The ‘I don't Hate Korean’ Thread

General discussion about learning languages
lichtrausch
Blue Belt
Posts: 511
Joined: Thu Jul 23, 2015 3:21 pm
Languages: English (N), German, Japanese, Mandarin, Korean
x 1381

Re: The ‘I don't Hate Korean’ Thread

Postby lichtrausch » Tue Oct 31, 2017 12:06 am

Sayonaroo wrote:
lichtrausch wrote:
Sayonaroo wrote:and Korean dramas are unwatchable

You have clearly never watched 이름없는 여자 ;)


I just find korean dramas unwatchable but I do have a very short list of dramas I wanted to check out (just in case it's watchable) so i'll add that on there. (Uh never mind checked out ep 1 on YouTube it's unwatchable to me lol. It sounds super annoying and it reminds me of a soap opera) most popular korean dramas are unwatchable to me.

Oh, that wasn't a serious recommendation. Although personally I do like watching it (for language learning), because it's so melodramatic that it's funny. There's more drama in a single episode than most shows have in an entire season. And strangely I have grown attached to some of these ridiculous characters.
0 x

RM123
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu Oct 05, 2017 7:50 am
Languages: English (N)
x 3

Re: The ‘I don't Hate Korean’ Thread

Postby RM123 » Sun Nov 12, 2017 9:24 am

I enjoyed reading this thread, not least because I've recently started some Korean after studying Mandarin for quite a few years. I'm glad that its not all doom and gloom about this language!

I would just ask leosmith, whether one reason (and there could be lots of others) why you found Korean easier than many people say, is because of studying Chinese first? I ask this because lots of the complaints about Korean centre around syllable-boundaries and spelling. But it seems to me that, if you realise a certain Korean sound is in fact a representation of a Chinese character, that would make it much easier to fix and remember that particular Korean sound as a discrete Korean sound with a meaning, rather than as something of indeterminate boundaries and multiple possible spellings.

I've only really just got started with Korean so I don't really know what I'm talking about. But it strikes me that, say for 사과 'apple', if in the back of your mind you've associated 과 with 果, then you've fixed that sound/meaning 과 much more clearly than someone who knows no Chinese. Perhaps that's a really big advantage? So even if the pronunciation of a given sound changes depending on context, you always have an anchor to what its 'basic' sound should be.
1 x

User avatar
leosmith
Brown Belt
Posts: 1341
Joined: Thu Sep 29, 2016 10:06 pm
Location: Seattle
Languages: English (N)
Spanish (adv)
French (int)
German (int)
Japanese (int)
Korean (int)
Mandarin (int)
Portuguese (int)
Russian (int)
Swahili (int)
Tagalog (int)
Thai (int)
x 3104
Contact:

Re: The ‘I don't Hate Korean’ Thread

Postby leosmith » Mon Nov 13, 2017 9:22 am

RM123 wrote:I would just ask leosmith, whether one reason (and there could be lots of others) why you found Korean easier than many people say, is because of studying Chinese first?

Yes, it was helpful. Taking your example a bit further:
사과 sounds like sa-gwa
과일 sounds like kwa-il (usually)
So thinking of 과 as 果 can make recognition easier.
0 x
https://languagecrush.com/reading - try our free multi-language reading tool

nooj
Brown Belt
Posts: 1257
Joined: Tue Jan 24, 2017 12:59 pm
Languages: english (n)
x 3358

Re: The ‘I don't Hate Korean’ Thread

Postby nooj » Tue Nov 14, 2017 6:35 am

Off-topic, but

사과 sounds like sa-gwa


I just watched a video of a Korean woman who is living in Donostia (San Sebastian) and who made a comparison between 사과 and the word for (the) apple in Basque: sagarra. Word order is quite similar as well! Agglutinative language too. I bet this is one language that no one's tried connecting Basque too :lol:
1 x
زندگی را با عشق
نوش جان باید کرد

qeadz
Green Belt
Posts: 298
Joined: Thu Jul 21, 2016 11:37 pm
Languages: English (N), Korean (~A2)
x 400

Re: The ‘I don't Hate Korean’ Thread

Postby qeadz » Wed Nov 15, 2017 8:04 pm

meh. Korean vocab is tough. Just is.

월초 beginning of the month
월말 end of the month

학기 (semester) + 말 (end of some period) --> 기말 end of the semester
학기 (semester) + 초 (beginning of some period) --> not what one might expect because 기초 actually means foundation or basis :x

I've been spending some time lately focusing a bit more on word construction in Korean, which extends to Hanja roots and pure Korean roots as well (I'm only recently beginning this in an attempt to aid my vocab). The goals, of course, are to be able to retain vocabulary better and also be able to figure out words I don't know in some cases. So far its only proving marginally beneficial for the former and has yet to help me with the latter.

Plus there are problem words which I've seen hundreds and hundreds of times - they've been around in the material I've read and listened to for over a year - yet they're on the verge of being leeches in Anki because I just get them confused so much.

주장하다
강조하다

So far my Anki has had 9 leeches in total. I've covered 1629 words which means 1 in 180 words is enough of a problem that Anki wants to remove it from the pool and many more are on the cusp I'm sure!
0 x

RM123
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu Oct 05, 2017 7:50 am
Languages: English (N)
x 3

Re: The ‘I don't Hate Korean’ Thread

Postby RM123 » Sat Nov 18, 2017 12:27 pm

qeadz wrote:meh. Korean vocab is tough. Just is.

월초 beginning of the month
월말 end of the month

학기 (semester) + 말 (end of some period) --> 기말 end of the semester
학기 (semester) + 초 (beginning of some period) --> not what one might expect because 기초 actually means foundation or basis :x


Much easier after Chinese:
초 = 初 = beginning of (a period of time); 말 = 末 = end of (a period of time)

I'm delighted to see this!
2 x

qeadz
Green Belt
Posts: 298
Joined: Thu Jul 21, 2016 11:37 pm
Languages: English (N), Korean (~A2)
x 400

Re: The ‘I don't Hate Korean’ Thread

Postby qeadz » Mon Nov 20, 2017 6:38 pm

RM123 wrote:Much easier after Chinese: ...


grrr... I chose the matching words to make the odd-one-out stand out even more. But my point was that Korean is really filled with the odd ones out and as such I am still finding vocab incredibly tough!
0 x

Sayonaroo
Green Belt
Posts: 256
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2017 12:13 am
Languages: English(N), Japanese -fluent?, Korean - advanced?, Spanish (b1?)
Language Log: http://choronghi.wordpress.com
x 319
Contact:

Re: The ‘I don't Hate Korean’ Thread

Postby Sayonaroo » Mon Nov 20, 2017 10:27 pm

qeadz wrote:meh. Korean vocab is tough. Just is.

월초 beginning of the month
월말 end of the month

학기 (semester) + 말 (end of some period) --> 기말 end of the semester
학기 (semester) + 초 (beginning of some period) --> not what one might expect because 기초 actually means foundation or basis :x

I've been spending some time lately focusing a bit more on word construction in Korean, which extends to Hanja roots and pure Korean roots as well (I'm only recently beginning this in an attempt to aid my vocab). The goals, of course, are to be able to retain vocabulary better and also be able to figure out words I don't know in some cases. So far its only proving marginally beneficial for the former and has yet to help me with the latter.

Plus there are problem words which I've seen hundreds and hundreds of times - they've been around in the material I've read and listened to for over a year - yet they're on the verge of being leeches in Anki because I just get them confused so much.

주장하다
강조하다

So far my Anki has had 9 leeches in total. I've covered 1629 words which means 1 in 180 words is enough of a problem that Anki wants to remove it from the pool and many more are on the cusp I'm sure!


I don't think this problem is unique to Korean. I think it has to due with your study method at least with anki. why don't you just suspend them? Seeing them used in the same way over and over ( IS the format word on the front and meaning on the back) in anki is clearly not working. What will help is seeing those words being used over and over in different contexts in your reading/listening like you said and/or seeing other words that contain the same root hanja. the words you gave as example are pretty common as well as the individual hanja roots so I don't think it's worth reviewing them in anki... all that time and effort could be spent learning other words that are more easily remembered/retained VIA ANKI. are you trying to learn words off a list or learning words you encounter from reading/listening? learning words off a list is problematic for any language...

And maybe you should consider doing remember the hanzi to help you remember the meanings of the hanja. It's even more worth doing if you plan on learning mandarin, cantonese, or Japanese in the future or if you're planning on learning korean to a high level.
Last edited by Sayonaroo on Wed Nov 22, 2017 12:04 am, edited 1 time in total.
1 x

qeadz
Green Belt
Posts: 298
Joined: Thu Jul 21, 2016 11:37 pm
Languages: English (N), Korean (~A2)
x 400

Re: The ‘I don't Hate Korean’ Thread

Postby qeadz » Tue Nov 21, 2017 1:42 am

Sayonaroo wrote:I don't think this problem is unique to Korean. I think it has to due with your study method at least with anki. why don't you just suspend them? Seeing them used in the same way over and over ( IS the format word on the front and meaning on the back) in anki is clearly not working. What will help is seeing those words being used over and over in different contexts in your reading/listening like you said and/or seeing other words that contain the same root hanja. the words you gave as example are pretty common as well as the individual hanja roots so I don't think it's worth reviewing them in anki... all that time and effort could be spent learning other words that are more easily remembered/retained VIA ANKI. are you trying to learn words off a list or learning words you encounter from reading/listening? learning words off a list is problematic for any language...

And maybe you should consider doing remember the hanzi to help you remember the meanings of the hanja. It's even more worth doing if you plan on learning mandarin, cantonese, or Japanese in the future.


I don't want to derail this thread, but feel compelled to reply even though I clearly have derailed it a bit. I am a person that appreciates measurements and as such I prefer them to however I might *feel* about how things are going.

So the very brief history which lead me to where I am now:

I began only reading and listening. Reading old material more than once as well as new material. Upon reviewing my progress, I found that this had not lead to a large vocabulary. After some rigorous testing, it seems I had learned new words at a rate of 4 or 5 per hour of 'Korean exposure'.

So I *added* Anki to the mix - being I continue to read content, but also do Anki. With Anki I found it very tough to get high correct rates. However I have doubled my passive vocabulary in the last 6 months! So even though words _are_ tough, its getting much more to stick than when I was just reading/listening.

Recently I've tried to improve my ability to retain vocab. It was suggested on Reddit by some experienced learners that I should learn the roots. However consensus was that I would not have to learn the actual chinese characters - just the sounds and Hangeul form. So I have made this a focus as of late.

Presently the focus on roots does not seem to appreciably change my actual Anki statistics and as such I don't think its having a measurable result.

Lastly I want to mention that the words you suggest I could leave out of Anki because they're not worth reviewing ARE words I encounter BOTH in Anki AND in the text I read... yet I am getting them wrong. So I conclude that I need _more_ focus on them, not less. I just am unsure what to do.

Hence my final conclusion: Korean is hard. Its vocab is hard. I'm sure other languages might be similarly hard for me too - so Korean might not be alone in this. But that may be the case... Korean and its vocab is still (IMHO) difficult.
1 x

User avatar
smallwhite
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2386
Joined: Mon Jul 06, 2015 6:55 am
Location: Hong Kong
Languages: Native: Cantonese;
Good: English, French, Spanish, Italian;
Mediocre: Mandarin, German, Swedish, Dutch.
.
x 4876

Re: The ‘I don't Hate Korean’ Thread

Postby smallwhite » Tue Nov 21, 2017 4:17 am

qeadz wrote:월초 beginning of the month
월말 end of the month

학기 (semester) + 말 (end of some period) --> 기말 end of the semester
학기 (semester) + 초 (beginning of some period) --> not what one might expect because 기초 actually means foundation or basis :x

기초 and 기말 can mean period-start and period-end (as in financial period).

월초, 월말, 기초 and 기말 are probably words that are sort of built on-the-fly (just like "month-end" and "period-end" aren't dictionary words). 기말 (period-end) is more established than 기초 (period-start) probably because we tend to talk about the end of semesters/years/months more than the beginning of them. Eg. I get busy doing "year-end activities" at work but there's no equivalent word for "year-start activities" or is it "year-beginning activities" and you have to go the long way and say "beginning-of-year activities" instead. Likewise you take 기말 end-of-semester exams but hopefully not beginning-of-semester ones as well :P

And hey, you can say "semester-end" simply and elegantly as 기말 in Korean or as 期末 in Chinese (not even needing a hyphen), while I have to say the mouthful that is "end-of-semester" in English! :x You lucky people learning Korean and Chinese!
4 x
Dialang or it didn't happen.


Return to “General Language Discussion”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: bombobuffoon, Sizen, tastyonions and 2 guests