MIBG's Korean Log, or A Cry for Help

[Notorious MIBG]

Similar to another log in this forum, I have been frustrated for years by repeatedly visiting Korea with my Korean-American wife, a fluent if limited heritage speaker, and making no progress with either understanding Korean or being understood. Between my last visit and now, however, I started making a concerted effort to learn, which has involved dedicated daily study, the details of which I will get into shortly.

The reason I'm starting this log is predominantly related to the alternative title of this thread. I am making no headway whatsoever. I will be returning to Korea with my wife in June and at this point see no world in which I will be able to carry on even the most basic conversation.

I am monolingual, having taken a few years of two other Indo-European languages in formal schooling, both of which I retained practically none of (If there was anything there to retain to begin with). I am determined to learn Korean, and unlike many members of this forum, I am determined only to learn this one additional language. I have no dreams of being a polyglot, only of not dying a monoglot.

To throw a wrench in the fire I am also a physician in training, and spend hours each day outside of work reading textbooks in an attempt to memorize subject matter that is important for perfecting my craft. In no way is it as difficult as learning a language, but in some ways I'm wondering if it might not be affecting that process.

Here is what I have done thus far:

Before October, 2017 I had completed only the TTMIK Hangeul book and their corresponding Vimeo lessons. I found these extremely useful and high-yield. I retained almost all of what I learned.

October, 2017

Pimsleur: Completed one lesson/day and repeating the lesson as many times as necessary to achieve > 80% correct response rate (I manually paused the audio when I needed time to gather my thoughts). This would take, initially 1-2 times, but as the lessons got harder I was routinely doing each lesson 3-4 times in one day. I looked forward to doing these because I felt like I was learning rapidly and getting a great grasp of pronunciation.

Goldlist: 20 words/day, using a frequency dictionary and sticking only to nouns to start with.

Audio: Listened to 15 minutes of Korean audio per day, usually a podcast.

November, 2017

Pimsleur: Once done with level 1, I turned to the reading lessons as an relief from the time consuming lessons, or rather the self-imposed method by which these lessons became time consuming. These were, as many have reported here and in other forums, useless.

The Sounds of Korean: I started using this textbook to try to get better at not just identifying differences in minimal pairs, but also getting better at pronouncing words in sentences using proper prosody, etc... I think this book was a good decision, ultimately, and I am still making Anki flash cards from the book bit by bit because the underlying substance of the book is so sound. Unfortunately, I wondering if the length of time it took me to complete this book just let the Pimsleur flush out of my mind. I spent 20-30 minutes with this book per day.

Goldlist: About 5 pages into my first distillation I threw the notebook in the cupboard never to be seen again. I was remembering near 0% of the non-cognate words (Excepting those I knew before I started this whole process)

Anki: Started making flash-cards based on the Fluent Forever templates using the frequency dictionary once the Goldlist fizzled out.

Audio: Listened to 15 minutes of Korean audio per day, usually a podcast.

December, 2017-January, 2018

Pimsleur: Took a break and focused on The Sounds of Korean.

The Sounds of Korean: Continued on with 20-30 mins/day.

Anki: The Fluent Forever strategy didn't last long. It was too time consuming, even though I had freed up time by not doing so much Pimsleur. Eventually I transitioned to 100 card limit using Evita's vocabulary deck. That lasted a little over a month before it started taking me so much time that I felt the circuits in my brain frying. There were some days toward the end where, down to the last 10 or so cards of my review, I went through those 10 words at least 20 times before I got a single word right. It's like I wasn't seeing those 10 words, or rather didn't want to see them. I just didn't care.

Audio: Listened to 15 minutes of Korean audio per day, usually a podcast.

February, 2018

I've transitioned now to trying the multi-track approach to learning, using a combination of Pimsleur and the TTMIK grammar/workbooks.

Pimsleur: I started back at lesson 1. None of this feels new, but I've encountered a few episodes I've had to repeat a few times. I do truly believe, however, that the repetitions this time around are more representative of the fact that I didn't know it in the first place and gave myself a pass. Also, I'm not allowing myself pauses anymore. If I don't answer the question correctly in the allotted time it counts against my 80% rule. In addition, I only allow myself one lesson a day. If I need to repeat a lesson to achieve 80% then I do it the next day. This way I can turn the burn-out knob down a bit.

TTMIK: I started with the grammar book and went about 3 lessons in before adding the workbook so I could keep it staggered. I do one lesson from each per day with review on the weekends. I'm definitely not retaining what I need to despite the fact that this stuff seems very, very basic. I'm almost done with the first book now and I'm not sure whether I should go onto the next or do the book over again.

Anki: I continue to use The Sounds of Korean deck I've made each day, which is now down to the point where I see very, very few cards each day. I've also started adding additional cards to the deck now that I've gotten Korean OCR to work (I removed the spine of the book and used my high resolution scanner to make a PDF), as where I had previously left off (Middle of the book) was mostly due to the tediousness of making the cards, and in particular the typing of whole sentences in Korean. Now I can copy and paste and just fix the few OCR errors. I enter one exercise worth of cards into Anki per day, which takes 5-10 minutes. I tried Evita's grammar deck for a few days, which I loved, but stopped the moment I started seeing things that were further along than I had gotten in my studies. I will likely revisit this in the future, however, because it was more enjoyable than the vocabulary deck for me and seems like a great way to retain knowledge.

Audio: I've stopped the listening each day while on the multi-track approach. I really wanted to streamline everything and reduce the total amount of time I dedicate to this in hopes that the reduction in time might lead to more retention. We'll see.

So, to recap my current plan:

TTMIK

1 lesson / day in the lesson book. 1 lesson / day in the workbook.

Pimsleur

1 lesson / day, only proceeding when at > 80% without pausing.

Anki

The Sounds of Korean anki deck every day. Add at least 3 exercises / week to the deck - ideally 7.

Re-evaluate strategy when level 1 of Pimsleur is complete.

Future considerations

iTalki lessons: Yes, I know I have a native speaking Korean living with me, but I think I'd just like to keep the learning experience separate from the relationship experience.

Intensive reading: Using some combination of Korean book + Korean audiobook, spending only 10 or so minutes per day doing the translation. Doing a limited amount of searching has made it abundantly clear than the audiobook side of this coin is going to be the problem.

[Oscard587]

안녕하세요. 반갑습니다. ᄒᆞᆫ저 옵서예!

[AndyMeg]

Besides "active" study time, are you frequently interacting with native material? for example listening to korean songs, or watching a korean TV program? (it is Ok to watch with english subs until you can understand enough without them)

The way I see it, my interaction with native korean content is what makes things stick in my brain. I feel so happy when I can recognize another word or expression while consuming native korean entertainment!

Intensive reading: Using some combination of Korean book + Korean audiobook, spending only 10 or so minutes per day doing the translation. Doing a limited amount of searching has made it abundantly clear than the audiobook side of this coin is going to be the problem.

As an alternative, maybe you could check out the way I'm working with k-dramas on Viki:

Steps

Philosophy/Mindset

(by the way, Viki is a video streaming website that has lots of Korea related content. It has a special view mode called "Learn Mode")

[Christi]

What level are you on of ttmik?

And I also agree with the post above that you should try to be more active in your studies. Do you do any grammar exercises or chatting/writing? This will really help cement vocab and grammar. I do think that with Korean it definitely takes a while to make things stick, more time than when learning a European language. It just takes time.

I also think it might help to make a list of goals to achieve before June. You probably won't be able to hold conversations about many topics but maybe you can just focus on something you would really like to talk about. Like talking about your day or sports etc

[qeadz]

I can understand your frustration!

I have had a very difficult journey so far with this language as well. My last trip to Korea I had hopes to understand a bunch of everyday conversation, but as it turns out there were some family members I could not understand at all. No matter what they said!

Given my own arduous journey on which progress has been slow, I can't really give you any advice since clearly I'm not actually successful in it myself.

However I can say: don't give up! You know more now than you did before, so don't fall into the trap of thinking you're not making progress. Its more a question of rate of progress.

[Notorious MIBG]

안녕하세요. 반갑습니다. ᄒᆞᆫ저 옵서예!

안녕하세요!

Besides "active" study time, are you frequently interacting with native material? for example listening to korean songs, or watching a korean TV program? (it is Ok to watch with english subs until you can understand enough without them)

I was listening to a podcast for some time, but really couldn't understand much of anything. I didn't feel like I was getting much out of it, but to be fair to this method of learning I was just passively listening to get a sense for prosody more than actually trying to understand what the people were saying.

I watch Korean movie and TV shows not irregularly, but I honestly feel like I'm getting no benefit because I use subtitles in English and essentially tune out what the people are saying (Similar to the podcast listening, it's just passive at that point for me).

As an alternative, maybe you could check out the way I'm working with k-dramas on Viki:

I'll check these out when I finish my current stint. Thanks!

What level are you on of ttmik?

Almost done with the first book.

And I also agree with the post above that you should try to be more active in your studies. Do you do any grammar exercises or chatting/writing?

The most active thing I do is Pimsleur. I think once I'm done with Pimsleur level 1 again, or maybe level 2, I'll start doing iTalki lessons or at the very least asking my wife to have short, simple chats with me.

You probably won't be able to hold conversations about many topics but maybe you can just focus on something you would really like to talk about. Like talking about your day or sports etc

Yeah, I'm thinking iTalki might be good for this. For instance, I could focus on themes during lessons like how to hold a conversation in the following situations: (1) Talking to relatives (2) Ordering food at a restaurant (3) Talking to the dry cleaner (The dry cleaner I go to is Korean and it seems like a simple situation for me to build my confidence).

I can understand your frustration!

Thanks! Yeah, your log was what I was referencing early on in my original post. I feel like we're in the same shoes.

[4valor]

Good job on trying to learn Korean, it's a tough language as you already know.
My wife is also Korean, so I can understand how challenging it can be to communicate with your wife's family.

I've made some pretty good progress studying Korean over the last year. I work full-time, so I can only study while commuting or in the shower. This averages to be about 1 hour a day.

I think you need to bite the bullet and continue learning vocab in Anki. There's just no way around it with a language as difficult as Korean. Any other method is just inefficient. Work on recognition only, not production. I.E Cards should be Korean -> English.

For grammar, I would focus more on production and get the Korean Grammar in Use books. Continually drill them and shadow the accompanying audio CD.

I disagree to some extent with the responses you've received, dramas/music are pretty much a waste of time until you have a good vocabulary base and solid grammar. Once you have the base, then you can start using dramas to cement your knowledge (which is what I do now that I know 5000 words / 200 grammar points).

Unfortunately for most, learning Korean can be boring and a huge grind. The only way to make it fun is by learning through native materials, but to get to the native materials you need to be pay your dues I am afraid (unless you don't mind being inefficient). If you are't willing to grind, I doubt you'll have much success unfortunately.

However, there's certainly light at the end of the tunnel. My wife's Korean friend stayed with us last week and she was shocked at how well I was able to understand and communicate with her in Korean. She thought that I had lived and studied there for years, when in reality it was all due to grinding vocab/grammar in Anki and then practicing what I had learnt with my wife.

[4valor]

I agree, something more important than Anki is of course motivation. Motivation is the key, particularly in such a difficult endeavour as learning Korean. I personally value my time, so for me efficient study methods appeal to me more than "fun" approaches which don't yield good results.

[Adrianslont]

I am far from the best language learner on this forum but it seems to me you are making a few mistakes.
1. Listening to incomprehensible input ie the podcasts - I would ditch those and spend the time relistening to audio from your course books.
2. Killing yourself with anki - I use anki and vary between 10-20 new cards per day. That’s plenty I reckon. Some people do extreme experiments with many more new cards per day but most people find 20 is a max. Anki is great to boost your learning but it can break your spirit if you let it.
3. Sounds like you are trying to learn single words with anki - it works for some people but many others, me included, need sentences with audio or cloze deletion sentences. I would recycle stuff from your course books into cards if you are having trouble with the course material sticking.
4. Spreading yourself too thin with too many resources. I think multitracking is great but I think you are a bit too multi at the moment.

I think you are doing some things well and figuring other things out. I think paying attention to the sound system is a great idea and I think that works well in anki. I think you have identified some good areas to target with a tutor. Maybe just focus on Pimsleur OR TTMIK plus the sounds of Korean plus anki for a while then start with a tutor.

I should have said - I don’t study Korean so I can’t comment on your particular resources and I hear lots of people say how hard Korean is - I do study indonesian though and one thing Indonesian has in common with Korean is a lack of cognates with English - that means you have to recycle the vocabulary a lot to make it stick - especially to begin with - I found anki helpful for that and repeated listenings to the audio I used.

Good luck. I’m sure you’ll get there. Sounds like you’ll be spending lots of time in Korea in years to come - and I’m sure you’ll make gains with each visit if you keep studying.

Edit: spelling

[AndyMeg]

Besides "active" study time, are you frequently interacting with native material? for example listening to korean songs, or watching a korean TV program? (it is Ok to watch with english subs until you can understand enough without them)

I was listening to a podcast for some time, but really couldn't understand much of anything. I didn't feel like I was getting much out of it, but to be fair to this method of learning I was just passively listening to get a sense for prosody more than actually trying to understand what the people were saying.

I watch Korean movie and TV shows not irregularly, but I honestly feel like I'm getting no benefit because I use subtitles in English and essentially tune out what the people are saying (Similar to the podcast listening, it's just passive at that point for me).

If you say you watch korean movie and TV not irregularly it makes me think that you are not that regular either.

I'll tell you my experience and why I recommend it:

Before starting to officially learn/study korean last year, I had been watching k-dramas for many years with english subs. I didn't learnt the language with that kind of activity alone (so I can kind of get where you are coming from when you say that you feel you are getting no benefit from it). But I got to learn a few words and expressions here and there just because they were so commonly used in k-dramas (words like: 아줌마, 아저씨, 아빠, 언니, 어빠, 사랑해!, etc). My point here is that even when you watch with english subs your brain notices things subconsciously and, if they are frequent enough, they start to stick.

There's also something called "the frequency illusion":

Have you ever learned about something and afterwards you start seeing it all the time? Yeah, me too… it’s strange! Why does it happen?

Recently my friend had griped about an unnamed brand of beer I hadn’t heard of before, so I made a mental note to never try this supposedly sucky beer. Shortly after our conversation, I began to see that brand all over the place.

I was at Union Station and there was a gigantic poster advertising the brand right across from the train I was about to board. A few days later, I saw the beer on sale in a 6 pack at the grocery store. The next week, I was driving home after work and I saw a distributing van that was a moving advertisement for the company! What is going on? Why do I see this name everywhere I go?

I typed the previous two questions verbatim into Google, (you don’t know what you don’t know) and to my surprise, I found the answer. What I, and many others, have experienced is called the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon, or Frequency Illusion.

It happens because our brains can deceive us.

Whatever “the thing” is that you now notice, your brain had previously ignored it due to selective attention. It’s an important function of the brain. Your brain processes an unbelievable amount of information every day, it can’t remember everything! So it’s not that “the thing” hasn’t shown up before, it has; you just weren’t aware of it at the time. Now that you are aware of it, you notice it more.

In other words, if I had never heard the beer brand’s name, I might not ever have noticed it. I might have ignored the advertisement at Union Station in the midst of running to catch the train. I might have glanced over the 6 pack of beer in search of my tried and true 6 pack of Guinness at the grocery store. The distributing van may never have caught my attention on my commute home.

I only began to notice it more recently because I now know it exists. I wonder what else I have failed to notice despite it being right in front of me…

A way to complement and multiply your gains from you active study time is to interact with lots of native content (preferably korean native content that you enjoy and, for example, in the case of videos, it is Ok if you watch them with english subs because you subconscious mind will start noticing things here and there, just how it happened to me and to many other kdramas fans that have never started to officially learn/study korean). You don't need to understand everything, you don't even need to understand most of it, you just need to be in contact with (or surrounded by) it and then your subconscious mind will do all the work. And, as I told you, it is OK to watch with english subs until you can quit using them and still have fun.

I'll give you a more concrete example of this phenomenon:

Last year I was reading a korean words frequency list. In the list I found this word: 그대. In the frequency list it said it is a poetic way of saying "you". Around that time I was watching a k-drama called 내일 그대와 (Tomorrow With You) so I immediately connected the to things and realized that the name of the drama and the words used had a poetic/romantic nuance to it. To this day I remember what 그대 means just because of that connection. I didn't use Anki or any special tool in order to remember it. It just happened naturally because it was meaningful to me.

This is just one example of many. By combining active study time with extensive interaction with native content that I enjoy I get to notice (and I start to remember the meaning of) so many things (words, grammar patterns, cultural aspects, etc.). This is because they stop being random things on a dry list/book/app and they become meaningful things to me. For example, I remember what 눈, 코, 입 mean because that's the name of a korean song I like a lot; I remember what 위and 아래 mean because of a song by EXID, I remember what 무서워 along with 가지마 means because that was what the female protagonist of a k-drama said to the male protagonist after she was involved in a traffic accident; I remember what 길 means because while watching 1박 2일 (2 Days & 1 Night) I saw I sign with the name of a road on it and because the name of a yellow flower path also had the word 길 on it. And like this there are many, many more examples I could list.

Of course, if you learn to make the extensive interaction with native korean content more "active" you'll gain a lot more. For example I:

(..) 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.).