My goals

I really want to be fluent in speaking so that people say I am almost native-like in my ability and I want to be good at reading Korean so I can read things on the net without any difficulty. I also want to be good at writing so I can chat with people on the Internet in ban mal and also write a reasonable formal email without too many grammatical and spelling mistakes and also at the same time sounding natural.

I want people to say I am a good speaker and feel comfortable conversing with me in Korean. 

I want to understand what they say 100% on TV. I want to watch dramas and understand what they say 100%. This includes historical dramas (the language is a bit more difficult to understand because they use old-fashioned Korean). 

I want to feel I have no trouble switching between Korean and English. 

I don't think you need to be a genius to do this. You just need to be exposed to the right environment like the Turkish guy was, and also do a lot of self-study - for the reading comprehension and writing. 

I feel like there is a LONG way to go ........... 

I have made progress - I understand basic grammar. And I know very basic vocabulary. I can speak using a mixture of English and Korean to make myself understood. I can read very easy to understand children's books. I think I would be in grade one stage to be honest. So I have about six more grades to go. (I say six and not twelve because when I reached sixth grade in school, I learned about 99.99% of the English I needed to learn to perform well scholastically, that is, be able to write essays well and so on. I learned about 99% of the vocabulary I used in essay writing by that stage.  After sixth grade, I really did not study English by myself as avidly as I had before that point. My vocabulary did not really increase by much). I did not find attending school useful at all. If I had not attended school and just studied by myself I would have progressed far more quickly than I did. I found school really boring to be honest. Schooling was in fact harmful because it held me back and prevented me from going at my own pace and made me stressed out because of the boredom. And I did not socialize well in school which made me very stressed out even more. (I got picked on by other kids and sometimes even ostracized. It's awful to have hardly any friends and to feel no connection to the friends you have. You are better off at home or just having a tutor or being homeschooled.) So I got nothing out of going to school except experiencing lots of stress and feeling bad about myself. It made me a really insecure person and very shy around people. I lacked a lot of confidence because of the bad experiences in school. You can say I was scarred by the experience (and I carry the scars to this day although time and maturity have healed a lot of the scars). I was really lonely even when I was among friends. I felt I didn't belong and felt like an alien most of the time.

Anyway I digress a lot but wanted to point out that self-study is more valuable at least in my personal case. 

I might attend language school for the social interaction with others and to increase my network of friends but I don't know whether the time spent attending classes and paying the tuition fee is worth that. 

I will probably be bored in class. I don't like listening. I am better at reading and trying to understand than listening to a teacher explain something to me. Some of the stuff I would probably know anyway and so it would be boring. I don't like going at a pace that doesn't suit me. I don't like this one-size-fits-all approach as a matter of fact. 

I think I will use immersion side by side with self-learning to try and see whether my learning speeds up or not. I can really do immersion at any time but I want to try it now. If it helps me speed up my reading comprehension and my understanding of grammar then it will be useful to do at this (early) stage. 

So I have to get the immersion done. I wonder what kind of response I will get when I put the ad up in the apartment complex. I hope I don't get a lot of curious people who aren't really committed. I need someone who really wants the money. Then they will be committed and driven to give me what they want and not just what will make them feel comfortable. It's essentially a job, not a hobby or a chance to interact with a foreigner. 

Koreans are strange like that. They want to interact with foreigners but once they do that and find that foreigners are just human with problems like everyone else, Koreans just drop them fast and lose all interest. 

Foreigners are not like movie stars on television. They are not a fount of endless entertainment.  Foreigners are not entertainers. They are not going to talk 100% of the time amusing Koreans. Koreans need to give and take. If Koreans are not willing to share of themselves in conversation, lose their reserve, and make an effort to be entertaining, why do they think foreigners will? Let's face it, Koreans are boring people to have conversations with. They live very restricted boring lives. I know this because I taught in an English cafe for a year and got to meet many average Koreans. They are boring, boring, boring. And not's the lack of English ability even. In fact, I find blue-collar people MUCH more interesting. I really got bored talking to Koreans. I know that many people say if you are bored you must be a boring person yourself, but I felt kind of restricted to what I could say. I didn't want to shock these people. I didn't want to say what I really thought. Because these people aren't used to this kind of talk. They want the conventional. Teachers get really bored and usually leave after a certain length of time. Few teachers teach at the one place for an extended length of time. 

So if Koreans expect foreigners to provide all the entertainment while they sit back passively and just take it all in then they are really expecting a lot. And Koreans are very passive in communication in general. 

If they do open up, they generally whinge about their jobs, how they are not appreciated and expected to work long hours and so on.  And how they are not given the remuneration they think they deserve. I really do not like this complaint about the low salary. The companies they work for have to make a profit and if they paid the salary that everyone thinks they deserve to get they would go broke. If the person knew ahead of time before they signed up to work there that they were going to be 'underpaid' why did they agree to go to work there? Obviously, they are so talented that many companies are lining up to offer these stars work [sarcasm]. How generous of these people to agree to work at the companies they do. 

And often when I find out what these people are paid, I am surprised at how much they earn. But still they complain. They earn enough to live well, afford an apartment if they save and have a good retirement but it's not enough for them. Their wives don't have to work but still they don't get enough money. Notice these people never start their own businesses and put their own money on the line. If they did, I bet they would try and pay their employees the least amount of money that they could .... 

What do they expect? They are average joes and janes and there are millions of people like them. They did not attend SKY and so knew that that's all they can expect. They are lucky they have a job at a company. Yes, it's horrible to be a slave and I would not like to work 12 hours a day but I wouldn't complain about the SALARY, I would complain about the long hours at work. In fact, I would give UP salary to cut down on the number of hours at work ........

In fact if these people did not work at a company they would have no social lives. They only have friends and people to eat lunch with because they work at a company. You can be the most boring person on earth but because you work at a company and Koreans are group-oriented people you will be included in social activities at work and you will automatically belong. These company workers go on holidays together, socialize as a group after work and often marry one another. So these companies are good for many people. 

So there are disadvantages and advantages about spending so much time at work. 

I shouldn't bitch about these people because I know I would HATE it if I had to spend so much time at a company. I am more of a loner and I hate committing myself to the one company. I like to work for myself and would RESENT the time that I was robbed of by working for a company like a slave even though there would be more opportunities to socialize there than if I was working alone. 

So there are good and bad and it depends on one's personality. 

I should really be grateful that there are so many opportunities for me. I will try and take advantage of this time I have and try and be MORE productive than I have been. To be honest, I have been very UNPRODUCTIVE. I know the reason why. I will try and get a flatmate even if it's a homestay kid because I realize I lose track of time when I live alone and neglect my responsibilities to myself and others when I live alone. I don't have many friends in Korea so living alone is even MORE harmful in that case. 

Korea is not a friendly society where people are always dropping by or inviting you for dinner at your home so I think that I will have to find more friendly and outgoing people or just try to socialize more. 

 

 

Self-study versus learning in hagwons

In my view doing self-study is much more useful than attending hagwons. Unless the hagwon has IMMERSION classes where the teachers speak Korean 100% of the time because they can't speak English, going to hagwons is a waste of time. It might help SOME people - those who are unmotivated to learn and attending an institution is the only way they will sit down and try and learn a language, but for those people who are motivated to learn a new language, it's simply counterproductive to attend a hagwon.

It's mainly the opportunity cost. The time and money one spends in a hagwon could be more usefully spent on studying by oneself and buying materials that one chooses oneself. 

That is my experience and it's also something I've noticed about other language-learners. The ones who are really good at English, almost like native speakers, have invariably spent the time STUDYING by themselves.  Consistently, when I have asked the really good English speakers how they learned English, they have said they taught themselves. Most of these people have never spent time in an English-speaking nation. These people are usually quite smart. One of them studied law at Seoul National University and the other is a medical doctor. They speak English better than a lot of people who have studied English OVERSEAS.

Obviously these people availed themselves of the abundant self-study materials available to the English learners in this country and chose an efficient and EFFECTIVE method of study. None of them attended a hagwon to learn English. 

I think they are really smart if they taught themselves to be fluent without even spending one day in an English-speaking country. You can create an immersion atmosphere in Korea (to learn English) because this nation is CRAZY about learning English and there are so many resources out there. 

And these people are great at writing too. They study ALL aspects of the language. There are some who have spent time overseas and are good speakers of English but aren't good at reading and are hopeless at writing. I am not talking about these people. I am talking about those who have taught themselves English and speak English fluently without much of a Korean accent and can also read and write English well. 

So I think in my case, I will try and emulate them and not waste time and money trying to learn formally by going to institutions and just teach myself. I have enough materials if I raid the English-learning sections of bookstores. There is also free material - downloads of dramas and subtitles and stuff. I can hire someone for an hour a day to talk in Korean for me to speed up the process and improve my pronunciation and intonation. 

I have to pay someone because as I have said Koreans aren't that outgoing. Contrast the Korean real estate agent whom I met and I suggested language exchange and she said she was interested but did not really make an effort to really engage me in that idea, with the Turkish guy who I befriended today. We made a time and we made a tentative agreement to meet informally after work to go out and have dinner and teach each other Korean and English. 

It's sad that I have to learn Korean from a Turkish person living in Korea and not from a Korean person even though there are millions of Koreans in Korea and there are only a handful of Turks in Korea. Korean is not even this guy's native language! 

It just shows the strange state of affairs in this country and why it's extremely hard for foreigners to learn Korean if they are not doing DDD work or engaged in small business in Korea (or not married/dating Korean people). 

I don't think this man dated a Korean person. It's possible he did in the past and that's why he learned Korean so fast, but if he did, he did not let on about that. He said he learned Korean on the job. 

Immersion is good for learning speaking and helps with reading and writing

Today I went to a kebab shop in Hongdae. I had found that the people there spoke good Korean so I went there to find out more about that. There was one person there called Sharam (Sharom it is pronounced). He said he was from Turkey but his mother is from Iran. Anyway, his Korean is VERY good. He has been in Korea for four years running kebab businesses with his friend also from the Middle East. He said it took him 1 year to become a good speaker of Korean. I don't know about his reading. I don't think it's very good. He said he doesn't speak much English but he speaks enough for me to understand. He never learned Korean from an institution. He just learned on the job. He just listened to the communications that went on the shops he was working in and then went on from there. He said he really likes Korea. I think he plans on staying here forever. I didn't ask about his private life but I gather he's not married though a brochure about restaurants and notable spots in Hongdae said he was married to a Korean woman. He said that was a mistake and he had no control over what they put in that brochure.

 

 

This is not the same kebab shop I went to. This is just an image I got off the Internet. 

 

He was nice and he spent the time talking to me. He said he wants to learn English from me. He lives in Itaewon. He socializes mostly with his Turkish friends. 

I was just amazed at how confident he was with the Korean language and it was more than just being able to talk about restaurant related matters to his customers, he was able to converse in Korean on diverse subjects. 

After talking to him, I think that immersion is the way to go to be verbally fluent in the language. Not only that but it is a faster way to help one read and write. You pick up the grammar and vocabulary from immersion so when it comes to learning to read and write, a lot of what you must learn you already know or your ear knows it so you have a headstart over people who have never had immersion. 

I asked him if it's OK to do language exchange. He said he was willing to do it. He suggested I give him a ring - he gave me his card - and we might go to Itaewon in the evening and eat dinner in a restaurant. I might like that and maybe go to a hof afterwards and practise my Korean. 

I think when you have a personal teacher, you can learn the language fast. The good thing about this guy is that he can't speak English that much. We did spend a lot of time speaking in English and only a little time speaking in Korean though. 

I think I will try and get the ad translated and go from there. I will post it up tomorrow and see how it goes. I will also contact Homestay and see how it goes. Or make my own ad. I think I should be more outgoing and meet more people. I need to get a part time job. 

It's SOO hard in the English teaching industry to learn Korean.  There are many English teachers who have spent lots of time learning Korean and I don't think any of them are as good as this Turkish guy.

Koreans are just HOPELESS at teaching English. I am watching TV and they butcher the language. They are giving certificates to kindergarten on children and they write "Good focus of attention" which is wrong and "improving eating". I just wish these amateurs wouldn't try. Some people have an idea they are good at speaking English when they are not. The only ones that are reasonable are the ones who have spent some time abroad or who have studied on their own. Those who have gone to hagwons and never been abroad and never studied on their own are just hopeless. 

I really can't stand these people. They get hired over people like ME. That's why the state of English-speaking is so bad. 

I really don't like the stupid way Koreans learn to speak and write English. 

I think I can be fluent verbally in a year. With an hour everyday of immersion, I think after a year I will be quite good at it. 

The key is to speak to people who cannot speak any English. That's the key. 

I have to pay someone. Because otherwise the commitment isn't there. And I don't want to waste time. 

I definitely don't want to spend time with people who are interested in learning English from me. I find that their speaking habits are fossilized and they are kind of boring to talk to. If they haven't been able to study and learn on their own when there are so many English-learning materials for self-study in Korea, talking to a foreigner isn't really going to help I think. 

I shouldn't be down so much on these people. There was a youngish woman that I shouldn't have dropped, but she annoyed me because she was hard to contact. And she didn't really make much of an effort for me. She didn't repeat words patiently for me. She just talked what she wanted to talk about and didn't care whether I understood or not. 

Anyway, I think I shouldn't really blame others. I could have been more assertive. I DID say gently that they have to talk to me like I am a child learning to speak the language for the first time, but they forgot this, and I didn't want to be more forceful. It's not my nature. And I think this woman recognized I wasn't getting much benefit out of it. She said that maybe I wasn't really learning much during these sessions. 

I don't think she really wanted to practise that much. I wanted to spend a lot of time chatting with her but she was unavailable except for the exact time of the appointment that was planned. So I felt she wasn't flexible enough. 

I think she lost a good opportunity. She didn't have to pay anyone and was getting a solid hour of English immersion every time. You normally have to pay a lot for that. But she didn't think about her commitment and neglected that side of things so things were one-sided. It was just take and take on her part and give and give on my part. I think she was really keen to improve her English as it was vital for her career. However, she blew it as she ignored my pleas to lower the level and just chatted on as she wished. 

There aren't many people around who want to learn Korean like me here in this area so she lost a good opportunity. 

I am enthused about immersion after meeting this Turkish person. I didn't give him my number because I was shy but maybe I should have. Then I don't have to initiate contact with him. At least if I go to Hongdae I have a friend. I can always buy a kebab from his shop. The kebab was delicious. He knows I don't eat meat now. I think he liked me. He was slow to warm up to me and then when he realized I was knowledgeable about the Middle East (I had a lot of ME friends back home), he opened up a bit. 

I feel a bit relaxed. I knew there was something "wrong" with Korean people and it wasn't just me.  If I can have an hour conversation with a stranger, a Turkish guy, who isn't that friendly, how come I have never been able to do that with Korean people. It's the Confucian system. It prevents strangers from getting to know each other when they meet casually. This is why I haven't been able to pick up Korean. Koreans aren't cold, they are just not used to having casual conversations with strangers. 

Some older people are better at this than younger people -- you would think it would be the other way around. 

Anyway, I just think that Korean people isolate themselves a bit much. I know ME people are much warmer. You would never feel lonely living in a ME nation, but you could easily feel lonely living in Korea. 

Maybe it's different in the big city, I don't know. Or if I joined a church group, which I am not going to do just for the sake of belonging somewhere, as it's a hypocritical thing to do if I am not a Christian. I don't really like many of the churches here especially the evangelical churches. Anyway, I feel hypocritical going to a church if I don't believe in the religion. I know some people do that but I can't really do it even if I get many social benefits from doing so. 

I will just have to find my own social group. I think this Turkish guy is OK. I might visit him once a week and we might go out in the evening once a week or something. At least I will have made a friend. Korean people are strange. They aren't that friendly. They are too shy. I am shy as well but I make an effort and I can 'fake' it to the point where people think I am outgoing (they don't know the real me). 

I am just naturally warm I think. I think it's impolite to be cold in my opinion so even though I am shy and feeling a bit awkward when meeting people for the first time, I try and be friendly and show a happy face in public. I am not the most friendly person by any means but Korean people are just not that friendly in my opinion and that's one factor I haven't been able to pick up Korean. They seem consumed in their work even the single ones. 

And I have heard a similar thing from other people who have lived in Korea. They say they were able to pick up Chinese living in Taiwan and China in one year but in Korea they have been having trouble picking up the language even though they have been in Korea for longer. Korean people are just not open to talking with strangers. They never invite you to their home for example. 

 

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.