anyone has any recommendations please share :)

I'm not making that much headway with my Korean revision though. I'm usually too tired by the time I start and then only manage to watch a few short videos. I think I'll try starting with Korean first. Otherwise revision will take ages, instead of about a month...
I definitely learned my lesson though: don't take long breaks. There are a lot of holes in my knowledge now. I forgot the meaning of some really basic words like bag, vegetable etc. I remember these words now, but will I remember them a few days for now? Especially the more intermediate words like power plant, to sentence to prison, to interrupt?

I found an old log of someone who experimented with massive SRS sessions for about 3 months. He "learned" 200 new Swedish words a day :shock:
This probably wouldn't work for Korean since it's such an isolated language, but it got me wondering if it might work for reviews? After all, I used to know those words once upon a time and there's an unknown amount I still remember (forgot the word bag, remembered the word for victim :lol: ).

Tomorrow is a holiday, so I'm mostly free. I'll see how many reviews I can manage and if they actually work.
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Re: Christi's Korean and Spanish studies

Postby Christi » Wed Jul 07, 2021 9:08 pm

Well, I had a bit of an eventful 1,5 months..

Did manage to continue learning some Spanish though. Finally finished one graded reader and am about to start one about Frida Kahlo. Also got a couple of others that seem interesting (Carlos Santana, Aztec legends, famous women from the Spanish-speaking world etc). My goal is to have finished them around September. Most of these little books are between 50-100 pages long. I should really be able to make some decent progress this way :)

I'm also trying to watch more movies in Spanish using dual subs. Just finished Xico's Journey on Netflix. (Forgot how to embed a trailer again :oops:) It's a cartoon, but pretty interesting since it's about caring for the environment and is based on an Aztec legend. The Spanish is not that difficult either.

Next on my list to watch is Thi Mai, about a woman who goes to Vietnam with her friends in order to adopt a child her deceased daughter was going to adopt.

Other things I want to do: start playing Stardew Valley in Spanish again, use Hellotalk more often and read something in Korean each week.

Am mostly focusing on Spanish for now though since it's just so much more rewarding at the moment.

Will try to update more often and share what resources I've been using.
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Re: Christi's Korean and Spanish studies

Postby Christi » Fri Jul 09, 2021 9:56 pm

Forget Frida, hello Santana!

I decided to create some kind of reading plan for this summer and just read based on difficulty. The book about Santana has very short chapters(~4 pages). Originally my plan was to read just one chapter a day, but these chapters are so short and easy so far that I will probably have finished this book next weekend if it stays like this!

Other books on my list:
Frida Kahlo
Mujeres extraordinarias (about women like Irene Sendler, Petra Herrera)
Leyandas impactantes (legends from Latin American countries)
Vidas impactantes (about interesting people like the 2010 Chilean mine workers, Mothers of Plaza de Mayo in Argentina etc)
Rebeldes de Tejas (about the battle of Álamo, Mexico 1836)
A few Aventura Joven and Lola Lago books

All books are between a1-a2. And all books except for the Aventura joven and Lola Lago ones cover interesting historical topics. I figured going through these books will be a great and fun way to make sure I'm really familiar with all the irregular verbs and tenses and will hopefully expose me to some useful vocab.

I also discovered that apparently the Dele exam gets held here every few months and I'm secretly thinking of signing up for one once I feel B1-ish. There's an exam in November, but registration is until October and this feels kinda fast. I don't think I'll be able to cover the necessary grammar and vocab and also make sure my skills are high enough.
Guess I'll just see how things go.

Also, I found a great language resource! All high school exams are public here, which means people studying a foreign language can use old exams as practice material! And because of the different levels of education this means there are exams ranging from A2 to B2/C1 for English, German, French, Turkish, Arabic, Frisian, Russian and Spanish.
All exams can be found here. Ordered from high(B2/C1) to low difficulty(A2) just click on one of the education levels and look for the language you need. Then you will see a page with exams and answers going back to 1999!
I think I will try some A2 exams after finishing one or two books just to see what it's like. I had a look and they didn't seem very difficult.

Bedtime and will hopefully report having finished the Santana book soon!

Ps: I need to improve my listening skills. What would be a fun resource to use? Right now I'm just watching random movies with dual subs, but I'm thinking of watching something comprehensible without subs.
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Re: Christi's Korean and Spanish studies

Postby Christi » Wed Jul 14, 2021 10:37 pm

I finished the book about Carlos Santana! Actually could have finished sooner, but I've been very busy.
The book was a 100 pages and tbh, I think it was too easy for me. But that's fine, I got exposed to a bunch of verbs in different tenses which is always useful. And the story itself was okay to read.
I'm going to read my Frida Kahlo book next and should hopefully finish that one next week too. I expect the vocabulary to be a bit more difficult and different since there will probably more words related to painting and illnesses.

What else is new? I'm trying out Baselang which is a tutoring site specifically for Spanish, with unlimited lessons for a flat rate a month. This week is my trial week and I've booked a couple of classes. So far it seems very useful! I think if I can find some good teachers (the quality varies) and some fun lesson activities to do, then getting a subscription might be worth it.
I'm sure I will actually improve a lot!

I'm aiming for 1 hour of classes each day not sure how do-able this is in the long-run, but I'm managing so far. I have to be honest though, I think my Spanish speaking skills are already much better than in Korean :| I just feel so much more confident and recalling words is so much easier, even the non-cognates.
I should really look into doing a Korean language exchange again, but the time difference and crazy Korean workhours make this quite hard.
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2020 resolution words learned: 472 / 1000
Pages read at end of 2020: 220 / 1500

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Re: Christi's Korean and Spanish studies

Postby Christi » Mon Jul 26, 2021 4:09 am

Did a lot of Baselang last week so did not finish the book about Frida. Am at chapter 4 though and it's a pretty interesting read so far! I just covered the parts of how her family ended up in Mexico and how she dealt with getting polio. I visited a exhibition on Frida a few weeks ago and this thin book really supplements what I saw there. I like how it also contains photographs to make things more illustrative.

Ended up getting a subscription to Baselang. I've got three 1 hr classes planned for this week, might decidde to add one or two more near the end of the week. I'm still figuring out how to structure the lessons though.
So far I've mostly been having conversations about how my week has been (not terribly exciting) or about a short article (women on the labor market etc), comparing tourist sites etc. I started a Pinterest board with activities I could try out. Am also going to ask my teachers to write down mistakes I make so I know what to work on.

Am still going through my textbook, should finish in ~3 weeks. It's been really good for learning interesting vocab without overwhelming myself! I just learned the words for crime, tax, poverty, but also hill, grave and knowledge. I really like how it doesn't focus on the 'tourist' vocab :D

As for listening, I finished watching the movie Thi May on Netflix and have now started on the dystopian show La Valla (the barrier) and a docu on Guatemala. Still cheating since I watch with dualsubs, but I want to actually enjoy what I watch. Should probably also start watching some YT videos. Like Easy Spanish or something.

So I thought I had nailed the conjugations, but I just learned the preterito imperfecto and for some reason I keep mixing up conjugations across all tenses I know now. Which is really annoying! I had no difficulty conjugating before I learned the imperfecto, but suddenly even the present tense is giving me a hard time -.-
I hope this will resolve itself soon. Maybe some conjugation practice is necessary..

So today's focus will be:
- a writing exercise using the imperfecto and comparisons
- finish chapter 8 of my textbook, start on chapter 9
- think of an activity for today's Baselang session. Was thinking of comparing pre-covid and during covid life so I can practice different tenses and comparisons. Might also see if we can cover an article about a Colombian and Chilean city. But I think there might not be enough time for this.

As for Korean:
- read Penguin loves Meg :lol: I think this comic should be my focus for now until I find something more fun to use Korean for. Ever since covid learning Korean has just been causing me stress and Penguin loves Meg should be a low on time, low on energy activity.

Btw, is it just me or has the forum been less active/ responsive lately? I used to get so many notifications of logs/discussions I follow but they seem to have tapered off. Is this because of the pandemic? Or maybe it seems this way because I also haven't been very active. Don't really have anything to add to other people's posts so I just lurk haha.
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