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.

 

How long does it really take to learn a language?

It really depends on your exposure to the language in your environment and your innate ability.

Is studying grammar and attending classes in a language institution harmful if done too early? 

Maybe I am being too ambitious setting a goal of six months. In one way it motivates me because I have this pressure to learn a language within a certain time frame but on the other hand if I am nowhere near this goal then I will be disappointed in myself. 

Because I have little exposure to natural immersion, I have to do things a little differently to what is ideal. I have to use this time to learn vocabulary. The problem is if I am not exposed to the words I have learned in a book or movie (which puts the word in context), I am going to forget the word. Ideally, I want to read children's books because they are easy to read and I can progress upwards. This is how I learned to read English. I remember my sister teaching me to read with the Disney Golden series, I think the first book was Cinderella, and I recall feeling frustrated because I could hardly read a word. I don't remember what happened after that, but the next thing I knew I was reading all the Disney Golden books we had at home and understanding them. 

Then I took out seven books every week from the children's section and read them, starting with the really simple ones and moving onto progressively harder ones. I DID look up a dictionary for words that were unfamiliar to me. I think I did that a lot because I remember the children's dictionary that I used. It was a much-loved dictionary and it had a few black and white drawings. 

I really taught myself to read and also taught myself spelling too. My father bought me some spelling books which were helpful because in the school I attended the education was really of bad quality. Because I was taking out seven books a week, I eventually read ALL the books in the children's section. I did this in about a year, two years - I can't remember. 

Then I progressed onto the older children section and then onto the adult section (when I was eleven -- I was reading Agatha Christie back then and also dabbling in Emily Bronte which I found very hard at first and then progressively easier). 

So reading is the key. I LOVED reading I remember. I became a bookworm. 

I wonder if I can do this with Korean. As I said it's hard to find stuff that's easy to read. I don't think reading the WOW is helpful because it has a lot of ban mal in the dialogs. I think prose is easier. I don't know where to find easy prose. I need something that has easy vocabulary. 

I think the path is easier if I start off with really easy stuff and work my way upwards. Then I will be a good reader at least if not a good speaker. I can absorb the grammar just by reading rather than listening. Although I will keep up the listening by watching contemporary dramas without subtitles (but I am getting to hate romance dramas with their tortured storylines and characters). 

And if I am a good reader I can read Hangeul quickly which makes my progress faster. At the moment, I read Hangeul VERY slowly. I read Romanization much faster than Hangeul. Though I think I am making progress in this area too. Sometimes I intend to write Romanization and I end up writing Hangeul instead before realizing what I am doing. 

As I said, the readers have to be very easy. No complex sentences. Just one subject and one verb. That kind of thing. The books I have contain complex sentences. And no ban mal at this stage, I repeat. Ban mal confuses the heck out of me. People say ban mal is easier to learn than other forms but for me this is not the case. I find the informal polite style, the "yo" style, the easiest to recognize and learn, probably because this is the style I learned from the outset. And banmal has different forms and in speaking people switch between the two forms so it all becomes very complicated. My mind can't deal with complexities like that. I like things to be logical and not a mishmash. 

Until I get those easy readers I think I will read the WOW comics. When I study vocab and a bit of grammar and then read again, the reading is easier. I can read a bit faster and not be stumped by every second word. If I can get access to the Little Golden Books (Disney) in Korean that would be great. Those books are at my level and don't have too much dialog (and ban mal). Then I can read harder stuff and progress from there. Because I have little exposure to immersion, I have to use this method. 

It's a bit embarrassing to admit that you read children's books at my age but it's all for a good cause. The stuff available for adults isn't really suitable for reading. They are mostly dialogs and there is very little prose. 

If I learned English that way then it will work for Korean, and remember I had the advantage of being immersed in English when I was learning English whereas with Korean, I am not. 

Watching without English subtitles

I have tried watching Winter Bird the first episode without the English subtitles and I found it wasn't too bad. It happened by accident as I came across the movie without the subtitles unintentionally and didn't realize it didn't have subtitles until I started watching it.

And it forces me to concentrate on the Korean speaking more. I think I switched off the listening a little when I watched with subtitles. 

I cannot do this with sageuks though because the language is too difficult and has very little to do with real life. So I think I will try this more but only with contemporary dramas. 

I always have the subtitled version online if I need to look at subtitles. 

The language is simple so far. Just everyday phrases, for example, "piryoobssumnida". LTG says, "There is no need" to his mother when she offers him something when he returns home late inebriated.

I don't understand everything of course but I think watching subtitles IS helpful. I can also slow the movie on my Galaxy Player. I love this Galaxy Player! I always thought I would get an Apple product like an iPhone or iTablet as I am a mac girl (I have had mostly Apple computers and currently have two MacBook Airs), but I was attracted to the features of the Galaxy Player. It had a five inch screen. I can play YouTube videos. I can have the player option (no phone 3G access, just wifi) which is cheaper, and I can watch TV and also record programs on it (you might be able to do that with Apple products - I am not sure). 

The five inch screen is the thing that sealed the deal for me. I did not want to spend a lot as I would have to for the Galaxy 7 inch tablet and I really did not need that size screen as I would use the player mainly for watching videos. And the 10 inch iTablet was too big and expensive and also did not have YouTube and TV. 

The four inch was a bit smaller than I would have liked so the five inch was just right and was only about 100,000 won more expensive. 

So I got the five inch Galaxy Player which I really like. Not many people have it. They mostly have the four inch Galaxy tab/player or the smaller iPhone. 

I love playing videos on the Galaxy Player while sitting on the train or the bus. But if I watch sageuks on it (with or without subtitles) I am not getting much benefit from it. 

I think this is not too bad. If I learn more vocabulary I can understand more of these dramas. And the Korean is very colloquial and natural. 

Honestly, it isn't too hard to understand the gist of what the people are saying. All the studying I have done in the past eight weeks (and if I really think about it the study can be compressed into four weeks of INTENSIVE study) must have helped me -- made a difference. I am really glad about that. I should just keep this up. I think I will watch more to pick up the grammar (subconsciously) and not really for vocabulary.

So all that studying HAS made a difference. I think the study of the vocabulary is really important and I will study a bit more of "Surviving Korean".  I like the children's book though too so I will study these two books alternately.

Off topic and speaking of dramas, I feel sorry for the second leads in these dramas, the people who are not really loved by the main characters and so on. If I were an actor I would not want to play these roles. It means I am not attractive enough to be offered the leading role. It would typecast me as a secondary character actor. I think I would rather stop being an actor than resign myself to the fact that I will always be the second bit player and never the first. It would be too much for my ego. LOL.

For example, I could never accept the role of the woman who was scorned by the male lead in Bulsae. That was too much. She really humiliated herself. She had to in that character. How can she play someone like that and then play the lead actress in another drama? Her character was really pathetic and she ended up killing herself. 

I am also a firm believer that what you act out in real life, even if it's pretend-acting in a movie as an actor, affects you eventually. What I mean is if you act like you are injured in a movie, you are going to be injured in real life. It might be superstitious to think that way but I have seen many examples of this happening. For example, Christopher Reeve played a character who was paralyzed in a movie and later in real life, he was in a horse riding accident and WAS paralyzed. 

So acting in movies where you are injured, hurt, dumped, betrayed etc could set you up for the same thing later ... this is dark but it's just what I have observed. Maybe I am reading too much into things. But maybe the subconscious brain is more powerful than we think it is.

So the corollary of this is that as an actor I would go for the parts where I end up triumphant and not be in parts where I am hurt, dumped, not loved, killed off, suicided etc. or am just a second string player. Because it could impact me like that in real life. 

If I get offered these roles where I receive a bad fate all the time, I would rethink my career as an actor seriously. 

I feel sorry for those actors who have to play the villain and end up hurt and killed. I think there should be some sort of ceremony before and after the filming where an exorcism is carried out. To drive out the evil spirits and restore the person to what they were before. So that the acting of these parts does not affect them. 

 

Korean dramas are too long!

I started to watch a new Korean drama and even though I like the lead actor A LOT - Lee Tae Gon, I am hesitant about starting to watch it. From a preview of the first episode, it seems like it's going to be boring. I really don't like these love triangle stories that involve forbidden love between step sister, adopted sister and so on and brother. The theme makes me sick. How can you fall in love with someone that you grew up with as a child? That's so demented. As a parent, I would not approve, just as I wouldn't approve of siblings falling in love and marrying. They may not be genetically siblings but EMOTIONALLY, SOCIALLY and FUNCTIONALLY they are siblings ...

Lee Tae Gon seems to be in dramas with this plot a lot: Dear Heaven, Winter Bird, Golden Fish .. three! 

I think this drama (Winter Bird) is going to be boring. Like Love in Heaven (Dear Heaven), the female lead is going to act sulky and unhappy and robotic. She is going to be dutiful and enter a marriage with someone she doesn't love. LTG is going to look wistfully at her and the two will make the lives of those people around them, especially their partners, miserable. Eventually, they get together and there is either a happy ending or a bittersweet one (the writers can't bring themselves to give them just pure unalloyed happiness, they have to introduce some sadness to their love in the end). 

Gawd, having to wade through 50 episodes of this just to pick up some Korean ... and these are the dramas I can stand (just barely) to watch! 

If I feel like this about these dramas that are on top of my list, imagine the other dramas that aren't ...... 

I did enjoy Dear Heaven a little but would have enjoyed it a lot more if they had cut it down by half. Did they have to show EVERY meeting between the two lovers? Did they have to show what they did on their honeymoon? Honestly, the drama DID exactly that. A family drama, not a porn movie, by the way. It had LTG almost naked doing a sexy strip dance for his bride on his honeymoon night. LOL. It showed everything practically except those two having sex. It even showed what they did the next morning afterwards while they laid in bed. It's kind of voyeuristic. Soft porn. What were the writer and director thinking? 

I don't know if I want to start on Winter Bird. It seems another version of Love in Heaven. 

I also saw Autumn Sonata (?name) with Song Seung Hyun, Won Bin and Song Hye Go and the theme was love between adopted sister and brother.

That dragged on too. 

The actresses who are the protagonists all act like zombies in these dramas. 

I don't think I can stand it. I think I will skip and fast forward through all the slow bits, but then that ruins the purpose of watching these dramas for learning Korean. 

I don't know what to do. I want to watch dramas to learn English but there are many obstacles. Either the dramas are too long and boring or the subtitles aren't very helpful. I have noticed that the subtitles are distracting me from listening to the Korean. 

But I can't watch these dramas WITHOUT reading the English subtitles so "ottohke?" 

And they speak so fast too. I just can't face another long drama. How do Koreans stand it? How can they hold out for a week to watch the next episode or the next few episodes (for the ones that have several episodes per week)? Don't they start to lose interest? Especially as all the dramas have the same plot? They are so predictable. I am really sick of this brother-sister thing. I would be outraged if I knew that someone was marrying his sister (even if they weren't related by blood). Well, not outraged as it wouldn't be my business ... but sickened by it. I wouldn't think much of those people; they would be creeps in my eyes. 

Imagine their feelings towards each other as they grew up in the same household ... ugh!!! 

It's not natural. 

It's really hard to find input that is comprehensible and enjoyable. I don't like talking to Koreans very much because they are very boring people. 

The celebrities are interesting but they aren't ordinary people. 

I am getting sick of Korean TV now. I used to be into it starting a few months ago but am losing interest. I still haven't watched the contemporary drama I bought from Yongsan. I was disappointed by Chuno and the main actress in that is also in the contemporary drama. Why is she a lead actress? She is so unattractive. She looks plain, like a horse. I can't imagine the guy in Chuno trying to find her for ten years. She isn't someone likely to inspire that kind of devotion. I don't find Jang Hyuk all that attractive either. I don't like his personality. I didn't like ANYONE in that series except for the bad guy, the son-in-law of the powerful person who tries to hunt down Oh Ji Ho. He's kind of good looking. I wonder why he doesn't get the main acting roles. He seems to always get supporting roles. 

That drama is very low quality. It's pathetic how it tried to modernize the sageuk format. It didn't fit and cheapened it. And I hated the troupe girl who was in it. She seemed like a lot of the whiny superficial bitchy Seoulite girls I have come across. She seemed too modern for a sageuk.

No, there was nothing redeeming in this story. I didn't like any of the characters in it except for one, as I have said. 

I wish I had never watched it, let alone spent so much money buying it. 

I am glad I didn't buy all those dramas that the people recommended at the Sinyongsan place. It would have been a waste of money.  They would just be sitting there on my bookshelf. I would skim through the first episode and then think, "Forget about it". 

I think I am most interested in translating Saint Marie though the work is hard and the writing is confusing -- much ban mal.

I just want to find the ending - episode 7 - so I will translate that and the second chapter which I have started on. 

But I am having trouble finding episode 7. I might have to go to Kyobo and order it or get a friend to buy it off the internet. 

I found episodes 1-6 at a dvd/manwha store but no episode 7! Why do they do stuff like that? 

I went to Bandi and Lunis in Sillim but they didn't have episode 7 either. That book store chain is hopeless -- they don't have anything! 

That reminds me, I have to return the manwha series to the dvd store. 

I really like that manwha series though I usually don't like paranormal stuff. 

I wonder what happens in the end -- who triumphs? Black king or white king? Who does Da-in go off with? 

I am just bored by Korea. People are really brutal here. It's dog eat dog. And they have a very funny English education system.

I don't know if I have a future in Korea. I'm feeling kind of down these days. I was optimistic about living in Korea recently, but just some factors like the difficulty in learning Korean because of the lack of immersion opportunities, the terrible housing -- dirty, old, unsanitary, small, windowless, boxlike - are  getting me down. I don't like Nowon-gu and I want to get out of here but I don't know where to go. I want to live in an apartment but I can't afford it in most areas. And I can't get people to speak to me in Korean except taxi drivers. (Just the ten minutes with the taxi driver in Beomgye and I picked up several new words without trying.) I think I will have to put out an ad for language exchange partners or find a site on the web for that. I think the latter is the most viable option for me. Meeting people in person doesn't seem to work out. Scratch that -- I have made a good friend by doing that but am not using the friendship for language practice. He's quite unusual for a Korean. Most Koreans are materialistic and shallow. He's quite interested in Korean history and politics -- subjects that interest me, and he's knowledgeable about international affairs. 

So I need to find more people like that. People I enjoy talking to. I don't want to make friends of people just because we are in the same workplace. That's a mistake. If I do not like these people and have nothing in common I shouldn't socialize with them. 

I want to meet my cousin who is a communist as he seems to be very interesting. He wrote a book on Mao that nobody has bought and read. But it seems like it's some kind of epic book with years of research put into it. But Koreans aren't interested in Mao. However, my cousin won't give me the contact information of his younger brother (the communist). This seems rather churlish as I requested the person's number from him quite pointedly. I asked him many times. It's kind of wrong to have your personal feelings get involved in a situation like this. He's not the family gatekeeper and shouldn't act like one. This cousin is quite good at English I think as he was almost ready to take on a job working for the US Post Office a few years back. The communist cousin in the end turned his back on that because he didn't like America and didn't want to work there. This is understandable and I admire someone sticking up for his/her principles in that way. There are many people in Korea who would have loved to have had that job offered them and the chance to have a new life in the US (with a good safe job like that lined up). His siblings (my other cousins) in the US were really disappointed as they organized this job for him and thought it was a good opportunity for him. I think this cousin is depressed as it's hard to find a job in his situation and generally. I think he's living off his wife's earnings while he writes books that nobody reads. They have one son. His wife is a Chinese language teacher. She is of Korean ethnicity and she emigrated to Korea from China. I suppose he could get a job as a taxi driver but then he wouldn't have time to do his research and writing. I think this cousin is very bright -- he's an intellectual is the impression I get. Intellectuals like these are lazy about their careers. They just want to think, read and write. They need time to do that. It's kind of hard working 12 hours a day at another job and then doing this kind of thing. It's lonely work actually too. It's not as great as people think it would be. I did do that kind of thing for a while. I didn't want to socialize. I got too caught up in my research and didn't want my concentration broken. 

It's interesting to find out that many geniuses end up in ordinary jobs. (Not that I am a genius by any stretch -- LOL. My cousin says our paternal grandfather and paternal grandmother were geniuses but I think I will take that with a grain of salt and put it down to exaggeration and wishful thinking.) Like Kin Ung Yong and Chris Langdon. I can understand why. They want to live as ordinary people, they got to earn their bread, they want a job that doesn't take up too much of their time and effort so that they can concentrate on their real interests. They don't want to be treated like freaks. There are too many expectations placed on them and they don't like the restrictions. They want to live life on their own terms. Why should they care what other people think? If they don't want to be a cancer researcher or NASA scientist why should they be just because the dumb public expects it of them? They are not understood by many people and because of this there is a large potential for conflict -- being in an easy stress-free job means there is less room for interpersonal conflict and stress that arises from it.

It must be very lonely being a genius. You must feel alienated from people. Most people seem trivial and boring. You have to fake an interest in them just to get along and not seem standoffish. You really do not understand other people. They seem childlike and simple and it's frustrating for you because you have to always adjust your level down in order to communicate and interact with them. And if you are not accepted then you are lonely and have no one to have real interesting conversations with or to confide in or be intimate with. The thing is that geniuses on the whole are the least arrogant people around. They are already quite alienated so they don't want to alienate themselves from others even more by being arrogant, boastful and show-offish. And it's not nice to feel lonely. So they try and fit in which means having to downplay the differences they have such as intelligence level.

In many ways I think geniuses get on better with people who are "hoi polloi". Intellectuals and brainy people (but not geniuses) and mediocre people who think they are smart become jealous of these geniuses and always try and pull them down and show that these geniuses are not that great after all.  And they can do this in subtle ways. If a person who is just a blue collar worker finds out that there is a genius in his midst and feels jealous he would show his resentment; a fight would break out and everything would be resolved quickly once he releases those emotions. But a person who considers himself/herself as clever but is not in the same echelon as geniuses are when it comes to intellectual ability can be troublesome in a more insidious way. Their resentment is more of a seething one. They cannot accept the genius for what he/she is because they seem to think that this person's genius detracts from their own persona. It makes them feel inferior -- lacking somehow. And they can secretly work to do much damage to the genius. Usually the incidents are not open-handed but the opposite -- very underhanded. The jealous person really can't help themselves. It's just something that they can't control -- the perception that their ego is somehow hurt by the presence of the genius person. 

Often it's mediocre people who aspire to intellectual greatness but can't quite make it who are like this. They are very ambitious and have pretensions that they can be intellectuals, academics or just think they are smarter than they actually are. Some of them try and earn advanced degrees mostly for the "boasting" factor. If they have this degree they can boast to others that this degree "proves" they possess more intelligent than the average Joe or Jane. However, the truth is that these people have very ordinary intelligence. There are many people like this in Korea. I have seen their PhD papers and realize they are writing rubbish and that they are not really highly intelligent -- just average. But they can't accept that fact and continue to delude themselves. Unlike real intellectuals and geniuses these people aren't even interested in the topic that they study their PhD in. They just chose the major because it was easy to get in to. 

There are many WOMEN who are like this in Korea. They have delusions of grandeur and are not really suited for the academic/intellectual life. They resent really smart people like geniuses because these geniuses show these people up for what they really are. 

I think this person (my communist cousin) would be interesting to talk to. I resent my cousin from preventing contact with him from taking place. He won't give me his brother's phone number. This cousin that I have been in contact with seems like an a****** the more I meet him. He's very controlling. I don't like this kind of personality in a male. It is what turned me off from Korean men for a long time.