If I were to learn Korean again, I would focus on vocabulary and nothing else. Once I reached the point where I knew 6,000 words, I would concentrate on other things.
If I were one of those polyglots, I would use this method of acquiring vocabulary first when learning languages. I would have a bank of 6.000 must-know words and I would set out to acquire those words in the target language before I did anything else. Then I would study grammar - first learning BASIC grammar and then moving onto complex grammar. I would then try to acquire more vocabulary by either reading high-level reading material or by getting advanced vocab books. Then I would start move into watching movies and listening and getting my listening and speaking skills going. Then I would go into reading more and start writing. Then when I feel my reading level is high and I am quite good at writing, I would concentrate on speaking and communicating. I would try and pick up colloquial speech and read a lot of colloquial materials and watch dramas and so on. I would try and improve my pronunciation by watching a lot of TV. I would read aloud a lot too. I could learn a language to quite high fluency in six months.
Each successive language I learned would take a slightly shorter time to learn because I would know what method to use and would not waste time. I would plunge into it knowing what I had to do. My studying would be very effective. For example, I would know what kind of vocab I needed to know and set about acquiring it. I would know which books I needed to buy at the beginning.
I think that's how the polyglots learned so many languages so fast. They concentrated on vocab from the first each time. That is the key. That is their secret. They know how to learn vocab fast.
I will do the same. I will lay off the reading and the immersion a bit. I will drop the people to once a week sessions - so I will see Mrs Lim once a week, Seokcheol once a week, the young man once a week, the 504 Dong lady once a week and the science teacher once a week - that is five people. Five hours a week. Then I will do vocab study and not much else. I can watch movies for fun and that's about it. I will not read yet. I have the vocab books I have to go through. I will get some more vocab books - higher level vocab books. I will try and get ones with drills. They are more useful than the ones that are just lists. I will go through the phrase book just for the vocab. I will then go through the WOW comics and the other comic books just for the vocab lists. I will learn and learn the vocab. After I have learned all the vocab in books I will then move to create a vocab list by reading news in Korean. I will memorize the lists. I will keep trying to pick up more and more vocabulary. I will just ignore grammar at this stage. I will ignore writing and speaking. I will stop the conversation lessons after a month. I will do them after a while, maybe in four months time.
I will just soak up as much vocab and look at reading materials from the point of view of vocabulary.
Just make long lists of vocab and memorize them using mnemonics or whatever. I will use quite a few dictionaries until I find a really good one.
Then after two months or three months of picking up vocabulary, I will do reading and grammar studying. I will read and read and try and study the advanced grammar books. I will read the fairytales, the newspaper articles and whatever I can lay my hands on. I will only read non-colloquial stuff. After that, I will move onto talking with people and having conversations with them. I will just listen first and then gradually talk more and more.
Then after that, I will try and become good at writing which is the icing on the cake. I will be able to read news articles, understand the TV news, converse with people, read books for enjoyment and watch dramas and other TV programs for fun. I can read any public notices with ease. I can do anything in Korea that I need to do, by myself, without needing assistance from anyone. I will be quite fast and fluent in speech. I will sound like a native speaker in a short time and astound people by my fluency. Not only that but my pronunciation will be very good. I will use high-level vocabulary. I will also be able to write an article in very good Korean with hardly any grammatical errors. I will have picked up their style of writing and acquired many colloquial phrases and popular expressions. I will know many Korean sayings.
