Wow! I have really improved! I was reading a WOW comic "The Prince and the Pauper" by Mark Twain, and I understood a lot of it myself! The last WOW comic I read was difficult compared to this. I was struggling. Now I am not. And I am enjoying reading a little bit. Because of the pictures too I can guess a lot of the meaning even if I don't fully understand the dialogs. Because I am anal I am looking up every word I don't know in the Google Translate. But even without looking up the words, I can read through the comic quite fast and have reasonable comprehension. The word list in the comic books are just terrible but that's because they are more suited for a Korean speaker learning English and not for an English speaker learning Korean. That's why I still have to look up Google Translate (even though there is a translated vocab list). The grammar idiosyncracies don't worry me so much -- not like before. I have learned to ignore them and just try and understand the gist of what the characters are trying to say.
So I am making progress!
I might get some friend to read the comic's dialogs for me and I will record the voice so I have an aural reference as well.
Still, it's not the same as reading prose. But I want to read easy prose, not prose containing long sentences and more than one idea in a sentence.
So I have to hunt down easy prose. It's not easy. Something that has a lot of pictures and easy to understand sentences. So far I am not having much success finding easy prose.
Then as I get better with reading, I can progress onto harder stuff, with more content that's suitable for adults. And then eventually, I will read newspapers and so on that all adults can read. That would be great when that day arrives! By then I would have read a lot I hope! Reams and reams of stuff and probably absorbed (subconsciously) the grammar.
So because my situation is abnormal (for someone living in a country where the target language is spoken) and I am not getting exposure to the language from people around me, I have to study in an alternative way. This way involves self-study - learning some grammar and some vocabulary words - then reading material that is at the same level as I am (after doing the self-study). Then I study more - learning more vocabulary (and phrases) and perhaps learning more grammar -- and then doing some reading again -- at this time at a slightly higher level, and then repeating the process all over again.
To get some aural input, I watch contemporary dramas without (and with) subtitles. Doing this will help me with pronunciation and hopefully I will recognize some words I have learned through self-study. My ear will get used to certain phrases. These are the ones that are spoken commonly in conversation. I will learn these phrases and their meanings without consciously parsing the grammar. Because I learn these phrases to the point where saying them is automatic, I will have absorbed the grammar in these phrases.
So all these disparate activities help. I don't know if I am learning slower than I would if I was in full immersion but immersion is out of the question at the moment. I don't really want to hang out at hofs -- not my scene at all (I don't even drink ... as in practically NEVER) -- and I don't imagine myself living in a hasuk. I don't know where to find one. I might get a friend to help me find one.
The other idea I have is traveling around Korea and just staying in yeogwans, Buddhist temples and similar places, by myself and interacting with the locals. I think this is a good idea. I might do this when I have worked out a plan/itinerary. I do like the sound of this. I might do it as an experiment to see whether I can get some kind of immersion this way and also if I do, if immersion works to improve my language ability.
I really am itching for immersion.
