I think I've made good progress.

I really do. Just do your daily study everyday and everything should be all right.

Just go with the flow when studying. When you find that it's easy, that means the study method is right. I think I have found the right method. I think my listening is also getting better. 

I am really happy that I am on the right track with learning now. 

I can learn one chapter of the Essentials Everyday a day. I have seven more chapters to go. So in a week I will be finished with this. I am itching to shadow "Using Korean" but I don't have the recording. I might be pronouncing it all wrong and saying things with the wrong intonation. 

Should I finish the KGU book? I am halfway through it. I didn't do the translations. I will do the translations from now on. I will do translations for everything I shadow. 

I think I might try "Using Korean". I have renewed enthusiasm for this book because it has colloquial speech, the stuff that Koreans use everyday in normal casual conversation with people they know well. I don't want to know just phrase book sentences. I want to branch out. 

I think I will go for it. Oh-oh, I don't have the recordings ... I can just sound it out the best way I think it is said. Later on, when I have money or I get a kind Korean person willing to help me, I will get the recordings. I am eager to start shadowing this book! 

I only have the recordings for KGU. Actually, I have the Essentials Business book but it's too difficult right now and I will be sick of the Essential series after I finish the current book so ... 

Don't know what to do. The KGU book is OK, just not that many useful phrases. 

I think the Using Korean book will be more useful. 

Got to think about it. 

It's getting hard

By the time I get to the eightieth sentence, it gets hard. I start getting fidgety, wanting to have a break. This morning I have been studying for 4 hours. I've had enough. Want a break!

Need to take frequent breaks because I get fatigued. Always remember to go from English to the TL. 

It's really going well. After the shadowing, I will do reading comprehension. 

I just tried reading the WOW Ugly Duckling comic and it's great! It's at my current reading level. It's colloquially translated. Sometimes the translation is far-off but I can understand the literal meaning because my reading skills have improved. Also, because I am reading from English to Korean, I am not too fussed about the grammar. I think it's really worth shadowing and translating those books. At least, just shadowing. 

I don't have to look up the dictionary very much because the translations are there. 

The WOW comics are good for shadowing and studying. They are fun to read as well. I will get someone to read the comics and make separate tracks. I will repeat and I will learn a few new vocabulary. This will be fun. The comics are in colloquial Korean which is very helpful. 

I remember when I was learning English (reading and writing) as a child, I read many books. I found reading hard at first and then I got better and better. I looked up many words in the dictionary. I started off with the children's books in the library. I read them ALL, and then moved onto the books for older children - the books without illustrations. I read them without too much difficulty. 

So when learning Korean reading comprehension, I should perhaps do the same. I have the WOW comics, the fairytales, the fables to read. Then I can read all the easy children's books teaching English that are on my shelves. Then I can read short stories for children. These do not have really long sentences. Then I can read progressively more difficult stuff culminating in the newspaper articles and online articles. 

I think I should build up in this way. I am getting better I think. The WOW comics are really fun to read. My reading skills have improved a lot just with a little shadowing. I am not so obsessed with the grammar. 

I wonder when I should fit the shadowing of the comic books in ... The Using Korean and International Learners books are priorities though. The Using Korean book will be a great source of chunks. Very good colloquial language. So am getting there eventually. 

Getting there. This year I will be fluent in Korean! I will be speaking and reading Korean fluently. Only simple stuff I will be fluent however. But with a little extra work, I will be able to read well and write well too. 

So it doesn't really take that long to learn a language. Once you hit on the right technique, it's actually quite fast to learn. There you have it. The key is to read from English to Korean. 

When I read the Ugly Duckling the other day, I found it a bit hard. It was because I was going from Korean to English. Today, I went from English to Korean and found it much easier. Quite enjoyable to read. My pronunciation too has improved when I read. I just want a recording. A recording would be great. 

Mnemonics
I find that if I get the first syllable of the word, I can recall the whole word usually. The first syllable is what gets me started. So when I make mnemonics I will concentrate on the first syllable.

I love shadowing

and I really like translating into Korean. This is the fun part when I translate into Korean and I check it and it's right. I get a buzz out of that. I feel as if I've scored. It's my reward when I've translated right. It gets really addictive.

I think this is what readers of my book will also feel. They will feel they score when they translate right. They will feel really encouraged and get a sense of achievement. 

I think that's why some people are addicted to learning languages - they become polyglots. They get a high from being able to say a complete sentence in the target language. 

At the rate that I am learning, I am actually learning 100 sentences a day. That's about 3,000 sentences a month. In three months, that's 9,000 sentences. That's a lot. So in about three months, you can learn a language! 

That's astonishingly quick. 

No wonder those people are fluent after three years, four years. Obviously they are using the right methods to learn a language. Three years is plenty of time to become fluent in a TL. If you study three or four hours everyday, by the end of one year, you will have learned 12x30x60~20,000 phrases. That's enough to be fluent. More than enough. You would then spend the next two years practicing what you know and learning more words, phrases and so on. You might even pick up reading and writing. 

It's a matter of getting those 10,000 chunks down. It's not that hard to do that. 

Maybe about 10% of the book would be TL to NL but 90% would be NL to TL. 

I think that's how the weighting goes. 

Got to keep going

It's heartening to think how much can be achieved in such a short time. The shadowing is just wonderful. I don't come across that many words I don't know while doing the shadowing and if I DO come across any, I just use mnemonics to remember them. Without mnemonics, I don't have a hope remembering those words.

It's progressing well. I just have to remember to learn 60 new sentences a day. That's 60x30=1800 in a month! That's a lot. In a month, I will have progressed a lot. 3 months that's 5400 sentences. In six months, that's 10,000 sentences. I will have run out of sentences to shadow! I hope I can read well by then. 

I have to study the Business Essentials book. I will do that. 

So the books I have to study and shadow are: 

# Essentials Everyday

# Grammar in Use

# Essentials Business

# Migrant phrase book

# Korean at a Glance

# International Learners

# Korean in Use. 

I wish there was a book or series that had about 10,000 phrases to shadow. Each phrase had the English translation (the colloquial one), the TL romanization (if needed) and the literal English translation (word for word). And the mp3. Then I wouldn't have to study other materials or buy any other materials really, except for some grammar books and a dictionary. This sort of book would make you fluent in the language. 

If you wanted to learn reading, you would then study some books and newspapers. You would have a good foundation though already. Studying reading would be easy, I think, after you achieve fluency. You would have a feel for grammar. 

If you studied full time, it would take you 2 months to become fluent in the language (14 hours a day learning about 200 words a day). 

If you studied part time, say 50 sentences a day, it would take you 6 months to become fluent. So just by shadowing the 50 sentences a day from the book you would become fluent. 

For the Korean book, I would add Korean phrases, idioms, sayings and terms like "princess disease".  But this would be clearly set out that these words are special for Korea. Most of the book would have an emphasis on English to Korean translation. 

There would be sentences to learn, dialogs and stuff like that. Mainly sentences, but some dialogs. 

They would cover all the usual situations that phrase books cover but then they would also cover a lot of other situations. 

You could a language in six months. In two years, you could learn four languages. You wouldn't really have to do much memorization. You would just use mnemonics to remember the words. 

So continue with the chunk idea that you have. Think of scenarios and dialogs and so on. Don't worry about the Korean or the TL yet. Just build up the chunks. 

There would be visual material as well. Some interesting pictures and drawings and photos. There would be about three volumes for the person to go through. The whole course should cost $700. That's under-priced I think. In reality, the price would be $2,000 as it saves the person the price of attending language institutes.

If I got a thousand people buying the book, I would make $700,000! If I sold it for $2,000, I would make $2,000,000. But about one-tenth would go toward printing costs and advertising costs, I think and paying people to do the readings and translations. There would have to be lots and lots of CDs for each book. There would have to be a lot of chapters and so on. I think about 300 chapters. Each chapter consists of a scenario. If each chapter has about ten sentences to learn, then each book would have 3,000 sentences to shadow. I would need three volumes (10,000 sentences).

I can also make a separate grammar book for Korean. I am getting better at reading I think. Anyway don't worry about grammar for the time being. Just concentrate on other things. 

Build up your knowledge of phrases and vocabulary. 

It's doable. Just hiring the people to do the translations will be tricky though. 

After the chunks are made, and the scenarios drawn up, the illustrations done, then it's all systems go. 

Just get the translations done, the recordings made and the person can load the recordings onto their computer and away they go. 

They will need to buy the book though. I won't bother making repeats of the same reading, the person can do that themselves using iTunes. I will tell them how to do it. I will recommend that they listen a minimum of twenty times. 

I think this will be a big money earner. I think I will have cracked how people can become polyglots. 

Really, six months is plenty of time for people to become fluent in a language. The method is easy to use. All you have to do is repeat like a parrot. 

So the emphasis on English to TL will reap gold. It really works for me. Going from TL to English does not work for me at all. 

Hardly any of the sentences

that are used in Korean can be constructed using the grammar-vocabulary method ...

They can only be "constructed" through repetition/copying. You really need to know the WHOLE expression. That is how people learn languages. Any other method doesn't work. 

So you have to memorize whole sentences/phrases. That's the quick way to becoming fluent. It takes an hour to think of the correct sentence using the grammar-vocabulary method. If you use the other method, it takes a blink of an eye to come up with the right sentence. 

So it's a matter of memorizing thousands of chunks. That's how one becomes fluent in a foreign language. Just learning thousands of chunks. 

The ideal book would be one that has many phrases such as in the phrase books. It would have colloquial phrases as well. There would be MANY dialogs as well. Each Korean sentence would have the romanization and the exact meaning underneath as well as the natural colloquial-sounding translation underneath it as well PLUS a definition key in the side margin. And of course the mp3 supplied. Then you wouldn't really need anything else. You wouldn't even have to look up the dictionary much. After you spend 6 months learning the 5000 odd expressions in the book, you could then move onto reading. THEN you would have to look up the dictionary a lot, and perhaps study grammar. That would be it. After six months of reading study, you would be both good at reading, writing and speaking as well as listening. 

Every day you would shadow a chapter maybe - about sixty sentences. After 3 months, you would have shadowed, 5,400 sentences. After six months, 10,800 sentences. I think that would be the limit of the shadowing. I would imagine you would be SICK of shadowing by then. That's how they learn in the US army - simply by shadowing.

Modern technology helps me in this endeavor as I can shadow making my own tracks for listening. I can repeat the stuff as many times as I want. iTunes is great for this. Really works well.

I really enjoy studying this way. Makes me feel like I am making a lot of progress. 

Doing this - shadowing - is really a brute memorization process. Because you hear the reading multiple times, the process is easier. Without listening to the reading, memorizing these sentences will be a lot harder, not to mention you might be memorizing everything wrong. 

It takes me about 3 hours to shadow a chapter (about 90 sentences). That's about 30 sentences an hour. That's about 2 minutes per sentence, I think. That's not a lot of time. 

If I study full-time, that will be 14 hours a day. That will be about 14x30=420 sentences a day. That will be about 12,000 sentences a month. In 3 months, that would be 36,000 sentences. In about six months, that would be 72,000 sentences. 

I think if you study full-time everyday for about six months, you will be fluent in that language. You might not be able to read newspapers but you will be fluent.

A lot of the time realistically will be getting access to the shadowing material. The above is theoretical, that is, assuming that all the shadowing material is available to one. In the actual case, a lot of the time will be spent securing the shadowing material and preparing it for shadowing, so I think you would be learning in reality half the number of sentences - around 220 sentences a day - still not a paltry amount. 

After 3 months, that will be 220 times 3 times 30 =~ 18,000 sentences. That should be plenty to become fluent. Then you spend six months brushing up on reading and writing skills. You will be able to pronounce everything you read. And you will already know many words, maybe about 10,000. What's left is to increase your vocabulary. 

Things are going well. May have to do revision though. HATE revision. 

Shadowing

I don't know exactly how many phrases I need to know before I am fluent, but I think if I shadow sixty phrases a day for six months that will get me fluent. 60X30X6=10,800. Wow, that's a lot! If I do 3 months on it, I will learn 5,000 phrases. That's also a lot. If I learn at a slower rate - say 30 phrases every day for six months, that will be 5,000 phrases. If I do this for 3 months, that will be 2,500 phrases. That's still a lot. 

I will have lots of expressions under my belt. It will get progressively easier to shadow too. I will start retaining many of the phrases better. 

Then I can concentrate on learning vocabulary and reading really hard stuff. Much of the vocabulary I will have picked up from shadowing. This is great. I will be learning like native speakers learn the language - by learning chunks, whole sentences, phrases - groups of words that have ONE meaning. That is the key. Learning grammar and learning individual words does not cut it. 

I don't think the flashcard method works that well for me. It might work for others but not well for me. 

I tried with the voca training thing and I don't think I retained very much to be honest. I can remember vocabulary more easily when I shadow it. The sound of the vocab is very important for me. It really helps me to learn the word. 

I shouldn't try and learn too many words at the one time because I will get confused. I am not sure my brain has the capacity to learn that much in that span of time! 

But wow, it helps to know how to pronounce words correctly! And my reading of sentences is much much better. I really need to do the listening practice. 

Most children learn their native tongue by LISTENING, not by reading. 

"Using Korean"

This book is quite good for shadowing and learning grammar through shadowing. The sentences are more useful than the ones in "International Learners". This will teach me the conversational phrases I would like to know. The problem is that I need to scan the book so that I can write underneath.

I tried the Brother Printer OCR function and it didn't work. I scanned it instead and it turned out all right. I can type text in Photoshop though it seems like a lot of work. 

I don't know. It will do at a pinch when I want to study Using Korean and want to make notes. 

I tested it out in Photoshop and it was really GOOD! 

I was able to type color text in English so I can annotate the sentences. 

By the way, the book is an excellent source of phrases for shadowing. The phrases are the Korean phrases Koreans use in real life! 

I really need to study this book. 

If I study it thoroughly I'll be sounding like a Korean. Just shadow all the sentences in the book. Concentrate on the English sentences though. Don't worry too much about the Korean grammar.

This book is an excellent source of chunks! And it provides the colloquial sentences that the phrase books do not provide. 

I will study it. I feel more comfortable now that I know grammar better. I think it's still useful to study grammar though by putting the words into categories ... 

I think Using Korean has more useful phrases than International Learners. 

After I become good at colloquial Korean, I can concentrate on reading and writing. But those things are for later. I need to understand colloquial Korean. 

After I study the phrase books, I think I will start on "Using Korean". I will get someone to read the sentences. I will then listen to the sentences reading the text and do shadowing of the book. I can make notes as well. I haven't decided whether to make the notes in the book or on a document on the computer. 

I think I will make notes on the document on the computer. I think that's the best thing to do. I might have to print out these documents and make my own "book". That might be the way to go. It will be a lot of scanning though. 

I think I might try it later, not sure. I can just make vocab notes in a notebook ... not sure ... 

I think I will try scanning the book's pages when I study it though it will be a lot of work. 

Or should I devote the time to shadowing? I think the time is best devoted to shadowing. 

That book is excellent for shadowing. All I need is for someone to READ the sentences. 

I hope someone can do it for a cheap price. 

So there is plenty to shadow. 

Okay, there are the phrase books: Essentials book, Migrants book, Korean at a Glance ... 

Then there is the International Learners book ... 

Then there is the Using Korean book. There are thousands of sentences in each of these books. The Using Korean book might be more useful so I might work on that first. The International Learners book covers more grammatical forms so I do need to study that eventually. 

I think after I shadow and memorize these sentences, I will be fluent in Korean! 

I think if I am able to do OCR, it will be even better. 

I wonder though whether the OCR thing preserves the layout of the text. 

I should try it out! 

I will do it later. I am still working on Essential Korean right now. 

I think my original plan was the best. The one I wrote about early on in the blog. About learning the language through shadowing. I got sidetracked when I found out I couldn't read much. However, I think gaining speaking fluency is important to do first and then picking up sophisticated vocabulary for reading. 

I just didn't know how to manipulate the recordings so that there would be repetition. It's going to take massive amounts of work, translating everything, recording the sentences and shadowing everything ... 

Maybe I shouldn't worry too much about the translations. Am not sure about that. If I concentrate on the English meaning, the Korean vocab isn't that important. I am trying to go from English to Korean, remember. 

So if I think like that, I don't get too worried about the grammar and the vocabulary. I just accept the whole sentence as is. 

So try and get the readings recorded and shadow. See how you go. If you really feel the need to write notes, scan the page you are studying, put it in Photoshop and look things up and annotate the text. But remember not to neglect shadowing. Shadowing is the most important part. 

When I look up notes, I should really write under the sentence the literal translation I think. Sometimes the literal translation will sound weird. I wonder if I should write the literal translation word down or write the interpretation word down. I think I will write the interpretation word down ... 

So make copious notes and SHADOW.

SHADOW A LOT. In six months of shadowing, you should be pretty good at speaking. 

So ... 

Shadow: 

# Essential Korean

# Migrant book

# Using Korean

# International Learners

# KGU

# Korean at a Glance

The list is in no particular order. 

After Essentials, I will be sick of phrases. I want to shadow other stuff like Using Korean or International Learners. 

Of course I will still shadow the phrase books but I will take a break from them. The phrase books have the good point about them that they're easy to shadow. The sentences are easy to translate. 

The other books are not that easy to translate. 

So either International Learners or Using Korean I will shadow. There are OK sentences in International Learners. 

So I will get onto the shadowing asap. I might even forget about the grammar categorization and memorization ... actually, I should still do that but not spend too much time on it. The categorization should take less than a day. The memorization should take about two days ... And then the shadowing. A lot of the work will be making the separate tracks. I will organize into chapters and label each block and then number each sentence in the block. So much work ... 

Once that's done, the shadowing will be QUICK. 

 

Reading

I have to admit defeat. The news articles are just TOO hard. I really do not recognize a SINGLE word in an article.

I am sick of looking up the dictionary for every second word in a sentence. Also, I don't know how the words are pronounced. 

So it's very frustrating for me. 

I think I had better read easy stuff. But where are the easy things? There aren't many easy things to read ... 

Well, there are but they're too easy. I want something a little challenging but not too easy. I think newspapers are JUST TOO HARD. They are for advanced learners of Korean. 

The easy stuff bores me. The fairytales and fables I am not interested in at all. I also want ONLINE stuff. 

It's better if it's online. I can translate better when things are on the computer. 

DAMN! The stuff that's online is TOO hard. Where are the easy Korean readers? I don't want to spend any more money. 

Tackling newspapers is really torture. I've got to look up all these words, and still after all that trouble, it STILL doesn't make sense, or I am not sure of the translation ... 

Wow, Korean reading is HARD. The phrases are easy to learn but reading and writing formally are hard skills. The Korean sentences go on for so long .... 

I definitely think Korean is a hard language. The grammar is so hard. I don't like Korean to be honest. I prefer English. English is so much easier than Korean. 

I think I am just tired. I am still suffering from jet lag I think. It's only 9 and I am tired. I really haven't achieved much today. 

Anyhow, I've got to finish the book, the Essentials book. 

Just stick to shadowing for the time being and don't worry about other things. You have plenty of time to do translating in the future. 

So my opinions have changed. Speaking is easy. Reading and writing Korean are hard. 

Actually, I am worried. Now that I know how you learn to speak, I am concerned that I am not learning how Koreans chat with each other. I am just learning formal conversation that occurs between strangers in these phrase books, but that is not how people talk with each other in real life. 

I don't know where to find this. I can't exactly shadow something that's not available. In three months, I will be good at speaking about things that a tourist might need to talk about but not good at all in having casual conversations with people I know well. 

That's why Korean is hard, I guess. There aren't many resources for learning this kind of casual speech. 

Unlike English where I had access to TONS of resources, there are very few resources in English. 

I wish everything I learned had English word-for-word translations, romanizations and recording of the readings. 

Fat chance! 

These books even begrudge you word for word translations. 

How are we supposed to learn if we have to look up the dictionary for every second word? Can't the author write out the literal translation for us? Why are these textbook writers so stingy? 

Anyway ... back to CHUNKS. I need to move away from just phrase book type chunks though those are useful too, and think about the chunks that I employ in everyday conversation .... 

I need to think about these chunks. 

If I could get them translated and recorded, then that would be great! Translated word for word. However, nothing is ever this easy ... <rolls eyes>. 

The only problem with the Essentials book is that it's limited. It's just very basic and covers mainly phrase book like topics. It doesn't cover a wide range of topics. However, what it does teach it teaches well. 

So keep that in mind. "Using Korean" might be better for more natural conversation. 

I've had a quick look at "Using Korean" and the sentences are really good. The only thing is that the sentences lack context. The sentences have no connection to each other. They are just random collections of different topics. 

And I've thought of recording myself reading these sentences but the problem with that is that I hate listening to my own voice and I will probably pronounce everything wrong with the incorrect pronunciation. 

I would also like to see the direct English translation under these sentences as this really helps me feel comfortable with the sentence. That's why I feel relaxed shadowing the Essentials book; I trust the translation and the meaning of the sentence, even though the final translation may be highly colloquialized. 

I can do it myself I guess, but there isn't much room to write the direct English translation ... 

Maybe it's too much work for the gain I get which is the security I feel? 

I do like to know what each word in a sentence means though ...

"Using Korean" is good to get the conversation-type phrases that I am interested in learning and that aren't abundant in the phrase books. 

I think it would be more helpful if I could get it scanned and have readings made and get the direct word for word translations done. 

Actually, I am back to liking "Using Korean". 

After I learn Korean, I want to learn Japanese

Shall I learn the writing? I think that might help because not everything will be translated into romanized Japanese.

Or shall I learn Turkish? Or German? Everyone says German is hard .. it didn't look that hard to me. The characters are the same and many of the words are the same. I think learning the vocabulary will be easy-peasy. 

The pronunciation is a little difficult. I just love the sound of German. What about Turkish? I love Turkish music ... And it's written in Latin characters so it will be easier to read than Korean. 

And after learning an agglutinating language like Korean, Turkish wouldn't be so hard. 

I don't think Turkish is that hard. 

Any language is not hard to learn so long as I have the romanization/the pronunciation guide and the audio.

If I got the same thousands of phrases translated into the TL, then it would be just a matter of shadowing everyday and learning the language in ... six months? Remember in six months, if you shadow sixty sentences every day, you will have shadowed about 60X30X6=10,800 phrases. That's enough to be fluent in a language. Of course, I won't be able to read that well or write that well but if I wanted to pick those skills up, it wouldn't be that hard to do. 

The thing about immersion is that the words and phrases you come across are more relevant to your situation so you are more likely to pick them up. With shadowing, many of the phrases might not be relevant to you currently so they might not be easy to remember. There is less motivation to remember less useful phrases. 

I want to compile a master list of phrases - how many should I limit them to? 

About 10,000? How can I get the phrases? Should I create situations? I think so. 

Many permutations of various situations. What people would say in everyday life ... 

If I spend a few months compiling this, then this would be the basis for a language-learning program. I would get a native speaker who was bilingual to translate everything and that would be EXCELLENT learning material. For languages like Korean where the characters are not Latin characters, romanization would need to be given. And underneath are the exact word for word translations so the person doesn't need a dictionary. They don't really need to learn grammar formally from a book because they can learn it from the material, from the word for word translations. Of course, if they want to write well, they need to learn grammar formally from a book. 

Spelling ... well, that's part of writing so ... Writing and learning to speak fluently are really very separate skills. There is overlap of course but not much. 

So I think that it's a matter of deciding which skills you want to learn first. Learning to be fluent in speech is better to learn first because it helps you with writing and reading. 

Vocabulary is easy to pick up once you are fluent. 

I think I am steadily reaching the point where one of those HUMPS will be reached. Once a hump is reached and gotten over, learning accelerates a little. 

I think learning by shadowing is so effective, I've hit the motherlode in learning techniques by starting shadowing. 

I am not talented in learning languages and really I am not that interested in learning languages. Some people have a lot of talent for it. For me, it's like STUDYING. 

For example, English. I STUDIED it. So I learned a lot of words. I learned the grammar and can write flawlessly without grammar mistakes if I put my mind to it. I can get 100% in verbal components of GRE type of exams, but am I good at English? No. I am not a great writer. I have trouble expressing myself at times. I am not interested in speaking with a lot of people. I don't do word plays. 

I think I am OK at picking up language when immersed in it - the same as the average person - not great, not terrible. 

Why does it take so long to pick up KOREAN? I don't know. Something about this language ... it must be a communicative language ... you have to communicate in it to learn it. It's taught through communication. Unlike English which can be learned from books, Korean has to be learned through communicating with others. This is my conclusion. Sigh. I will try and go as far as I can with the phrase book shadowing and leave it at that. 

I think I am OK at shadowing. I will reflect back after a month and see how much or how little I've progressed. I think in a month I would have finished the migrant book and KGU and the Essentials book. 

I think that's good progress. In the second month, I would have finished the Korean at a Glance phrase book. 

The third month, I shadow the teenage book and the WOW comics. The fourth and fifth months, I shadow the IL book, and that should be it!

I should be fluent after five months! 

I should be able to write basic sentences with ease and read many easy books with ease. I should be able to pronounce words well and read and speak with the correct intonation. 

I will be a phrase-picking up machine! 

I think I will leave the translations for later ... 

The newspaper article translations are so hard! I want to know how the words are pronounced too ... I wonder if listening to the radio is useful.