Christi's Spanish and Korean studies

[AndyMeg]

Ps: I stumbled upon a site with Korean schoolbooks on it that can be read on the site itself. I thought I had it bookmarked but can't find it anywhere. Now I wonder if perhaps someone here has shared it or know it and would like to share the link here. It's an legal site, by the publisher of the schoolbooks, they have books from primary school all the way to high school.

Not sure if this is the one you are talking about, but it sounds similar:

Nuri–Sejonghakdang

It is an official website from the King Sejong Institute and there you can find books to read on site and also other books for download:

KOSNET Resource

Study Material: e-book

(If this is not the website you were talking about, and you eventually find it, please share a link here )

[Asarena]

Ps: I stumbled upon a site with Korean schoolbooks on it that can be read on the site itself. I thought I had it bookmarked but can't find it anywhere. Now I wonder if perhaps someone here has shared it or know it and would like to share the link here. It's an legal site, by the publisher of the schoolbooks, they have books from primary school all the way to high school.

Here are two other possibilities that I can think of:
http://www.efka.or.kr/efka0302.asp (mostly books for learning Korean)
http://www.nl.go.kr/english/search/sear ... de_2s=CH4R (mostly older textbooks on various subjects that are in Korean)

[Christi]

Here are two other possibilities that I can think of:
http://www.efka.or.kr/efka0302.asp (mostly books for learning Korean)
http://www.nl.go.kr/english/search/sear ... de_2s=CH4R (mostly older textbooks on various subjects that are in Korean)

Nuri–Sejonghakdang

It is an official website from the King Sejong Institute and there you can find books to read on site and also other books for download:

KOSNET Resource

Study Material: e-book

(If this is not the website you were talking about, and you eventually find it, please share a link here )

Nope, these aren't the site I am looking for.
That site had books of all school subjects for every school year. Uuuurgh, so stupid that I didn't bookmark it correctly. It was really cool. They had all kinds of history books and books on social issues, geography etc. I remember reading some books meant for lower years and being able understand small bits...

[Christi]

메리크리스마스 여러분!

I had my trial lesson on iTalki last Sunday and it was such a failure. For some reason my webcam didn't work and my audio equipment also wasn't up to performing the way it should so there was a lot of background noise...I also worked the night before so was a bit tired and our talk was scheduled at 7:30 am. I felt like I was able to remember a lot of vocabulary but had more difficulty creating more complex sentences, so I guess I'll be focusing on this, once again..

Since it's almost January I've been thinking about what language learning goals I'd like to achieve. I've managed to think of a bunch of them.

Short term goals:
- Review my backlog on Memrise
- Use my reviewed words in sentences, diary entries
- Watch kdramas and try to follow the subtitles (I hope that by watching something in Korean a few days a week my listening skills will improve..)

Long term goals:
- Learn 1000 new words (should bring my word count a bit above 3000)
- Book iTalki classes to practise speaking and listening, budget allows probably one lesson per month
- Finish Active Korean 3 and 4
- Finish the reading resources in my signature and also read the other books/magazines etc I've got.


I've made an excel sheet to keep track of how many words I learn each week. On average I should at minimum learn 20 words per week. Last week I learned 38 and I think this week I will also learn more than 20 words. I've started reading Diary of Dana in Korea and have already found 26 unknown words in the first chapter. There are 15 chapters of 9 pages and each chapter covers a different topic. There are chapters on going for a hospital treatment, make-up, healthy lifestyles, weddings, moving house etc. So the vocabulary I'll encounter will be quite varied. I think it should be doable to read one chapter per week. After that I will finally try to finish those fairy tales since I think the vocabulary should be useful and the effort it takes to read those stories is minimal.

One of these days I'll research which grammar rules I should really learn the upcoming year. There are just so many of them! Any suggestions, based on what you see popping up in written texts or while speaking?

Ps: I've finally counted the words on my Memrise account (it's a manual job..) and came up to 2364 known words for Korean. I excluded a few courses since I'm not sure if I really know them that well.

[AndyMeg]

메리크리스마스!

One of these days I'll research which grammar rules I should really learn the upcoming year. There are just so many of them! Any suggestions, based on what you see popping up in written texts or while speaking?

There's a book called "Essential Korean Grammar" by Laura Kingdon that comes with a rating system of grammar points:

★★★★★ Critical; with only the five-star expressions, you can communicate almost everything you need to say, and without them you’ll have trouble understanding any more than the most basic of sentences.
★★★★ Very helpful; you should learn this if you want to communicate well in Korean
★★★ Useful, fairly common, and will help you sound more natural and fluent
★★ Not that important; grammar only the TOPIK (Test of Proficiency in Korean) people care about
★ Don’t worry about this unless there’s some reason you need to know it

Expressions are also rated according to whether or not they’re used more in speaking or in writing.

The expression is:
Speaking > Writing used more often in speaking than in writing
Speaking < Writing used more often in writing than in speaking
Speaking = Writing used as often in writing as in speaking
Speaking used only in speaking
Writing used only in writing

[Christi]

I just finished reading the second chapter of Dana in Korea and in just those few pages I encountered 50 unknown words. Which makes sense since I've never read anything related to beauty or make-up before. I hope the other chapters won't contain as many words because I don't think I'll be able to keep up. To be honest, I actually think reading only 9 pages a week is very low paced since that will mean finishing this book sometime in March...and I definitely won't be able to finish reading the books from my signature at all..
Let's hope I will become a better(and faster) reader

Last time I mentioned wanting to get better at listening. I've found the perfect resource for this: web dramas! Short, simple and fun! Just need to find the time and decide if I will try to memorize all unknown vocabulary or will only try listening and reading (it has Korean subs). But in any case, it's way easier than trying Iyagi. Some channels with web dramas are Dingo, Beautiology and PlayList (which I found very dull..too much of the same romance stories..).

That's it for my very short update. I'm a bad writer haha.

Ps: anyone got experience with narrow reading? Just thought of doing this. I have so many things I want to try. Am interested in hearing how effective people found it.

[The Real CZ]

Do you mean narrow reading by focusing on one subject? I found that very helpful with my Korean and using it with celebrity news (and interviews). Celebrity news will have fewer specialized words (as opposed to reading political or scientific or business news). You'll also reinforce a lot of the common words you have learned from the textbooks and other learning materials. I can read most celebrity news articles with about a 95% comprehension rate. It helps for the times when I focus on extensive reading and just look up the words I don't know.

I typically also do narrow reading with political news and world (politcal) news. A lot of the vocabulary tends to repeat a lot, though if you don't want to learn some military terms at this stage, I would hold off on that section. You can pair this with SRS or not, but repeated reading of certain subjects will make reading other articles easier, as you'll remember words easier that you've seen dozens of times before.

[Christi]

I recently discovered that there will also be a Topik in my country. I think I might apply for it. Not sure how to study for it though. I got Topik in 30 days intermediate version (which I won't do in 30 days, and will put off for a while), Topik writing (a weak point of mine), KGIU intermediate and some casual books (Yonsei reading 2 and 3, comics etc).

Tbh, at this moment I think I'm nowhere near level 3. Haven't tried any mock exams yet, but my listening and writing skills don't seem very good and while I do know something like 2200 words, I don't think they are words that will appear on the tests (formal and about things like politics, economics etc). Perhaps I should buy TTMIK's News in Korean. Am worried it might be too difficult for me though. Any thoughts? Am not feeling hopeful

But! There's almost a year before I will need to take the test, so perhaps I should just give it a go, study towards it and see if it's possible to apply ( and then pass the test). If in August-September I think it's not possible then I'll just let it go and will at least have improved my Korean.

If I'm going to take this test I will need to study more systemically. So I think I should create some sort of weekly plan (but anyone reading my blog knows I don't usually stick to my plans, oops).

Here it goes:

Weekly goals
- finish episode 3 of Diary of Dana in Korea (DDIK)
- finish chapter 6 of Active Korean (AK)
- watch a webdrama, but don't write down any words unless there's time to study them
- take Topik I mock test
- take Topik II mock test (will be way too hard but still..)
- chat online with this Korean person I vaguely know
- rewatch TTMIK's beginner iyagi to solidify vocab and check listening comprehension.

Wow! This seems like a lot! I wonder if I will be able to finish it all. Oh, does anyone know of cheap goshiwons/ccomodations in Seoul and if it's possible to rent one as a tourist? I might go to Seoul in 2020 and take a language course so am trying to see how much budget I'll need and if I'll be able to scrape the money together.

Do you mean narrow reading by focusing on one subject? I found that very helpful with my Korean and using it with celebrity news (and interviews).

Yes, only reading about one subject for a while. Where do you read your celebrity news/interviews? I think reading about politics will still be too dificult for me, unless the articles are very short.

[The Real CZ]

I go to Naver, and then click 뉴스. You can also click 연예 on the front page as well. If there's a drama you're watching, there's a bunch of news articles about each episode. That is a good way to quickly learn vocabulary because for example, if you read articles about each episode, and usually at a minimum there's 16 episodes, you'll quickly see a lot of words repeated and will consolidate words that you learned from articles that you read about the first few episodes. Depending on your level, you should have about a 90% comprehension level for articles about that drama.

[Christi]

Ps: I stumbled upon a site with Korean schoolbooks on it that can be read on the site itself. I thought I had it bookmarked but can't find it anywhere. Now I wonder if perhaps someone here has shared it or know it and would like to share the link here. It's an legal site, by the publisher of the schoolbooks, they have books from primary school all the way to high school.

Have been and still am quite busy with uni so haven't studied Korean since my last update.
I found the site I was looking for though. http://jihak.co.kr/ if you click on 교과서 you can select whether you want to browse books from primary or secondary school and then select different school subjects to read books on.

On a different note, I have decided to change my study routine. Instead of finishing all those stories that were in my signature I think it makes more sense to finish Yonsei Reading and Essential Korean reader in order to prepare for Topik. I will try to read Dana in Korea on the side. Secondly, I think I will not start on Active Korean 4 after finishing book 3 this week. Book 4 is supposed to be for high intermediate students, even though I think the content of the book doesn't seem to be very difficult.

Tbh, I think at my pace it doesn't seem realistic to aim for Topik 3 this November. If I read one chapter a week I will only just have started book 3. And I'd also need to make time for writing and listening skills Perhaps I just shouldn't try to add every new word I encounter into Memrise. That would save a lot of time. But then I wonder if I'll be able to actually remember everything. Haven't figured this out yet. Will just see how things go.


Additionally, I want to share a few books that I want to buy someday in the far future. They way too difficult at the moment, but it's nice to hope. Found on Heyeonni and some other sites. Has anyone read any of these books, in Korean or other languages? What did you think?


The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared


Paulo Coelho's Tweetbook


My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry


I want to die but I want to eat tteokbokki

And some poems

A Woman's Heart - Beautiful classics from Korea's women poets