My korean adventure: fun and enjoyment as a guide

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AndyMeg
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Re: My korean adventure: fun and enjoyment as a guide

Postby AndyMeg » Sat May 12, 2018 4:11 pm

Christi wrote:What kind of shows do you watch? And good to know you also watch things with subs haha.

I'm currently watching four korean TV shows: two variety programs ("2 Days & 1 Night" --> 1박 2일 and "Hello Counselor" --> 안녕하세요) and two k-dramas ("Switch: Change the World" -->스위치 - 세상을 바꿔라, with english subs. And "High Kick Through The Roof" --> 지붕 뚫고 하이킥, without english subs).

Here you can find info about some dramas I've recently watched:

- [Duel - 듀얼] and [I'm Not a Robot - 로봇이 아니야]

- [While you were sleeping - 당신이 잠든 사이에]

- [Tunnel - 터널]

- [This Is My First Life / This Life Is Our First - 이번 생은 처음이라]

- [The Best Hit - 최고의 한방]

I was also watching "Welcome to Waikiki" (으라차차 와이키키) and I think it is a really fun show (it is a comedy-drama). When they decided to extend it to 20 episodes in total, they made a pause of a week or two (I don't remember) and I forgot to go back to it. But I hope to get back to it very soon.
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AndyMeg
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Re: My korean adventure: fun and enjoyment as a guide

Postby AndyMeg » Sat May 12, 2018 4:44 pm

I think I'm getting into a routine for early mornings:

After I've taken out my dog for a walk I read a bit of the book "Essential Korean Grammar" by Laura Kingdon. After that I take the Viki's vocab quiz once, watch an episode of a k-drama (the ones I'm currently watching are usually less than 35 minutes long each) and then I read at least one page of the Easy to Learn Korean series.

The problem comes later in the day. These past days have been difficult in many fronts and instead of doing a new cycle of [1) Viki's vocab quiz 2) an episode of a k-drama 3) read the "Easy to Learn Korean series"] what I've actually been doing is to watch bits of an english-subbed thai drama I started some days ago and also bits of the one without subs. And, by the way, the thai drama I was watching without subs finished this week (it is the first thai drama that I've watched completely without subs and I would like to use it in the future to learn thai from it). I think I'm doing this because it is just easier to watch a bit of a thai drama than to have to do steps 1 and 3 of the cycle in order to watch a k-drama episode. Of course, as I don't have that rule for the korean variety TV shows, I squeezed in one episode too.

Every night, before going to bed, I try to make another cycle, but I'm usually too sleepy and tired to complete it. So the next morning I try to complete it and, if time allows, I start (and finish) another cycle.
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AndyMeg
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Re: My korean adventure: fun and enjoyment as a guide

Postby AndyMeg » Mon May 14, 2018 9:10 pm

Quick update:

I've started to watch "Rich Man" (리치맨) without subs. This is a remake of one of my favorite j-dramas: "Rich Man, Poor Woman", and I think it is a good candidate to watch without subs because I already know the general story from the original version.

I was hoping to find some recaps for this k-drama but so far I've had no luck. It just started airing a week ago, so maybe someone will start recaping it soon. Meanwhile I'm wondering if I should rewatch each episode with english subs.

From now on I decided to start watching the "next episode"'s previews with english subs (both for this new k-drama and for "High Kick Through The Roof" --> 지붕 뚫고 하이킥). I'm also thinking about rewatching old k-dramas without subs, but I have yet to decide on one to start with.

I also decided to read the cultural notes from the series "맞춤 스페인어권 한국어: Coreano para la Comunidad Coreana Hispanohablante" because I was missing those textbooks so much and also because they'll give me more cultural context and insights. This is what I do: I just quickly read the korean text to see how much I understand and then I read the english translation. I don't know if it's because I've been focusing on listening lately, but now I feel that reading korean in my mind flows way better than before. I won't read outloud for the time being because I'm not sure about how to pronounce certain words and I don't want to fossilize errors.

I've only watched the first episode of "Rich Man" (리치맨), but for now I feel that I can understand a lot more when I watch the episodes of High Kick Through The Roof (지붕 뚫고 하이킥). Maybe it's because each episode of High Kick Through The Roof (지붕 뚫고 하이킥) covers a complete mini-story while the other k-drama's episodes are more like fragments of a bigger story that's only starting.

Another change I made was with the “Easy to Learn Korean” series. I keep reading the pages but not necessarily after finishing a k-drama episode. This way I hope to increase the amount of k-drama episodes I watch (because now I'll only have to take the Viki's vocab quiz before watching a new episode).
Last edited by AndyMeg on Sat May 19, 2018 4:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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AndyMeg
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Re: My korean adventure: fun and enjoyment as a guide

Postby AndyMeg » Fri May 18, 2018 6:31 pm

Quick update:

For the time being, I've decided to stop reading the the book "Essential Korean Grammar" by Laura Kingdon. I enjoy the book, but I want to focus first on a few things instead of spreading too thin. For now I want my main focus to be vocabulary and context (still within the "focus on listening" stage), so I'll continue taking the Viki's vocab quiz before each new k-drama episode I watch and reading the "Easy to Learn Korean" series and the cultural notes from the series "맞춤 스페인어권 한국어: Coreano para la Comunidad Coreana Hispanohablante" (for which I'll read first the english equivalent and then the korean version).

I decided to not continue watching "Rich Man" (리치맨) without subs and instead start watching it with english subs. I made this decision because just as it happened to me at the beginning of this year with the korean dubbed version of "Hikaru no go" (고스트바둑왕), it felt frustrating knowing the general story but not being able to understand the finer details. The good news is that I don't seem to have that problem when watching "High Kick Through The Roof" (지붕 뚫고 하이킥), which is a sitcom; so I followed a suggestion I read somewhere and started to watch another sitcom without subs: Nonstop 6/ Rainbow Romance (논스톱 6 / 레 인보우 로망스).

Before starting to watch Nonstop 6/ Rainbow Romance (논스톱 6 / 레 인보우 로망스) I read the recap for the first four episodes that I found here: Rainbow Romance/Non-Stop 6 recap (Ep. 1). After that I watched the first episode without subs and I'm eager to continue watching the series.
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Dak
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Re: My korean adventure: fun and enjoyment as a guide

Postby Dak » Sat May 19, 2018 1:30 am

It seems you study mostly from watching shows? How long did it take you to get to this point? I've been studying for a while now and it's only recently that I've been able to watch a TV show with Korean subs and not have too much trouble getting through it.
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AndyMeg
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Re: My korean adventure: fun and enjoyment as a guide

Postby AndyMeg » Sat May 19, 2018 4:43 pm

Dak wrote:It seems you study mostly from watching shows? How long did it take you to get to this point? I've been studying for a while now and it's only recently that I've been able to watch a TV show with Korean subs and not have too much trouble getting through it.

Yes, I do.

I started to use native materials (basically TV shows and music) from the very beginning.

I started to learn korean in January last year. You can read my old log here: K-dramas: Here I come!

As you can see from my previous post, I still have trouble with one-hour-long no-subbed k-drama episodes. But I've discovered that I'm able to understand and enjoy sitcoms more than I initially thought I could, which is why, currently, my main source of native TV without subs comes from watching the sitcoms I mentioned. And I still watch plenty of korean TV with english subs (but I've gotten into the habit of frequently compare the korean I hear with the english subs I read. And I pay a lot of attention to the context and the written korean I find in the TV shows: in street signs, name tags, uniforms, stores' tags, etc).
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AndyMeg
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Re: My korean adventure: fun and enjoyment as a guide

Postby AndyMeg » Sun May 27, 2018 12:18 am

So far I've watched 410 minutes of no-subbed korean video content (mainly in the form of sitcoms, short TV dramas and 1 episode of a variety TV show). And I've also been watching korean TV with english subs.

I've also read up to page 41 of the "Easy to Learn Korean" series and 6/15 of the cultural notes from "맞춤 스페인어권 한국어-1: Coreano para la Comunidad Coreana Hispanohablante".

I decided to make some small changes and to start some "new" activities:

- I realized that I find it annoying to have to take the Viki's vocab quiz each time I'm about to watch a new episode of a k-drama. I like taking the quiz, but taking it between one episode and the next of the same k-drama feels annoying because it interrupts the flow of the story. Because of this I decided to change my approach to the Viki's vocab quiz: from now on I won't have to take the Viki's vocab quiz before watching a k-drama episode; instead, I want to make small challenges. When I achieve a challenge I'll decide on the next one. I'll start with a challenge that I think will be easy to achieve (because most of the time I get all of the "easy" words right). Here is the challenge:

To get all the "easy" words right during 10 consecutive attempts. If I fail at any attempt I'll start back from zero.

- Last year I tried to work through some TV dramas by watching each episode at least twice and, usually, three times before moving on to the next one. I enjoyed this activity for a while but then it became a bit too hard for me and I decided to stop. One of the reasons it was difficult for me (besides me being an absolute beginner at the time) was that I was cutting each episode in three parts and I had to watch each part three times before moving to the next one (first without subs, then with english subs, and finally without subs again) and that interrupted the flow of the story which made it difficult to enjoy it as much as I could have. At that time I also thought about watching complete episodes instead of cutting them into smaller parts, but at that time it was incredibly hard for me to watch an hour long episode without subs once, let alone twice. But this time I think I've found a solution that seems to be working fine: very short mini-dramas. These really short dramas are usually around 20 minutes long (or less) per episode which makes it really easy to go three times through each episode in around an hour (or less). And it's great because with them I have complete very short episodes instead of having to cut a longer episode in smaller parts. This way the flow of the story doesn't feel affected. For now I started with a very short drama called "Nightmare Teacher" (악몽선생) and I've worked through the first two episodes. I watch each episode three times (first without subs, then with english subs, and finally without subs again). One thing I've noticed is that the second time I watch without subs I recognize a lot more words and expressions than the first time. It seems that watching with english subs helps me to detect some words and expressions that I already know but that get lost (or slip under the radar) in the middle of the "unknown words and expressions"'s jungle.

- From time to time I've been listening to some TTMIK podcasts. I'm currently on level 2, lesson 10.
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AndyMeg
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Re: My korean adventure: fun and enjoyment as a guide

Postby AndyMeg » Mon May 28, 2018 11:06 pm

Quick update:

I miss the "맞춤 스페인어권 한국어: Coreano para la Comunidad Coreana Hispanohablante" series too much, so I decided to add it (not just the cultural notes but the whole textbooks) as a complementary activity to my current focus on lots of native listening input (which, currently, is mainly in the form of watching korean TV and listening to korean songs).
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AndyMeg
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Re: My korean adventure: fun and enjoyment as a guide

Postby AndyMeg » Wed May 30, 2018 3:54 pm

Quick update:

Today I decided to randomly read a few pages of the book 2 of the "세종한국어" textbook series. I read the "only-korean" version and it was nice to see that I could understand most of it, especially because my approach to korean language learning has never been textbook-centered. I like to do this from time to time to see how much I've progressed in my understanding of the korean language.

I love the "맞춤 스페인어권 한국어: Coreano para la Comunidad Coreana Hispanohablante" series of textbooks because the books are aimed at korean elementary school kids living overseas, so they are full of images and color, and there's not much density of text, which I think it's great in order to not interfere with my current main focus on listening. And as they are aimed at korean kids I feel the korean teached there is more natural and real-life-like that what you find in textbooks aimed at foreigners. And they don't drown you in overcomplicated explanations of grammar points. If I finish the first book of the series, that would be the first korean textbook that I complete from start to finish. :mrgreen:
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AndyMeg
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Re: My korean adventure: fun and enjoyment as a guide

Postby AndyMeg » Sun Jun 03, 2018 7:11 pm

Current activities summary:

- So far I've watched 572 minutes of no-subbed korean video content and I've also continued watching korean TV with english subs.

- I've read up to page 45 of the "Easy to Learn Korean" series and I'm on page 60 of the "맞춤 스페인어권 한국어-1: Coreano para la Comunidad Coreana Hispanohablante" textbook.

- I've worked through the first four episodes of the very short drama "Nightmare Teacher" (악몽선생). I watch each episode three times (first without subs, then with english subs, and finally without subs again).

- From time to time I've been listening to some TTMIK podcasts. I'm currently on level 2, lesson 14.

- Since I decided to change the way I work with the Viki's vocab quiz I've taken it a total of 4 times and in all of them I've got all the "easy" words right. I think the change was a good idea because now I'm watching more k-drama episodes, but I think I need to make some small adjustments in order to increase the amount of times I take the quiz each week. I'll try to get into the routine of taking the quiz three times a day (once in the morning, once around noon and once at night).

As a small anecdote, in the last Viki's vocab quiz I found the word "발목" and I remembered I had recently come in contact with a similar word while watching "Nightmare Teacher" (악몽선생): "손목", which means "wrist". I knew "손" means "hand" and I knew "발" was "foot", so I deduced that if "손목" was "wrist" then "발목" was probably "ankle" (and I was right! :) ). I followed a similar analysis process with many words during that quiz and I got the second highest score I've ever got for the "hard" words (8 out of 10) and for the whole quiz (79%). And as I got really curious about the meaning of "목" I looked it in the Naver Dictionary and learnt that it means "neck".


On other fronts, I've started a small experiment: to try to watch twice the half-an-hour-long kdrama episodes that I'm currently watching with english subs (not the sitcoms that I still watch without subs). The idea is to watch each episode first with english subs and then watch them again without subs before moving on to the next episode. So far I've only done it once (with episode 8 from "Handsome Guy and Jung Eum, The Undatables" --> 훈남정음). I may also try to do this with some segments of the Variety TV program "Hello Counselor" (안녕하세요), but that's yet to be seen.
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