Moving beyond translations

At the moment, my reading ability is such that I cannot read by myself, that is, without an English translation.

So I am restricted in what I can read. I have to read only books that have English translations. That means reading books from the learning foreign language books section of a bookstore. I have to rely on subtitles for most dramas though I am doing OK with "Winter Bird".

So my current aim is to keep finding these books with translations and finding books that I can read without straining myself too much. So I will probably do this for a while. After my reading ability improves and my vocabulary grows,  I will reach a stage where I can start reading without translations. They will still be easy readers, probably children's stuff like fairytales and simple short stories however. But at least I will be able to understand the stories without needing a translation. I will probably need a dictionary though. 

This is the next stage of my learning - being able to read without translations. If I can read most sentences in a paragraph without reaching for a dictionary then I will have reached that stage. 

I will then rely on a dictionary as my main reading aid. That's OK. I will be still enlargening my vocabulary. Even young Koreans need to do this - increase their vocabulary. I will then be spending most of my learning time reading and looking up dictionaries - online mostly. I did this when I learned English. I hope I can reach this stage (soon). 

Then I will be learning to increase my vocabulary, not for understanding grammar. This will be very good. I will be motivated to read harder and harder stuff. I will try and build up my vocabulary. I will create word lists. I will try and become a sophisticated reader. Reading speed will be moderately fast, just pausing to look up a word I don't understand. 

I will be trying to increase my vocabulary to 10,000 words. So I will have to read a lot of different things. It will be like when I studied English. I didn't NEED to study English for ordinary functioning as a person in society, but I needed to do so to excel in English as a school subject.

So if I can do it for English, I can do the same for Korean. As I have said, I hope I keep up my Korean studying so I reach this level. It will be cool. I don't want to rely on English translations forever. 

So the key is mastering grammar and then increasing vocabulary to the point where I know at least 10,000 words.

Once I master grammar, I don't have to parse a sentence to work out what the author is trying to say. And once I have learned sufficient vocabulary, I can understand most easy readers without looking at translations.

So my goal after this stage is to move beyond English translations. 

I think though I have to read A LOT. I might have to join a library as reading from books I have bought is getting expensive and also the books are crowding my space. 

I think once I have passed the stage where I am relying on English translations, I will borrow all the material I want to read, or get it off the net. I can't afford to buy books forever for my language learning. And I have to get rid of some of the books. I will give away or sell some of the children's books with translations. 

I do get a kick out of reading though. It's still amazing to me that I can read some sentences quickly without struggling. I really must have changed. The studying must have paid off. I think my reading ability improved exponentially after I spent a few days learning basic vocab. I had never done this before - learning basic every day vocab words. The phrase books aren't really good for the beginner. You need to learn words for rock, tree, lake, sky and so on before you learn words for bank account, accident and so on. Of course you need the latter words eventually but I think kids have an advantage in learning because adults naturally teach them basic words when they are learning a language. With adults, instructors for some reason see no reason to teach them basic vocab. The  adult learner might be good at knowing words for holiday, moving house, finishing work but have no idea how to say stone, leaf, moon, snake. I feel more confident now that I have these basic words under my belt. I was floundering a bit before this.

I think the way kids learn a language is the best way. Teachers just teach them basic vocabulary words, often singly, not in a sentence. Then they learn simple two-word sentences, then three-word sentences and so on. They teach words that they can feel, see or hear - words for tangible things. Then they widen the circle of words gradually to include more complex concepts. And the teachers have a goal of teaching say 500 most commonly used words by the end of the year and so on. 

Adults first encounter the language through grammar books and are taught conversational phrases off the bat like greetings, eating in a restaurant, catching the bus and so on. I think this is the wrong way. I think teaching basic words is the best way to teach a real beginner and doing so in a systematic way, say teaching 500 words in a book and having exercises in the book for the student to practise writing the words over and over again. I don't think the adult learner should jump into sentences at this stage. I think that's why many adults feel confused and think learning a foreign language is hard. They are absolute beginners but in the first chapter, they encounter a paragraph in Korean with no English translation and just a vocab list with the English translation beside them. It is like expecting a five year old child to learn their native language by throwing a book at them with a paragraph in the native language. 

Of course adults know another language so things can be explained in that native language but still I think that the step by step method beginning with basics is the best way to learn. Greetings are easy so I don't think they need to be stressed so much. They can be learned any time. Language learners want to know the word for cup, tea, jump, and so on. And it's much easier to learn them first making learning stress-free. Then after the basic vocab is learned, moving onto learning how to decipher sentences. Because you already have learned many basic vocab words, learning the grammar of sentences is less stressful. You aren't trying to learn the GRAMMAR and the VOCABULARY of the sentences at the same time. You can just concentrate on the grammar. Why the words whose meaning you know are put together the way they are. 

When you are trying to understand the MEANING of the words in a sentence and also trying to understand the underlying grammar of a sentence, it becomes too much for the poor old brain. Your brain finds it hard to cope. It's overloaded and learning becomes unpleasant. 

And you can't go through life WITHOUT knowing these basic words. But language teachers assume you are going to just learn these words through osmosis, without making a conscious effort to learn these basic words. 

So I think the conversational approach is wrong for most learners. And these books and courses concentrate on the conversational approach for beginners. 

But the grammar behind conversations is quite complex. The grammar behind simple prose in children's books is rather simple in contrast. So you will be learning basic grammar if you learn the way children are taught. In the other way, you are introduced to complex grammar off the bat. 

Of course the basic stage doesn't have to last very long. You might spent one-fifth/one-tenth/one-twentieth of the time that a child does in this stage. But it can't be skipped, not if learning is to be done in a systematic, orderly and as pain-free way as possible. 

Therefore, my theory of how foreign languages are taught to adults being less effective than they could be taught is based on my experiences and my own observations. 

And vocabulary learning doesn't really require a lot of teaching input in the native language. You see a picture and you choose the correct Korean word for example. No need to read paragraphs of explanations in English to know what to do.

So I think the focus should be on learning basic vocab in the first stage of language learning.   And the basic vocab should be the same sort of words that a child learns, not the vocab found in adult language learning books.

Then basic grammar should be taught. Here copious explanations in English are OK. Because the student has all the useful basic vocabulary they need under their belt, they can just focus on the grammar. They are not learning grammar AND vocab at the same time, something which can be very stressful to the learner. 

Then after that, some reading. By then, the vocab that the learner learned in the beginning stage will help. The learner is concentrating on reading and making sense of the grammar of the sentences, not learning vocab AND making sense of the grammar at the same time. 

Of course there will be words the learner doesn't understand, but they will be a lot fewer than if the learner had not learned any basic vocab. 

Then the learner can learn harder vocab and then harder grammar and then attempt to read harder material. 

So this is how learning should go. 

Unfortunately, the books out there are teaching all sorts of high level vocab and high level grammar to a BEGINNER. They call it a beginner's book but the beginner is expected to know how to say "When do you want to get married by, Carol-ssi?" when they don't even know the word for tiger, table, kitchen. 

I don't think children know how to say, "There was only milk in the refrigerator" before they learn the words for spoon, chair, grape etc. 

So I think that the learner should know that they need to take the initiative to learn these basic words themselves because the adult language books aren't going to teach them these words. And it doesn't take long to learn 600 basic Korean words - maybe three days if you study intensively. And this bank of basic words will really be useful to them. They will come across them in the future all the time. Then after these words are mastered, the learner can move onto more sophisticated words like trading company, exchange bank and so on. 

So learn vocab and just concentrate on vocab when learning. Then learn grammar and concentrate on grammar when learning. Then read and just concentrate on reading when reading.

Conversation then can be taught through the immersion method or by listening to tapes. It can also be learned by reading if the reading contains dialog. Conversation can also be taught by showing movies. 

So once again, I find the method they teach adults a foreign language quite counterproductive and far different to the method instructors in general use when teaching a child a foreign language/native language. 

I think the method they use to teach young children is the best way, with a few modifications of course. They can make the material less childish in theme but still keep the simple format and the easy exercises and the repetitious nature of the teaching. 

I am finding the method I am using now of reading fairytales and manwha for children much better than jumping into essential phrases for business. Remember, I am still trying to master basic grammar. 

Once the basics are mastered then more sophisticated words and more difficult grammar can be taught. 

Repetition is the key

If you like making learning a foreign language as effortless as possible then I think repetition is the best way to go about making it effortless. What I mean is if you don't want to spend the effort memorizing the meaning of a word the first time you encounter it, then try and make it so that you will come across the word in the near future by for example reading a lot. Once you see the word and its meaning several times it sticks in your head without your really trying to make it stick. So this is what I mean by repetition.

Also repetition works for other reasons as well. If you have learned a language well and can speak it fluently as well as write in it fluently, if you never have a chance to use the language in your life, chances are that in ten years' time you will have  forgotten most of the language.

That is probably how I forgot Korean completely. I learned it and could speak it as a child but at age four I started learning another language and never used Korean again. 

I must have built quite a vocabulary by the time I was four though. But I have forgotten 99.99% of it. 

So repetition is important not just for learning a language but to retain it as well. 

So the trick is to KEEP exposing yourself to the language. Make opportunities to read it a lot. Watch many movies and dramas in that language. Keeping the TV in that language on? I do that but I don't know whether that helps me. Speaking that language helps too even though you might have to make opportunities to do so. 

Repetition is so important. That's why overlearning helps sometimes. I have studied the Grammar in Use book about three times now (or is it four?). Because of that, many vocab words have stuck in my head. 

You might not learn a word the first two times you come across it. Then you come across it a third time, then a fourth, then a fifth .. by the sixth time you probably will have learned the word. That's why reading stories is useful. Authors often repeat words in stories. So you will encounter many words over and over again. And then you will learn the word and that's even without trying! 

So I think in my case I learn well by reading. Reading with translations though. That's how I learned English. If I read 50% of Anderson, Perrault and 100% of Aesop I would have read a lot of material. I would know all the words for castle, king, queen, prince, princess, they lived happily ever after,  gold, witch, marriage and so on. Not necessarily for saying them but definitely for recognizing the word when I come across them again. I would not have to look at the English translation for the meaning. 

So repetition is very helpful for learning and can make learning less of a chore. 

Enjoying the process

I really like studying Korean. I like the challenge of it. I like studying languages in general. I enjoyed studying French when I was a student in middle school. I even studied by myself using my own books.

I enjoy the sense of understanding something. It's a thrill. It's a reward in itself. I like the sense of achieving something. I am a little anal so I am not that good at picking up speaking. But I think I am OK at reading. I am at the stage where I am really enjoying learning. This is because I can read simple comic books. Reading these short comic books is enjoyable even though the subject matter is a little childish. 

I think that could be why polyglots are polyglots. They get particular pleasure out of achieving understanding. It is self-reinforcing. 

I think as with anything you will learn fast if you enjoy what you are doing. I remember the kids LOVED getting reward points. It wasn't so much the prize they would collect after receiving so many reward points, it was the actual receiving the bit of paper that they LOVED. 

So it made learning a self-reinforcing process. 

I have to think of a way of making learning a self-reinforcing process. I think there are several ways of doing this. Using NLP techniques, I have come up with my own ways of doing this. I can use tapping for instance. I tried this with learning Korean grammar quite by accident. I was tapping a pencil on the desk with the sharp point up and I wasn't aware of it, but I was tapping in rhythm with my learning. When I understood a point, I would tap the pencil and I would feel the sharpness in my thumb pad. For some reason, this was a satisfying sensation. 

As I said, this was entirely unconscious (or subconscious) what I was doing. I only realized I was doing this when my thumb got sore. Then I started to do this consciously. I found that for some reason doing this tapping really was enjoyable. It marked off the learning of a grammar point and made me realize I understood something. I felt a sense of achievement and moved on to the learning of another point eagerly. There are other methods like this. 

The trick is to find what works for you. 

I think I get a reward when I read a word I recognize from the memorization of vocab I did. It's thrilling to recognize a word. So memorizing vocab and then reading and recognizing words becomes an enjoyable and self-rewarding process. Similarly, recognizing grammar rules that I have learned in the reading material is very rewarding. A light goes off in my head and I say, "Aha! That's how they use the grammar rule." It's very enjoyable. 

I think pattern-recognition is very rewarding for the human psyche. 

So after a while, when you have gone past the stage where everything is new and bewildering and you are trying to make some sense of the new language, learning becomes a self-rewarding process. Not to the point where it is addictive in my case as I don't really like studying THAT much, but it makes the process bearable. 

I really get a psychological reward reading fairytales I haven't read before. I am learning a new story and I am learning a language at the same time. If I can unlock the secrets of a language, I can learn a new tale and learning a new tale is rewarding as the tale is entertaining. 

For example, I read the story of "The Tinderbox" and "The Donkey Skin" today and yesterday. I did not know these fairytales so reading them was entertaining for me. 

So I think the key is to find material that is interesting for you. Reading about Korean history is interesting for me. Reading fairytales is interesting. Reading about baeoos I am into is rewarding and interesting. 

Reading very difficult stuff is not entertaining. I am anal as I said so I don't feel comfortable letting too many words I don't understand go by. Reading just a little bit above my level is the best. Reading too easy stuff is boring. I am not into beginner's grammar books and unfortunately I bought quite a few of these books before I realized I wasn't really a beginner like that. I am still a beginner but not an absolute beginner. 

I want to find reading material that matches my level. 

I really like comics because they have visual content. This really helps with comprehension. I am a highly visual person so I am really attracted to pictures. 

I remember as a child I would stare at a picture for a long time, looking at all the details in the picture in the book. I especially loved pictures that had lots of details. Some illustrators were very good at this - they included lots of details that only someone looking for them would notice. For example, I loved a picture showing all the food on a kitchen dresser. I loved looking at drawings of a table set for Christmas dinner. 

So I like manwhas. Most manwhas for adults are too difficult for me. And many of the manwhas I see in manwha shops are not that interesting. I don't like the styles of drawing that are popular these days. I like adventure, mystery and detective stories. I HATE fantasy and sci-fi with a passion. I hate futuristic stuff. I don't like American comics like DC comics. I like good realistic dramas with a bit of romance and mystery. I don't like too much action. For example, Old Boy is an interesting comic for me - IF I could read and understand it.  That is the style I like.  I like Asian comics, particularly Japanese and a few Korean comics. For example, I like Saint Marie by Yang Yeo Jin. This has futuristic elements and some sci-fi but I still like it. I think because it has a lot of drama, romance, mystery and a little action. Even though it has sci-fi, it has a lot of everyday realism. 

I would love to be able to read these kinds of comics. I wish I could read them NOW. But my colloquial Korean has to improve a lot. 

I think I would be one of those people who read manwhas a lot. I can see the attraction. Asian societies have a rich range of manwhas. You don't find this sort of thing in western countries. 

I like the mixing in of Asian themes too. The characters look white but act Asian. 

I think once I reach that stage of being able to read manwhas for adults, reading Korean will be a highly rewarding process. I will be encouraged to read more Korean, I will learn more Korean, and so I will be able to understand a lot more, enjoy reading more and so on. 

So the key is to be MOTIVATED to learn a given foreign language and finding ways of making the process enjoyable and a self-rewarding one. 

I also enjoy watching SOME K-dramas -- not too long ones. It would be great if I could watch the ones I enjoy watching without relying on subtitles. I want to reach the stage where I can just watch them without consciously thinking about trying to understand what the actors are saying. Just following the drama and the unfolding of the events. I also want to watch some comedy shows like "Happy Together". This show is funny. 

I am not into music that much so learning Korean by studying pop songs doesn't work for me. I don't like K-pop besides. I know many people do and even learn the words of the Korean song by heart and pick up Korean this way. I could NEVER do that. I suppose if you are really into a band to the point of being obsessed by them you would make the effort to do this. I can't understand how non-Koreans got into the band in the first place when they didn't understand what the band was saying in their songs in the first place. 

So I know some people recommend this method for learning languages but it doesn't work for me. But of course it could work well for other people. Some very aural people might take to this as a method of learning. I have never been able to learn a language using this method. I am just not into songs. I DID try it for a short while and abandoned it after I found it too hard and confusing. And I learned NOTHING from it. 

My ear is a lead ear when it comes to picking up languages. I cannot distinguish what people say easily. I don't have that talent. I often doubt myself - did they say a "d" sound or a "g" sound? Does that word have three syllables or four? With that level of uncertainty, I cannot trust myself to have heard a word correctly and say it verbatim. I know some people can though. I am just not one of them. 

That's why I find Korean subtitles useful but because of the problems of extracting Korean subtitles and then subbing them I have given up on the idea of adding Korean subtitles to movies. And I have to have the English subtitles to understand so just having the Korean subtitles there by themselves doesn't work. I guess I just have to depend on seeing the word in a book I am reading and recalling that I have heard that word before to link the sound of the word with the word's meaning and the word's spelling. 

When I say I enjoy studying Korean, I mean it's a little better than watching paint dry on a wall. And I am motivated to study. I like the lift I get when a light beam goes off in my head when I recognize a word. 

 

 

Time
I think if you have time you can be fluent in a foreign language. It's a matter of making the time, having a routine and sticking to it. Of course if you have a good plan that helps a lot of course. But at the end of the day, you need TIME.

Being a polyglot

I think once you have a method of learning languages and it works well for you, you can apply it to the learning of more and more languages. So the second foreign language is easier to learn than the first one. And the third one is easier than the second one and so on.

Many of the people who you see on Youtube who are polyglots are good at speaking but who knows about their reading? You can learn a bank of common phrases in many languages and use this bank to make a Youtube video and it will look like you know the language really well. 

Of course, many others are REALLY fluent in all of the foreign languages they have studied - fluent in speaking, reading and writing. 

But if you are fluent in speaking but can't read a newspaper in that language, then you are still counted as "fluent" but you would not really know the language completely. 

I think you really need to be fluent in speaking AND writing to be properly counted as a fluent speaker in that language. 

And that takes a lot of time. Some polyglots learn a language by learning to translate that language back and forth - say from German to English and English to German. I think that would work but would that make them fluent speakers? Probably not unless they have done a lot of speaking and listening practice (immersion). 

I used to think that was a good way of learning a language - using translation but I no longer think so. I am hopeless at using Korean-English dictionaries and it's not entirely my fault - Koreans aren't systematic about their language in the way they put the words in the dictionary (is my experience), and this method would involve looking up the dictionary all the time. I take the shortcut of reading translations side by side - a method not available to the pioneering polyglots of earlier times. I really admire their patience struggling through and making their own translations. Some of them start with very high-level reading such as Dostoevsky. I guess that worked for them. 

I need easy to understand grammar books, vocab books and easy readers with translations to get past the first hurdle otherwise I probably would never pass the first stage. 

And I have the advantage of having many dramas to watch which these polyglots of another era did not.  For example, how would I learn Mongolian back sixty years ago? I wouldn't have a hope.

But once again, I think these polyglots have a method that works for them. And so each successive language becomes easier to learn. Also if you stick to same language families when choosing an order of learning, it makes it much easier. For example, French isn't much different to English and neither is Italian. So you could learn French and then Italian. A lot of the root words are the same in English, French and Italian. The grammar is similar. So you would learn French and then Italian a little faster than you did French. 

If you have learned Korean, Japanese would not be as hard as if you hadn't learned Korean. The grammar is very close. 

So you could learn French in four months, Italian in three months, Spanish in three months, then study German for six months, study Dutch in four months, study Swedish in four months and so on. I mean INTENSIVE study as in studying 14 hours a day as some of these polyglots do. I think it's possible to be fluent in speaking and writing French in four months if you are a native English speaker. I really do. I think though you will have to spend some time in France getting immersion though. But if you study 14 hours a day for four months, that is 120 by 14 hours which is 1680 hours. The study time includes studying grammar, spelling, reading, listening, watching movies, interacting with native French speakers and so on. I think in 1680 hours you will be fluent in speaking and writing. There is a lot of French material besides as this is a popular language to learn. There are many French movies with subtitles and the French use Latin characters. 

And the polyglot has a tried and true system of learning languages. They don't muck around. They go straight to the resources they know they need. They buy all the books they need in the first few days. They get all the other materials they need in the first week. They are disciplined and have set study habits. They have certain tricks and techniques to learn languages fast. They know which methods are most effective for them for learning languages and apply them. They don't spend time thinking about whether this or that method will work for them. They don't flounder around wasting time using methods that don't work well. They even use triangulation to save time learning languages - using a foreign language to learn another foreign language. They know which dictionaries are the best. And they also have much confidence. They have done it before so they know they can do it again. 

I don't really want to be a polyglot. I will only devote myself to the study of a language if I know I am going to use it in the future. I don't know whether I really need to speak Korean in the future but I know I need to read it. (It's awful not being able to store a bag in a subway locker because I can't read the instructions.) 

Is the opportunity cost of learning a given language worth it for me? I doubt it unless I like showing off or my career is a polyglot or something or I travel a lot for work and live in many different nations. 

I think knowing English is enough for most people as English is the international language. 

Because I like K-dramas and I like Korean culture to a certain extent and I am living in Korea, I think it's time to invest some time in learning Korean. Even if it's so I can buy an item I need from G-Market. I cannot do this now. 

It's time I relied on myself for doing simple things like that. It makes my life here more fulfilling. 

 

Reading is helping me with listening

I find that because I am more a visual person than an aural person, reading is helping me with listening. I am not that kind of person that can hear a word spoken and repeat it back exactly. I wish I had that skill but I know I don't. I have to see that word written before I am confident about pronouncing it correctly. A case in point: "salyoh-jushipshio". I heard it many times in dramas (sageuks) but even so I could not repeat this word ("Save me"). But now that I have seen it written a few times, I am confident about saying this word.

So I am reading a lot of words that I hear in dramas a lot. This makes me more familiar with the word and helps me with listening and speaking because after reading the word I know what the word sounds like and how it's spelled.

So because I am not talented in languages as some people are who are natural mimics and have a good ear for words, I have to read a lot. 

Therefore, a combination of reading and listening and watching gets me there. 

Another example is "kun il nassimida" or something like that. There is big trouble.  I heard it many times and knew the meaning but could not pronounce it. I thought it sounded like "kunilah" or something like that. But I read the phrase a few times in books and now I know the individual words in the phrase, the grammar and so on, and I am confident about saying that phrase now. 

It's probably not a good way to be, to be so hesitant about pronouncing words until I've seen them in writing as it doesn't make for a bold language learner, and boldness is a good quality to have when learning languages. However, that's the way the cookie crumbles in my case so I have to keep reading a lot. 

So it's all starting to come together. The drama-watching and the reading of fairytales are helping me to learn. They are complementary methods. I enjoy doing these activities too. I don't like learning when the activities are boring. I don't mind studying grammar either so long as the textbook is good. I don't like the Sogang textbook actually. At this stage, I need lots explained to me in English. 

What I have learned so far about Korean language learning

I think at this stage I am in a position to look back and evaluate what I have done up until this point.

I think I have made a lot of progress. I enjoyed studying grammar. The book I used for it was very good. It went into depth but not too deep that it got confusing. It had a few exercises but not too many that it felt like a big chore. 

I wouldn't do things too differently to before. Perhaps I would have gotten the Magic 600 vocab book earlier. Perhaps I would have used mnemonics earlier when memorizing vocabulary. 

Perhaps I would have done more listening to the mp3 players. 

I think I should have worried less about immersion. And I should have realized that the two different skills of reading and speaking require different modes of learning. 

What I have done right now was concentrating on reading. 

Reading is a valuable skill. 

I wish I had done a lot more vocab before reading the WOW comics. 

But I think I've done OK. Of course if I had done more intensive study I would be ahead of where I am now. 

I wish I had thought of hiring someone who doesn't speak English to speak in Korean to me instead of wasting my time with language exchange. 

But there really isn't that much I would have done differently. 

I wish I had watched more contemporary dramas earlier on like Bulssae and Love in Heaven. But I got introduced to K-dramas through sageuks.

I wish I hadn't spent so much time trying to extract srt subtitles. It's impossible to extract Korean subtitles with the software I have. It takes all day to do it. So I should have just left it. Also there are many mp3 files that have Korean speaking and Korean words. 

I wish I had gotten the Samsung Galaxy Player earlier. That's VERY good for watching videos. However, I should have gotten the one with a bigger storage space. I am running out of space. I can also watch movies in slow mo with that. I wish I had known that instead of spending like a week trying to slow down movies. What a waste of time! 

No, there isn't too much I would change. 

I watch what I like and don't watch what I don't like. I tried to watch Baker King but couldn't really get into it. I gave up on Coffee Prince and Boys Over Flowers too. I really don't like watching them. I guess I could persist with Baker King a bit more. 

I think I should start increasing my vocab at this stage. If I just read all the vocab books I have and I have quite a few, I think I will make a lot of progress in the future. I have two books of Korean Made Easy. I haven't really spent any time looking into them. Perhaps they will be useful, perhaps not. I don't really like dialog books that help you "live" in Korea. I find a lot of the material is repetitive. I don't want to know how to greet anyone anymore. I don't want to know how to suggest going to a movie anymore. I think a few of them are too easy. I didn't think so at the time when I bought them but looking quickly through them they seem very easy. I can just listen to the mp3s for listening practice I guess. 

The Essential Korean series haven't really been helpful for me. Perhaps I haven't spent a lot of time going through them. Probably the listening will be more useful. I think trying to memorize the phrases/sentences will be too laborious. I tried and find it a bit hard and didn't retain hardly any of it. 

I am not concentrating on listening or speaking at this stage so the Essential Korean in Business isn't helping me that much. 

I am glad I went to the children's section of the bookstore and looked at English language books. I think this made a big improvement in my Korean ability. Before I was looking at the Korean language section for foreign learners and found that the books from this section weren't that helpful for me. The main books that helped me from this section are Korean Grammar in Use, Using Korean and Surviving in Korean. 

The phrase books aren't that useful for me at this stage. I learn vocab better by using dictionary type books or books specifically for teaching vocab. I wish there was a Magic book for 2000 words or something. The one I have is for 600 words. 

If I learn 2000 vocab words, it will be very useful. I am prepared to spend the time memorizing new vocab. However, I haven't been able to find a book like the Magic one that has fun exercises to do. The exercises really helped as I was forced to write the Hangeul words several times. 

I wish I had read the comics series like Jack and the Beanstalk earlier. I would have realized that reading isn't that hard. 

I don't think studying St Marie at this stage is helpful. I wasted a day trying to study St Marie but I learned very little. The grammar was too complex, the speech was too colloquial and the vocab was too high-level. Trying to parse the sentences was really difficult. I could spend the whole day parsing just four or five pages. 

So I am OK with the progress I have made. I am really pleased that I can understand a lot of the simple children's comics. It's probably not a big deal to someone talented in languages and studies them a lot but for me, it was a breakthrough. 

I think I will just keep reading and reading. Words will stick in my brain the more I see them repeated. 

I am not so worried about the different speech forms as I was before. I am still confused by them a little but I don't really pay too much attention to them - not as much as before. 

I wish I hadn't worried so much about immersion and thought of the idea of hiring someone earlier. Then I wouldn't have wasted so much time trying to find language partners and being disappointed in them. I think I will give this up. 

I think immersion IS important for speaking, not so much for reading. And that's why many Koreans aren't good at speaking. I don't like this about Korean teaching of English. The students prefer a Korean teacher over a native speaker for teaching English. If they had an English teacher teaching them EVERYTHING, Korean students would be the best English non-native speakers in the world. Goodness knows they have enough foreigners in Korea trying to find work teaching English. But they are underutilized. And some like me because I don't have an American accent aren't offered many jobs. Also, the hagwons abuse the teachers and cheat them and give them a hard time generally. The hagwons put the teachers into a bad situation where teaching is boring for them. They don't give the teachers a stipend so that the teachers can buy materials for the classes. If the hagwons did that, the classes would be a lot of fun and the children would learn a lot. I managed by just doing a lot of drawing on the white board and by creating a reward system for the kids. But it would have been better if they had provided me with a stipend so I could buy colored paper, crayons, colored pencils, silver stars etc for making crafts and so on. 

Teaching children through crafts is a great way of teaching English. 

I think I have done OK though. But I mustn't be complacent or over-confident. I have still a lot to study. 

 

Speaking practice

I have decided to pay someone for speaking practice. I will do this six days a week for one hour a day. I will pay someone 10000 won for the hour. I think this is the best way. Moving to the countryside, hanging around bars, traveling the country, getting a job in the sticks are all going to cost money and there is no guarantee I will get the immersion I want. This way I get the immersion that fits my schedule and I can pick and choose the person who does the speaking to me. If they don't work out, I will find another person. The country is full of Koreans and I think I can find someone who wants to earn a bit of pocket money. I figure I only need to do this for a couple of months. Having one on one speaking immersion practice is the same as spending 6 hours in a class sharing the teacher with others so I think I am getting my money's worth doing this.

I will advertise for someone with no English knowledge whatsoever. This is the most helpful. I am forced to really try and concentrate on listening and I will be forced to communicate in Korean - in other words, this is real immersion, like being in a foreign country where no one speaks your native language. 

I had a bit of practice with this and found it MOST effective. People who know some English are hopeless for this. 

I've made it clear in my ad that the person must not speak English in the one hour and they must not be good speakers of English. 

If I am paying someone for this, they need to comply with these requirements and not try and fudge them in order to learn English from a foreigner. 

I think most people will realize what I am trying to do and because the money is not that good it will weed out the ones who are not that interested in the job.  

I need someone who REALLY wants that money and I think if they do they will be dedicated, show up on time, and give me what I need. 

The ads aren't cheap though ..... 

I don't know whether to get a kid for homestay in my home. I think it's best if it's someone I know. I think a kid is less complicated than an adult. I don't want an adult snooping around in my affairs. 

I have changed my mind about this. Adults are kind of difficult to live with. Children are more malleable. I think it will be fun to have a kid live with me. 

I can do my own thing and relax more. Adults are more judgmental and demanding. 

So I have this straightened out. I am surprised I hadn't thought of this. I think it was my Korean brother-in-law who discouraged me; he was outraged that I was thinking of paying someone for speaking practice when the country is full of Koreans. But it makes sense to do this and in fact it's a more effective method of learning to speak Korean than paying for classes at a language institute. 

Other people who have done the same thing - paid someone for language practice - have reported that it was very helpful and that it did them more good than paying to do a language course. I think it's better to pay 280000 won than pay 1000000 - 1500000 won for a language course for 1 - 2 months at SNU. At SNU, there will be a lot of stuff I already know so the teaching won't be individualized. They teach mostly grammar and simple phrases used in dialogs and I can learn these things better myself at home. So class time should only be for things I can't do myself so I think the SNU course won't be very helpful. 

The stuff I can't do myself is speak in Korean fluently to myself so I need to hire someone to do this one on one for me. This is the best use of the one hour I will have. 

It won't be easy but I think it will be fun trying to understand. I think at the end I will be moderately fluent - say, if I keep this up for six months. 

This will be the REAL way that Koreans speak. 

This is not the same as language exchange. I found that really HOPELESS. It did not help me at all. There is lack of commitment on both sides too. It's too easy to lose interest and then there is the problem of finding compatible schedules. Besides I think I was speaking more English to them than they were speaking to me. They were speaking very difficult Korean and didn't care whether I understood or not. If I was paying someone, it would be the hiree's job to make sure I understood. They would drop the level for me or explain things in a way that I could understand. 

So I think I will forget about language exchange and concentrate on immersion one-on-one practice for learning Korean speaking. 

For reading, I think I can teach myself. I am a bit of a bookworm anyway so I like this method of study. I am getting better at memorizing. I am using mnemonics as I have mentioned and it makes learning vocab fun and easier. I retain a lot more this way. I can't do it for long stints though. I run out of ideas for making mnemonics too. 

I think my goal is to be able to speak, read and write Korean well enough to pass the Korean language test they have for foreigners. If I could devote myself full time to studying, it would be better but I can't. Still I am making progress. I like watching videos and reading comics on the subway. I can fit a lot of study in two hours on the subway. I love reading fairytales. 

I can't read newspapers though. My vocabulary has to increase by a lot in order to do that and my understanding of Korean grammar has to also improve very much to read newspaper articles fluently. 

I still prefer English grammar and I am not just saying that because English is my native language. I have a better idea of Korean grammar now and I find it is more complex than English grammar. English grammar also employs punctuation which makes comprehension clearer. 

Anyway in a relatively short time I think I have improved a lot. About four weeks ago, I wouldn't have been able to read the fairytale books. 

I will concentrate on reading now and not worry too much about speaking. Speaking will come in time with immersion. It's a matter of just immersing oneself. Reading is very useful to me as I need to browse Korean internet sites sometimes. It's slowly changing from a jumble of unfamiliar characters to something recognizable. 

I think progress will be exponential. The early stages were a struggle but things are starting to make sense grammatically. I forgot a lot of the grammar but reading seems to jog my memory a little. 

Reading progress

I am really improving my reading Korean. I don't know whether it's just an illusion or not. But I am reading fairytales - Andersen, Perrault, Grimm and so on and I am understanding quite a lot. Of course I have the English translations. But I still think I am improving my understanding of Korean grammar especially grammar of prose.

I am not picking up that much new vocabulary however. But the vocabulary I have learned by doing a little study has helped considerably. I am applying the grammar rules that I have learned from Korean Grammar in Use to the understanding of the Korean sentences in these books.

Jack and the Beanstalk was really understandable - the comic I mean which had mostly dialog. 

The fairytales are very good because there is a mixture of dialog and prose. 

If I continue reading lots and lots of books, not trying to get bogged down in the difficult parts overly, I think my progress will continue. 

I think the key is to read short stories and short comics with the English translations. With the comics I am picking up useful expressions. I won't be able to use them in speaking but I will understand the expressions immediately when I see them again in reading or when listening. 

It is starting to become more fun. I still can't read stuff for teenagers however. And I can't read stuff without translations. But I still think I am making progress more than before. I remember I couldn't read a page of comics without getting a headache even with translations. 

I think studying Korean Grammar in Use, Using Korean, and the vocabulary in the Magic book for Korean children really helped me. Now I feel very confident about reading. My listening of dialog is also getting better. Of course I don't understand too much of what they say in sageuks but I am picking up a lot in contemporary dramas.

So because of the lack of immersion, I am concentrating on reading. Even though speaking is important, reading is also essential to have as a skill. I am getting better I really think and I no longer go into glazed eye mode when I see Hangeul. 

I really am surprised. I think I've passed a milestone. I am "getting" Korean grammar. I do find it's much more complex than English grammar. 

The good thing about the fairytales is that there is a lot of repetition. 

I am taking advantage of the fact that there is an English-learning craze in Korea and that means there is a lot of material in the Korean children's section of bookstores.  Instead of using these books to learn English, I am using them to learn Korean. So I think this is the way to go instead of looking for books that teach Korean. I have all the Korean grammar books I need at this stage: Korean Grammar in Use, Using Korean, and Korean Grammar for International Learners. Between them they cover a lot of ground. I think I am ready to look into Using Korean and Korean Grammar for International Learners. 

I am not ready to speak or write but I plan to read reams of easy material that doesn't stretch me too much and that doesn't contain lots of new or hard vocabulary. Easy does it. So long as I am reading at a moderately rapid pace and am enjoying the reading, it's all good. 

That's the purpose of these children's books - to encourage children to read. The fairytales are really great. I am reading fairytales that I am not familiar with and skipping the others. I think I will also get Aesop's fables from the bookshop. The fairytale books are really cheap - only about 10 dollars each and they will last me a fairly long time. With the comics though, I finish them in two hours and so they seem a waste of money. 

I think I will read more, and then will learn some vocabulary and then study a bit more grammar - I will revise Korean Grammar in Use, go through the useful chapters of Using Korean, and then start on Korean Grammar for International Learners. I feel ready to tackle more difficult grammar at this stage. I am especially interested in improving my understanding of the passive tense. 

Whatsmore I am enjoying the studying a lot more (as I have said). It no longer seems an unfathomable mystery to me, the Korean language. 

I think this is because I am climbing out of the beginner stage. It's a good feeling to make this kind of progress. 

I think the more exposure and the more hours I spend reading Korean the more quickly I will progress. It's a matter of reading and reading. Even though my reading aloud is slow and my intonation and pronunciation awful, voiceless reading is not too bad. 

Long sentences can be a bit hard to understand however. I think at this stage I have most of the material I need and I do not really need to buy much more material. I looked for vocab books that taught advanced vocab but didn't like most of them. I think I have to do the memorization of more vocab if I am to progress onto the next stage and be able to read material aimed more at adults. 

So studying grammar, memorizing vocab, reading Korean with English translations available has led me to make a big leap in reading ability. 

Reading easy books

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.