of the IL book, the quicker I become in reading it. I don't go through all the examples laboriously now; I just get the essence of the grammar term and look at the construction.
The Workbook is helpful. I think I had better do it this time. It helps me clarify some of the grammar terms. I get practise in spelling and writing grammatically correctly. The thing though is that there is killer vocabulary in the Workbook. I have to look up words in every sentence.
There are some mistakes in that book as well. It gives answers to different questions at times. There were some mistakes in the production of the book obviously. Pretty sloppy. And also the book has got Korean all over it. I had to photocopy the answers so that I can look at them side by side the exercises as I do them instead of flipping to the answers at the back of the book and losing my place.
The book is kind of thick and I don't like its setting very much.
However, now that I have got stuck into it, it's rather fun doing it. I think it does cement the knowledge in my mind. It's not too bad. It's worth doing the exercises.
Some grammar terms are just not going to stick in my head. I think the more I focus on a section and get to thoroughly know it the better.
I think doing the Workbook helps this process happen.
Also, I think I had better test myself. I've made lists in a notebook of the grammar term so if I cover up the explanations and try and remember them and write them down on a piece of paper on top and then check the answerrs it will help me learn the grammar terms. The ones I know well I don't have to focus on. It's just the ones I don't know that well that I have to spend more time on until they stay in my brain.
The Conjugation chapter is not that bad once I break it down into categories.
And then I can make categories of putting like terms together.
So that the info is organized in my mind.
I am getting quite better at grammar. The spelling explanations are lacking though. I get mixed up between when to use n/nun. Sometimes it's to do with past and present tense; other times it's to do with vowel or consonant ending of the word. I had better get this straightened out. I don't know how the book distinguishes these different endings. I had better find out then I will be more confident with my spelling.
So when I review the book quickly, it's much better. I am getting the big picture now. I am starting to distinguish between the grammar terms.
I just have to study in this way.
Also, I have to make vocabulary lists. I will make one for the textbook and one for the workbook too.
There is so much vocab I have to learn. However, I will stick to my plan of learning advanced grammar and being really good at it and then concentrating on vocabulary.
The dictionary on the Samsung tab is really great; it's helped me a great deal. I am so glad that I started using this dictionary.
With this dictionary, I can learn many new words and phrases.
I have to keep going. So the plan is to on my FOURTH review of the text book do the workbook along with making lists in the notebooks with simple grammatical explanations next to them.
Then do each section by section. I think it's a good idea to break it up into blocks. Get to know each block thoroughly. Then move onto the next block. It really helps me to do that. The charts I've found not much help actually. The notebook exercises are better I think.
The workbook will help a lot with spelling I think so I need to get through that.
So after my FOURTH review which involves doing the workbookand testing myself by going through the lists I've made in the notebook, I've got to then make vocab lists from the textbook and workbook. This isn't really grammar review though.
After that I will do the last review which is ...? I am not sure. Maybe just go through the book again and spend time on the terms that have trouble sticking in my brain. Go through the mistakes in the workbook. And really clarify things in my mind. Know the stuff 100%. You can also go through the lists in the notebooks and test yourself again. I think a final review is in order because while doing the workbook, I would have forgotten a lot while I was doing it.
Maybe I should then do vocab study ...
So to summarize: finish doing the workbook exercises. Then test yourself by going through the list in the notebook and writing down the explanations, covering up the explanations in the notebook, and then checking your answers. This should tell you which terms you are having difficulty remembering.
You should finish Conjugational Endings, then do Particles and then Nouns. Then do the rest of the chapters going through the workbook at the same time and going through the examples, not getting bogged down in detail.
Then after that, make the vocab lists.
Then after that, time for final review. This involves testing yourself again by going through the notebooks and making like categories of grammatical terms. You can create this in another exercise book. Go through the errors in the exercises. Really clarify things in your mind. Go through everything thoroughly and test your recall constantly. Flip through and test your knowledge. Spend time on the difficult terms. Maybe write them out twenty times on a scrap of paper. Don't review things too quickly. Spend time on the hard terms.
Then you when you are confident you have really absorbed all the grammatical terms, you can move on.
If you are not confident, you will have to do a sixth review. This involves going through each section, testing yourself, making notes of the difficult terms by marking them in the book (maybe with a colored pencil or highlighter) and then learning them until you can recall them easily. Review the workbook again and just spend time going through the textbook reviewing briefly the examples but NOT getting bogged down in them. I think by this point, you will be really well-versed in Korean grammar. And don't forget to qucikly review Korean Grammar in Use book. You've made lists but you need to put 1) 2) 3) meanings of the one grammatical term together. I did forget quite a lot from that book. The spelling stuff is also hard to remember too. I forget which verbs are regular and which ones are irregular.
Just make sure this is clear in your head, spend some extra time learning this. Maybe test yourself a bit. This will require brute memorization by the way. Just test yourself over and over until knowing all of this becomes automatic.
It IS hard but manageable. After this, your writing should be quite good. You would be able to write most sentences with the correct grammar and spelling.
I think you need both books really. Some things the KGU book explains better. Go through the books quickly comparing the stuff in some sections. For example, the quotations chapters are slightly different.
So get everything settled. Also don't forget to get Honorifics/different speech levels straightened out in your mind.
Just get EVERYTHING settled in your mind. If there are still things that don't make sense to you, ask someone who is good at speaking English who can explain things to you.
I think learning Korean is mostly about self-study.
Surprisingly, even though I am not learning listening and speaking, I am comprehending a lot of stuff I hear now. It's getting better. I am not even making an effort and find myself recognizing many words in spoken speech.
So this is fun. It's really enjoyable to make a plan and carry it out and find yourself understanding more and more. I think my knowledge has increased so much. I am really beyond the stage I need to learn basic vocabulary. I need to know more complex vocabulary and pick up the many thousands of phrases. Actually much of the vocab learning involves learning phrases. That's why the dictionary is so helpful. It teaches me how Koreans put words together. Sometimes it's similar to the way English-speakers speak; other times, it's not.
I really enjoy the process.
The first time I went through the book, it was HELL. This is my third/fourth time going through the book and it's much better.
Also I am not getting bogged down in the details of the sentences as much so that helps. Also I am focusing on the dictionary meaning of the grammar terms and that helps. My own interpretations are often better than the books. If I didn't have copyright problems, I would rewrite that grammar book and use my own explanations of the grammar terms and my own translations. I would make the translations more consistent.
I would have a definition key as well which would list expressions and phrases.
Still my reading sucks but I think this is more my lack of vocabulary. I am glad that I studied the grammar terms because now I can distinguish between grammar terms and ordinary words. I don't have to spend time anguishing over a word that doesn't appear in the dictionary because it is a grammar term.
I think the more I read and look things up, the more expressions I will pick up.
So yeah, I have to revisit the KGU book. It has a few things that aren't in the IL book surprisingly.
I thought the IL was supposed to have EVERYTHING.
There are also some things I am confused about with respect to the different uses of speech. What do you use when you write a report as opposed to speaking and so on.
I have to straighten these things out. I might have to refer to the UK book for this. It has a few chapters where things are explained better than in the IL book.
I really have to study HARD. There is a lot to do. After I finish grammar I will feel like I've reached the top of a mountain. It will be much easier.
All I have to do then is try and pick up loads of vocab. I can do that easily and I will also have peace of mind when I do this. So this process will be fast. I can absorb a lot of vocab in a short time. I won't study the vocab books. I found that they didn't help that much - there is lack of context.
So I will read masses and make a scrapbook with newspaper clippings. I will choose easy and short clippings and move onto progressively longer and harder clippings.
I will just look things up all day long. I can look up about 40 words in an hour. So if I study for 10 hours a day I can look up 400 words in a day. In about 30 days that will be 12,000 words. :) I will be close to reaching my goal of 10,000 words. Of course I will forget many of the words as soon as I read them so I have to make time for review if I can.
I hate reviewing so I don't know how this is going to happen. Maybe just read and recite and write down on a scrap of paper many times; write the romanization as well. I get k and j mixed up and oo and o too. I also get other things mixed up because many of the letters look the same.
I have to really go through everything and sort through everything out in my mind.
So it will take me about a month to learn masses of vocabulary. Two months and my vocabulary will be so much better. So just concentrate on this and learn as much as you can.
After this, your reading should be so much better. You will have knowledge of grammar and knowledge of vocab so there should be lots of stuff you can read easily. I found that when I read Pinocchio this time it was much easier. It was just vocab that got in the way. The grammar was good.
So just concentrate on learning each grammar term thoroughly and not being confused in your mind. Practise writing by doing the workbook. The workbook is quite important I realize. It will take a long time to get through it but I have to learn each grammar term thoroughly I think.
Know the grammar book back to front. I think if I go through the workbook and also review the answers in the workbook once my knowledge will really increase. I am still a little confused by some things however, especially the n/nun stuff. I had better get that straightened out soon otherwise this confusion will persist. I might have to ask a Korean person about this.
I don't think Mrs L is the right person to ask about this though.
So just learn everything thoroughly. Grammar you really need to study on your own. After you learn grammar thoroughly you are about one-third of the way there. I think it would take me four weeks to get through all the revision I need to do doing this with fulltime study. It takes about fourteen days to go through the work book and write the lists. Then it will take ten days to review the book again. And then do clean up study. And it will take a few days to make vocab lists. Then do a grand review, looking at other text books as well. Just making sure you know the stuff thoroughly. Review and review. So it might take 3 to 4 weeks before you are confident that you know everything. Just go through the lists in the notebooks and review them. Memorize and test yourself. Probably you have to test yourself on about a thousand grammar terms. After another review you will be familiar with 70% of them. After another review, you will be familiar with about 90% of them and then after a final review you will know about 100% of them. With each review you will get to know off by heart more and more vocab terms.
Don't forget to spend more time on the harder grammar terms and spend less time on the terms you already know. Remember this is not a vocab learning exercise. You must remember each grammar term and be able to recognize them in writing.
And you should be able to use the grammar term yourself.
So there are many tasks ahead.
However, I realize that Korean is quite a regular language for the most part.
That is good. I don't have to learn long lists of exceptions esp in spelling like in English.
English is a bit of a jumble in this respect though I prefer English not the least of all because it is written with Roman characters.
I really don't like Hangeul. Hangeul is bad. So one more month on grammar and I'm done with it. Then one or two more months on vocab and then I am ready for speaking and shadowing. Just do tons of shadowing. It's not that hard to do actually. Just doing lots of listening. I think my speaking will improve dramatically after this.
My reading will be heaps better as I do lots of reading and looking up words in the dictionary and then I will start to be fluent in speaking. I still don't know whether to start the shadowing with the vocab learning. I don't like to do too many things at the same time but doing shadowing might break the monotony of learning vocabulary. It will be a hassle getting people to help me by allowing me to record their voices. I wonder if I should help people by teaching them English in return for them allowing me to record their voices. I think actually they might be flattered by this. I might advertise for language teachers and pay them man won at a time and then record them for an hour. A lot can be done in an hour I think. I can record maybe about ten hours this way. I don't want to spend a lot of money on this. I might just advertise for language partners or ask the people I already know to allow me to record their voices.
I will see how I feel when the time comes. I shouldn't feel impatient. Do things one at a time. Get the grammar done. It has to be done at some point so now is the time to do it. And then after you do the vocab study and feel you can read and write well, you can sit for the Korean language exam. That will be so good but it won't mean I am fluent of course. But it will mean that' I've mastered the mechanics and can read to an acceptable standard and write to a good standard as well.
I think I could have learned the language in six months if I had studied it the right way from the beginning. I would have used the Galaxy tab dictionary from the beginning. I would have learned the Magic Vocab 600 words earlier on. I would have moved onto the IL book straight after the KGU book. I would have finished that in about one month. Then I would have moved onto vocabulary and done that for two months. Then I would have done shadowing for three months. The grammar study would take about two months in total at a guess. Then after six months I would be pretty good at speaking, reading and writing. Of course the speaking would need a lot of live practice but I would have my foot in the door. I could concentrate on just studying speaking by shadowing and interacting with people. I might have even gotten a job where I have to speak in Korean with people.
I think this will all be great! I really need to study TONS more. But after the grammar study it will be smooth sailing. I will review the grammar books occasionally especially IL and KGU books. The trick is to spend time on the difficult stuff and not spend much time on the easier stuff. That is don't spend your time equally on every grammar word. Realize where your weaknesses and concentrate on them. Each review is faster I realize. I think if it helps me to try and understand the grammar word myself instead of relying on the authors' interpretations.
Some of the chapters involve just memorizing vocab: the Passives/Causatives chapter/Adverbials/Prefixes.
Some chapters are a mixed bag. For example, Particles has some easy sections and then some words that are really hard to learn.
Same with Nouns.
The hardest chapters are Conjugational, Particles, Nouns and Quotations. Conjugational isn't that hard actually; there are just so many words to learn in that section ... but now I've broken it down into sections, it isn't too bad. Particles is really hard near the end. Nouns is not too bad but like Conjugational there are many terms to learn.
The good thing about Nouns is that the nouns are actual words you can look up in the dictionary and knowing their meanings helps to understand their functions in sentences.
Quotations starts off OK and then becomes REALLY hard. Quotations are important so I have to know this section off by heart. Don't spend too much time on the easy stuff and concentrate on the harder stuff. If you don't study like this, skimming quickly through the easy bits and then spending longer on the hard bits, by the time you reach the harder parts, you've run out of steam and spend very little time on them.
You need to spend longer on the harder stuff. I can't emphasize that enough. Review and review.
I think you have to start counting calories too as you are getting chubby.
So you have some tasks ahead of you now. It's a bit disorganized your method of study at the moment: reviewing, making lists, doing the workbook and testing your knowledge of grammar terms with your own tests. But I think after I do this and do another review things will straighten out in my mind and some of the questions about spelling will be straightened out.
I need to ask somebody about the n/nun problem quickly though. I am really confused. I should ask bbensi about it. You are getting some sort of snapshot of all the grammar terms in my mind which is great. That is what I want to happen. Actually I think I only have 25% of the knowledge I need. After the next review, that will jump to 50%. I will do as many reviews as needed to really consolidate that knowledge in my mind. I know that spelling is my weak point so I will concentrate on that chapter in my next review. So my weak points are spelling, n/neun, quotations, some particles, deo, auxiliary verbs, honorifics and different speech levels. I have to straighten these sections out. I really find it all hard but interesting and challenging nevertheless. The best thing right now is that I've got a handle on it. I know how to study and I've gotten over the hardest part.
I just have to discipline myself to stick to my plan. I think the problem with KGU was that I did the shadowing. I should have spent time straightening out the difficult bits in my mind. And I should have seen patterns. I didn't see patterns and I didn't spend time on the harder parts. I should also have made a vocab list too. Also I was using Google Translate as my dictionary which isn't very good.
If I had used the good dictionary my vocab would be a lot better than it is now. No wonder studying Tintin was so hard! I wasn't using the right dictionary.
I have to really study hard! I think I will eventually be fluent in speaking and reading Korean.
I was surprised how much easier the Pinocchio book was this time round.
After I go through the workbook I would have picked a lot more useful vocabulary.
So this all helps.
So I've got to steel myself to make the vocab lists and do the workbook. I've started on Chapter 13 which is the longest chapter in the book. After I've gone through the book I will test my knowledge of the grammar terms by doing self-testing with the notebook. Then after I've done that, I will start work on Particles. I will make lists in a notebook. I will then do the workbook. Then I will test myself. Then I will do the Nouns chapter the same way. Then quotations. Then I will do the other minor chapters in any order that I feel like doing them.
Then I will have finished my fourth review of the book.
Then I will be ready for the fifth review. In the fifth review I will test myself again and I will go through the hard parts of the text book. I will check my answers in the workbook to see which ones I got wrong and look to see why I got them wrong.
Then I will make sure I understand all the hard parts of the book by studying them first. Then I will try and get a snapshot of each chapter in my mind. Oh! I will make categories of like terms in this review. Or I might do that in my previous review. I will look at KGU and UK books. I will test myself over and over until I really get it. I really have to spend time on the hard parts.
Those notebooks will come in really useful, the charts not so much.
I will go through the notebooks and the textbook and really try and understand everything very thoroughly. I will memorize everything. I will have photographic memory of everything. I think I would have gone through this book more often than the KGU book! The book is much more thorough actually.
Things will eventually come to me. The first time I read IL I didn't even understand the explanations of the grammar terms but now things are getting much clearer.
So the thing is to work out what the patterns are. I have to really concentrate on this because once I work out the patterns they will function as shortcuts to knowledge (in my brain).
So don't leave a chapter until you've learned all the hard stuff and have straightened out everything in your mind!
Don't worry about vocabulary too much though.
Oh after the final review, I will study the vocabulary in the notebook lists I've made. That will be very good I think.
Then I am ready for vocab learning. Vocab learning is easier. And I can start doing shadowing.
How I will do shadowing. Each session I will name as Shadow and then label the book and the page number. So if it's the IL book, I will name the file Shadow_IL_1-4.mp3 file. I will keep them all in a folder labeled Shadow. I will also get the person to read the page number at the start of a new page.
So that's how I will do the shadowing. But don't get ahead of yourself. The next review will be a massive undertaking really.
There is so much to learn. There is so much to organize and look up. I have to get in the pattern of writing in Korean.
It's getting better. Doing the workbook has refined my grammar skills.
I am still not that good at speaking of course. I really understand a lot more on TV too. I think it's because I picked up a lot of useful vocab from IL and a few grammar terms as well.
At a pinch I can write things down if I really have to. I could not do that before. In fact I prefer to communicate by writing than by speaking!
I have to really learn everything thoroughly! That's for sure. I don't feel comfortable when there are gaps or things I am vague about. I like it all ironed out in my mind.
Actually, I had better as a priority do the Verbs section and also straighten out the n/neun problem. I don't know who to ask though. Some Koreans are incapable of explaining these things to me.
I think I need to really finish Grammar. It's enjoyable to study but there is so much. I particularly don't like the Conjugational Chapter because it's so long! But breaking it up into sections helps. I can actually go through it in about four hours if I study very quickly skimming style.
I can't wait until I am confident about 98% of the grammar terms!
I have to try and see patterns of course. It's fun working out patterns. It's like a light goes off in my head.
Anyway I've broken through the barrier! I've started studying the workbook. I will be able to express myself so well I hope. I might write short little essays and ask friends to check them. I think I will be ready to do this after the next review. The next review will be a massive one. Actually I want to retain about 75% after this review. Then after the final review I want to retain almost 98%. I might have to do many many reviews to achieve this but the reviews will be short and targeted. I won't get bogged down in the examples. Understanding the examples took a long time because I had to look up all the words. Maybe before I do the exercises in theIL book I will look up all the words I don't know first. Hey, that's an idea! That way I can concentrate on grammar and don't have to think about vocabulary. I think I will do that. It will take me a day to look up all the words but it will be worth it. Looking up words is time-consuming actually. If I divide up the tasks so that I do the word-looking up, things might go faster. Stopping to look up words breaks my concentration. So do the looking up first. As I said, probably a day it will take, maybe two.
I feel better now. I think that's an excellent idea. I will do that the next time I study. I will look up the words in the Workbook that I don't understand and I will clarify the n/neun thing. I might go through the verbs chapter to look at their spelling section. What really confuses me is the deu words. ddeo words. All of these confuse me. Like durilkkeyo. That word confuses the heck out of me.
I want to get these words straightened out in my mind. Also I found the word for green and blue are the same! Really strange.
Also, I don't know when to use eossnun and when to use /n. This is so confusing. I need to straighten things out even if it means going through the conjugational chapter again and making every instance of n/nun clear. Wow, that's a lot of work. But I feel good after straightening things out I think.
After the workbook study, things will be a lot better. It will be a matter of just memorizing all the grammar terms to almost 100% and recalling their meanings instantly. I think it can be done.
Wow, my writing will improve in terms of grammar. I will also try and use some of these terms in my writing. The workbook helps me to use the terms in writing.
I just have to plug away at it.
