picking out the vocab I don't know and looked up the definitions and found that I was practically looking up words for every sentence! That book definitely has difficult vocabulary. It will take a while to look up all the words in that book. I think it's worth doing because I want to segregate the horrible tasks such as looking up definitions from the task of trying to understand the grammar. I can't do both at the same time.
It's tedious looking up all these words. I wish the author had provided a definition key!
I have to look up so many words. Sometimes they're not in the dictionary and I have to spend a few minutes finding the meaning. It's frustrating for sure. My vocab is still so poor. Korean vocab is really hard. I don't enjoy looking up the words in the book. It will probably take me at least two days to look up the words. Boy it's frustrating.
That's what turned me off from studying the textbook and doing the work book - the vocabulary. I hope there aren't many errors in that book. I've already found quite a few errrors already.
Anyway, I will just spend a day looking up words. I won't do it tonight. I have to be in the right frame of mind to look up words actually. I have to feel comfortable. It's one of my least favorite activities actually. I don't know why I still don't get Korean after seven years in Korea. It just won't penetrate my brain. I just don't get it. I learned a few words from shopkeepers when I bought stuff from them but that's about it. I really need someone who doesn't speak much English and who is willing to correct me. I don't think Mrs L was any good at all. She was sneaky and purposely didn't speak Korean to me and waited for me to speak in English. I don't think what she did was good. But on the other hand, I don't really learn well from people by their just speaking to me I have found. With the science teacher and with the lady who lives in the apartment behind me I didn't really pick up many words. There has got to be some purpose in the communication for me to learn words.
Desperation makes you a good student. If it's just chitchat there is no incentive for you to learn words. So this sort of idle conversation didn't help. There needs to be some sort of realistic situation where to get something I have to convey information or understand information.
This was missing. I think reading newspapers together is a good way of learning Korean. I think I will do that in the future. The vocab is killing me. Because I know less than 5% of the vocab I need to know to read newspapers comfortably, I can't read newspapers and other things similar to that very well. I really am hampered by my lack of vocab. But I will not rush the grammar learning and go into learning vocabulary. I will finish doing the workbook and two more reviews and really hammer the stuff in my head. I just have to keep looking things up unfortunately.
Afterwards I will make a big list of these words in a notebook. I think seeing all the words together like that is helpful.
So I have to conquer vocabulary, grammar and shadowing. I've almost conquered grammar but the going is slow because I have not conquered vocabulary and there are many new words I come across while studying grammar. However, I think the words that are used in the workbook are useful. At the end when I make the lists of words from the grammar books and learn them, I might increase my vocabulary by about two thousand words. I sure hope so.
That is looking up a lot of words. However, I am looking up the same words in some cases because I forgot the meanings when I looked up the words before.
I have to just persist with this even though it's a very unpleasant task that I'm doing. Some of the words will be repeated no doubt so I don't have to look up as many as I get through the book.
So I think I have to look up words as a separate task before I do the workbook. Otherwise, doing the workbook will be slowed down and I will lose my concentration in trying to understand the grammar because I am looking up words. And I think it's more satisfying to break up the tasks this way anyway. So this is what I have to do. I have to keep at it.
Anyhow, I have to just look up all the words I don't know in that book. There are about 5 words I have to look up each page and there are about 600 pages. So that means I have to look up 3000 words! I think I can manage that ... But it might take about three days to do that. I am not sure. Maybe or maybe not. I think that was why my review of the IL book was so laborious at first – I just did not understand the vocabulary. This meant that deciphering the sentences was really difficult.
Now that I've got all the definitions in the text book, reviewing the sentences is faster.
So I have to do the same with the workbook. I have to look up all the words I don't know and write them down. Maybe it will take me three days to look up all the words. Then after that it will take me about ten days to do all the exercises in the book. That may be too optimistic – it will take me about two weeks to do all the exercises in the book ... keep in mind all the definitions will be there though so because of this the time might be cut down to 10 days. I don't want to rush through these exercises though. I have to really satisfy myself that I know how to use the grammar term. So I need to be diligent and make sure that I understand something before I move onto something else.
It was just really depressing how I have to spend time looking up words in this book. I think it would take me two days at the most to look up these words. Realistically, how many words can you learn in a day. Well, I have to spend time looking up words for one thing when I learn from newspapers for example. So I think that realistically I can learn about 200 words a day. If I do this for 30 days I can learn 6000 words in a month. So it would take approximately 3 months to learn all the vocabulary I need. That's not that great. However, if I learn 200 words a day, I can learn them thoroughly using memorization techniques and so on. I think that's OK to do. I will try and do that. I really want to pick up 20.000 words. Maybe that sounds too ambitious but I think you need to know about that many in order to be able to read the newspaper comfortably. Korean students have to study their own language too when they are students. So I just have to try and acquire the vocabulary. The dictionary I have is really good so that's helpful I think.
I really like that dictionary I have to say. Maybe I should try and make the text smaller??? I am not sure. That way I can see all of the page in the one go.
I have to finish the grammar book. Unfortunately I have to look up the dictionary all the time. I hate looking things up in the dictionary but in the end I will have learned a lot of useful vocabulary. It's so hard though and boring work looking up words. I think I will do shadowing at the same time as I do reading. I really hope my reading skills improve. So being able to read involves learning grammar and learning many more words. That's the only way your reading is going to improve.
It's so difficult. I hate learning vocab. I hate anything that involves memorization. Korean grammar was enjoyable to study because I don't really have to memorize any grammar words ... but studying vocab isn't.
I really hope the task passes by pleasantly and is soon over quickly. I really want to finish the workbook. I don't like reading sentences to find words I don't understand.
But objectively my Korean has really improved compared to before. I remember I didn't know so many words as I do now.
I really have to study a lot. Well, other people have done it so why can't I? It's really sad that even though there is Korean all around me I haven't learn Korean.
Just plug away at it. And do a little bit of study everyday. Maybe about two hours of study a day. Always keep track of where you are though. I think that once I get the vocab down, going through the workbook will be much much quicker. Instead of maybe 14 days to get through it, it will take about 9 days??? Maybe even less? There are 600 pages approximately. If I do thirty pages a day it will take about twenty days. Maybe I am being overoptimistic about when I can finish that grammar book .... Maybe I can do about forty pages because I don't have to look up vocabulary ... I think that's the limit though. So forty pages a day. Forty into 600 goes about 15 days or about two weeks to get through the workbook ....
I am worried because the book requires INTENSIVE study. I shouldn't really worry though because after I've looked up all the vocab it will be quick getting through the exercises. So I think it will take two weeks to get through the book. I will have to write out all the definitions of words I don't know then tackle the book, always referring to the textbook.
I think that's the only way to study realistically speaking. I have to get through the grammar and looking up words first is the best way. Looking up words is the hard part and once I do the exercises, this will be the easy part. Checking answers will be easier too as I've photocopied all the answers and made that a separate stack to the workbook. I can find answers much more quickly this way.
So put down the vocab as fast as you can and then commence on the workbook. On good days I might be able to do sixty pages but I think it will even out at forty pages a day. If I do the review over fourteen days that's pretty slow enough for things to sink in. I just have to do it this way. There is no alternative.
