![Smile :)](./images/smilies/icon_e_smile.gif)
I am certainly still a beginner at the language and will likely be so for quite some time to come. However when the learning gets rough I like to know that someone somewhere is in the same boat as me. More-so I like to to know that someone somewhere *was* in the same boat and can attest that progress is still possible!
This is both intended to be an outlet for me as well as a data point for anyone else in a similar position who wants to see "what can I expect if I begin learning this language!". Let me begin with an introduction:
Many years ago I didn't even know where Korea was on a map. It's not that I had no interest, but rather that it sat alongside a great number of countries I had next to no knowledge of. I have no special love of K-Pop, K-dramas nor a desire to live in Korea.
However I did end up meeting a Korean lady, whom I married and started a family with. Initially I learnt some Korean mostly in an attempt to impress her. She never really was impressed, but her friends were and showered me with praise for being able to coherently utter a word or phrase in the language.
Over the following years I did make some attempts at learning the language. I bought books (& CD's) on my visits to Korea. I had a short stint with Rosetta Stone. But I discovered two important things:
- I needed to have sufficient reason to learn it because its a massive, massive undertaking
- I need to be doing it for myself because doing it for someone else means one's motivation is always bound to that persons acknowledgement.
Multiple things happened last year which set me off on this journey proper.
First I realized that my brief attempts at learning the language clustered around visits to Korea and while this is understandable, it clearly has begun to cast me in a poor light with my relatives there. I'm always making a show of appearing to learn the language, but seemingly never making any progress. It felt kind of bad.
Second my wife plainly told me she doesn't really care whether I learn the language or not. In fact so far as she is concerned, everything else is higher priority - so she's fine with me learning it, as long as it doesn't start to encroach on every day life. She then uttered the words which would fuel me. "Korean is very hard. You won't be able to learn it."
Hah!
And so the reasons which were to be my own and not dependent on someone else were born:
* I've always wanted to learn a second language.
* English isn't that widely spoken in Korea, and I'll be visiting a lot. My visits would be much easier if I could speak a little.
* My parents-in-law don't speak English. My visits would be much easier if I could speak a little ("Im outside the house without a key!")
* I've been challenged that I cannot learn it.
It's been 7 months and counting. The story of how I've gotten to where I am now is another story entirely, but my language learning is underway!