Speed of acquiring fluency is not the name of the game
The name of the game is to be good at all the four skills of the language. And to be continually improving so that one is like a native speaker in speaking, writing, reading and listening. The 3D workers are quick at reaching a certain level of speaking fluency but it is not the highest level of fluency that one can reach. I am sure they make fossilized mistakes and cannot read or write with the same level of fluency. Their vocab is limited so even though it's enough for everyday communication, high-level communication will reveal the deficiencies. They will always be considered very good for foreigners but will never be able to be compared to native speakers.

I think I was dazzled by the 3D workers

and this put me off-track. I shouldn't be dazzled by them. They are fluent but I can do better than them. It might take me longer to be fluent but I will surpass them in every way in my language ability. This is not a vain promise but based on sound reality. Unlike the 3D workers, I am learning reading and writing. They are just learning speaking. They make mistakes in speech and aren't perfect because they have learned purely by ear. They are functionally illiterate because they cannot write Korean beyond just filling out a form. They cannot read a newspaper or can do so only slowly.

The reason why I cannot speak like them is because I never applied myself to the study of Korean. Now, I am and also I am a purposeful learner. I will make great strides using my method. 

My method is quite simple: ram in loads of vocab (about 6000-10000 words), study grammar and then read and watch movies. Learn more vocab, study grammar, read and watch media, rinse and repeat. Then do immersion and interacting with Koreans after that, listening a lot at first and then moving to speaking. Then concentrate on writing well. 

Then I am done. I have become proficient at reading, speaking, listening and writing. I can pass all the Korean language proficiency exams.  I can do translations with ease. I am almost as good as a native speaker of Korean. Unlike the 3D workers, I can also read and write fluently. I am not denigrating the achievements of the 3D workers by any means - it is an accomplishment no matter what to be verbally fluent in another language, but I am not dazzled by them any more. 

In fact, my hurry to be like them actually hurt me. It made me too focused on immersion which was a mistake. Immersion is important but can be done at a later date. In fact it is more efficient to do immersion at a later date than to do it too early (before one has acquired vocabulary). 

Therefore, I resolve to just accept things as they are and actually see that there are lots of silver linings in my situation. 

I will concentrate on vocabulary and wind down the conversation lessons. I will also not worry about watching videos except for the enjoyment aspect and listening for vocab words I already know - watching videos without subtitles is better for this. 

I will also stop all reading. After I finish the vocab books on my bookshelf, I will get more suneung books from the bookstores. I will just concentrate on vocabulary for the next few months. I will aim for 10000 words before I stop. I know when I will have learned enough - I will be able to understand the meaning of most of the words I read in a news article. 

So this is my resolve. I can learn about fifty words a day reasonably with work and everything else. So it will take me about 120 days learn about 7000 words (I know about 3000 now).  After that I will do some other study and then I will return to studying vocabulary. 

I think I will have to learn about 20,000 vocab words in order to be fluent in speaking and writing like a native speaker of Korean. 

VOCABULARY, VOCABULARY, VOCABULARY

If I were to learn Korean again, I would focus on vocabulary and nothing else. Once I reached the point where I knew 6,000 words, I would concentrate on other things.

If I were one of those polyglots, I would use this method of acquiring vocabulary first when learning languages. I would have a bank of 6.000 must-know words and I would set out to acquire those words in the target language before I did anything  else. Then I would study grammar - first learning BASIC grammar and then moving onto complex grammar. I would then try to acquire more vocabulary by either reading high-level reading material or by getting advanced vocab books. Then I would start move into watching movies and listening and getting my listening and speaking skills going. Then I would go into reading more and start writing. Then when I feel my reading level is high and I am quite good at writing, I would concentrate on speaking and communicating. I would try and pick up colloquial speech and read a lot of colloquial materials and watch dramas and so on. I would try and improve my pronunciation by watching a lot of TV. I would read aloud a lot too. I could learn a language to quite high fluency in six months. 

Each successive language I learned would take a slightly shorter time to learn because I would know what method to use and would not waste time. I would plunge into it knowing what I had to do. My studying would be very effective. For example, I would know what kind of vocab I needed to know and set about acquiring it. I would know which books I needed to buy at the beginning. 

I think that's how the polyglots learned so many languages so fast. They concentrated on vocab from the first each time. That is the key. That is their secret. They know how to learn vocab fast.

I will do the same. I will lay off the reading and the immersion a bit. I will drop the people to once a week sessions - so I will see Mrs Lim once a week, Seokcheol once a week, the young man once a week, the 504 Dong lady once a week and the science teacher once a week - that is five people. Five hours a week. Then I will do vocab study and not much else. I can watch movies for fun and that's about it. I will not read yet. I have the vocab books I have to go through. I will get some more vocab books - higher level vocab books. I will try and get ones with drills. They are more useful than the ones that are just lists. I will go through the phrase book just for the vocab. I will then go through the WOW comics and the other comic books just for the vocab lists. I will learn and learn the vocab. After I have learned all the vocab in books I will then move to create a vocab list by reading news in Korean. I will memorize the lists. I will keep trying to pick up more and more vocabulary. I will just ignore grammar at this stage. I will ignore writing and speaking. I will stop the conversation lessons after a month. I will do them after a while, maybe in four months time. 

I will just soak up as much vocab and look at reading materials from the point of view of vocabulary. 

Just make long lists of vocab and memorize them using mnemonics or whatever. I will use quite a few dictionaries until I find a really good one. 

Then after two months or three months of picking up vocabulary, I will do reading and grammar studying. I will read and read and try and study the advanced grammar books. I will read the fairytales, the newspaper articles and whatever I can lay my hands on. I will only read non-colloquial stuff. After that, I will move onto talking with people and having conversations with them. I will just listen first and then gradually talk more and more. 

Then after that, I will try and become good at writing which is the icing on the cake. I will be able to read news articles, understand the TV news, converse with people, read books for enjoyment and watch dramas and other TV programs for fun. I can read any public notices with ease. I can do anything in Korea that I need to do, by myself, without needing assistance from anyone. I will be quite fast and fluent in speech. I will sound like a native speaker in a short time and astound people by my fluency. Not only that but my pronunciation will be very good. I will use high-level vocabulary. I will also be able to write an article in very good Korean with hardly any grammatical errors. I will have picked up their style of writing and acquired many colloquial phrases and popular expressions. I will know many Korean sayings. 

In this day and age, there is no need for immersion

There are so many resources available that there is no need for immersion in my opinion. In fact, it's faster to learn at the end of the day the four skills of reading, writing, listening and speaking by doing purposeful study first and then seeking immersion later than doing immersion and relying on little else.

What do I mean by resources? There are so many audios, dvds (with subtitles), dramas you can download online with subtitles, books with English and Korean translations side by side, vocabulary books, grammar books and dictionaries including online dictionaries that you really can be overwhelmed.

In fact focusing on immersion too early can prevent you from acquiring the extensive range of vocabulary that you will eventually need. 

I think one should always build up one's VOCABULARY and just learn that by rote first before doing anything else. 

VOCABULARY is the key to having comprehensible input. Without acquiring vocabulary, trying to get comprehensible input can be a tedious process. A child takes about five to seven years before they can speak fluently on a wide range of sophisticated subjects. An adult learner doesn't have the luxury of time that a child has. An adult can compress the time of learning from five years to one year. An adult can do that because they can learn consciously. They have the ability to cram 10,000 vocabulary words in one six-month period that a child does not. 

So that ability makes it possible for an adult to become fluent in a much shorter time period than a child does. 

And after one has acquired that kind of vocabulary and then created an artificial immersion environment, one does not need to have easy access to an immersion environment because one has become fluent without that natural environment. And when one has become fluent, one can communicate with native speakers. 

 

Tortoise and hare

I do think it's helpful to be exposed to comprehensible input but I think it's not needed to have this exposure early on as Krashen implies.

I think that those who are in an immersion environment do become verbally fluent and can speak correctly grammarwise without really understanding why they are speaking correctly, but I think that if they are not careful, they can fall into a trap of only being fluent in speaking but poor at reading and writing. And they may reach a ceiling in speaking ability as well. What I mean is that they might be fluent which is pretty impressive an accomplishment for a non-native speaker, but their speaking may contain lots of errors which they never learn to correct, and even though they may be fluent in every day communication, may not be able to give a high-level speech to an audience. They may always sound "colloquial" when they talk, and not be able to speak more formally.  Their range can be limited too. They may not be able to talk about high-level subjects such as the economy and politics and so on. They may hit a ceiling early on and never progress beyond it. 

In contrast to these learners, there are those who do not learn from this approach exclusively or do not use the immersion approach early on. 

Of course, the ideal is to have the immersion environment and also learn using the PURPOSEFUL approach.

But if one only has the PURPOSEFUL approach available to one and not the immersion environment, then the purposeful approach is actually the superior approach in the end. Let me explain why. 

The early immersion environment (without purposeful study accompanying it) is the hare, and the purposeful approach is the tortoise and everyone knows that the tortoise beat the hare in the race. 

Early immersion can produce great results such as  early fluency but if this is not followed up with the purposeful approach or is not accompanied by it, the speaker's speaking ability and overall language ability will be superseded in skill by those who follow the purposeful approach in the long run. 

The ones who follow the purposeful approach are studying the language in a systematic way. First, they learn masses of vocabulary. This equips them to read and listen to speech with much comprehension. Even if they are not in an immersion environment, books and other reading materials are available to them, and if they understand most of the vocabulary in the materials they read, the materials will be largely comprehensible. There are also videos and dvds etc that can take the place of a natural immersion environment. The person can quickly absorb grammar from exposing oneself to the reading materials and media. The purposeful learner supplements their wide range of vocab by studying grammar, initially basic grammar then later more difficult grammar. The purposeful learner at this stage is not trying to trying to produce speech or writing at this stage except for very basic speech and writing. The purposeful learner is focused on COMPREHENSION at this stage and nothing is more helpful than an extensive knowledge of vocabulary in this endeavor.

So the purposeful learner is not producing very much only when they are forced to eg when having to speak the language to survive. They are mainly acquiring vocabulary and passively reading and listening.

Now after the purposeful learner has acquired about a vocab bank of 10,000 words, the purposeful learner moves onto the second stage of learning. The purposeful learner then exposes themselves to an immersion environment or creates an artificial environment themselves. The purposeful learner then learns how the vocab they know is strung together. Because they already know most of the vocab they come across they can concentrate on just learning the grammar of sentences.

So the learner learns sequentially and therefore can be more focused in their learning. There is also less room for anxiety as there isn't too much incomprehensible input coming in at the learner (strange words and unfamiliar sentence syntax). 

The learner then concentrates on improving reading comprehension and listening comprehension. The learner is still not focused on production yet. 

The more the learner reads and listens the better their language will be. Because the stress of the task of reading and listening has been reduced by the methods outlined above, the learner will be motivated to read and listen to more materials than they would be if their stress level is high. 

During this process, the learner will be picking up more vocabulary and acquiring more advanced vocabulary. The learner can also return to studying grammar and will study more advanced grammar books. Because the learner has an extensive knowledge of grammar, the learner can concentrate on just learning the grammar taught in the books and not learning the vocabulary as well in the grammar books. 

Learning higher-level grammar will improve comprehension when the learner reads and listens. The higher the comprehension level the more likely the learner will read books and watch programs and movies. Therefore the exposure to the language will increase in concert. 

Therefore the person is getting a lot of input at this stage and the comprehension level is high. The learner can progress in the level of difficulty of the sort of material they are exposed to. They only have to look up the occasional unfamiliar word at this stage. Looking up the dictionary for unfamiliar words frequently is hampering for someone trying to read or watch something. 

Then the purposeful learner will try their hand at production. Because they are exposed to lots of comprehensible input at this stage, they are starting to achieve fluency. But they aren't just achieving fluency in speaking, they are achieving fluency in reading as well and eventually in writing. 

Now, let's look at the immersion student who relied just on immersion and little else. Where are they at at this stage? They achieved verbal fluency much early on but the purposeful learner is catching up. Not only that, but the purposeful learner can read relatively fluent at this stage whereas the immersion-only learner  cannot.

And the purposeful learner is making far fewer mistakes. The immersion-only learner is making the same mistakes over and over again. The mistakes seem to be fossilized. The immersion-only learner has hit a ceiling. Beyond this level, they won't improve. They have reached this level quite fast but it's not a top-level. There are mistakes in speech, for example, dropping 's' in plurals, that can be overlooked but it still puts this learner at a disadvantage when compared to the purposeful learner who does not make this kind of mistake. 

The purposeful learner is constantly correcting themselves and checking themselves for correctness. The purposeful learner learns high-level grammar. The purposeful learner learns the sort of grammar to write well in that language. There are nuances in grammar in writing that one can only learn by making an extensive study of grammar. Learning grammar in itself is not enough to become fluent in the language but it helps make input more comprehensible and it also refines speech and writing. 

Therefore the level of speech of the purposeful learner is higher than that of the immersion-only learner. The purposeful learner is fluent at this stage. They have received enough comprehensible input  at this point to become fluent. 

And the purposeful learner can read high-level language books and newspapers without difficulty.  The immersion-level learner can only read signs and simple easy sentences.

The purposeful learner can also write a middle-school/high-school level  essay but the immersion-only learner can only fill out forms and not much else. 

The purposeful learner can converse about all sorts of complex subjects but the immersion-only learner can only engage in everyday conversation - conversation about society and international affairs is beyond this learner. 

In other words, the purposeful learner (the tortoise) has surpassed the immersion-only learner (the hare) and won the race. 

Order of study - revised

Unlike Krashen, I don't think exposing oneself to conversation (comprehensible input) is that necessary at the early stage. I think the best thing to do is to learn vocabulary. I agree with him that grammar is only useful in the only stages in making input more comprehensible. So I think that studying grammar early on, with this purpose in mind, is helpful. So that by the time, one is exposed to input, one has the necessary tools to make that input comprehensible. I am mainly talking about people like myself where comprehensible input is hard to come by in our lives. In that case, I think we should not stress too much about whether we are getting access to that input or not. If not, we can watch movies and listen to audios of people speaking the foreign language to get some kind of idea of how the language sounds. 

I think at the early stages, in MY case, exposure to basic vocab would have been useful. I never learned the basic 600 words or so first when I learned the Korean language. I think a solid course in this and nothing else is really a good idea. After that, a study of basic grammar would be useful. Then a simple reader would be good to introduce at this stage. Then more vocabulary study from easy books. Then progressively harder vocabulary. Lots and lots of vocabulary until one has got quite a good bank of vocab words (about 2000 - 3000). So I think concentrating on vocabulary in my case would have been helpful. Then when I watched dramas and read books, my comprehension level would be high. I can concentrate on the action and story and listen to how the sentences are put together instead of thinking, "I don't understand any of the words they are saying. What are they talking about?" 

So I think building up the basic vocabulary is so important. It doesn't really matter how one does it, so long as one does it, and does it early. One doesn't have to do extensive drills because a certain percentage of words are going to be forgotten regardless. But because one has spent time learning them once, picking up the vocab a second time will be easier. Also seeing the vocab in context in movies and readers will make it easier to remember vocabulary. So at this stage, one wants to be exposed to as wide range of common vocab words as possible.

Then one is not lost in a maze later on when reading/conversing/listening and watching (movies, dramas, TV programs).

Then one can concentrate on just the grammar or the sentence structure or the meaning of the sentence.

So I think the importance of studying vocabulary is not emphasized as it should be in a lot of current theories out there. Nobody likes to learn masses of vocabulary and everyone wants to be fluent fast, but there is no getting around it. Superior foreign language speakers have a wide range of vocabulary. They are able to recognize the words in speech and in writing (reading).

I wish I had concentrated on vocabulary early on. I wish I had studied the grammar books, I had done the vocab drill books and just memorized the vocab books. I think I confused myself by hopping around too much, going to reading, then studying vocab, then watching dramas, then trying to get comprehensible spoken input.

I should just have studied the grammar book once. Then I should have gone through some of the basic vocab books like the 600-word Magic book (for children), then memorized more vocab from other books (children's books), then moved onto higher level vocab books. (I need to buy higher level vocab books. Pity the books that are available to me are English -> Korean and not the other way around.) 

I think then after I had acquired enough vocab to recognize most words in a newspaper article, I should have studied the grammar book again. I should also study the book "Using Korean". When I studied the Korean Grammar in Use for a second time, I should have studied in a way so that the contents were clearly organized in my mind. When I studied that book for the second and third time, the contents were a jumble in my mind. I should have spent time clarifying confusing points in my mind and then lightly gone over the other areas. I should have understood how the different grammar points relate to one another. Instead of studying in rote fashion from beginning to end as I did, I should have been more selective in what I concentrated on and what I studied in depth. I could have studied the grammar book with different aims each time I studied it. I could concentrate on vocab one time, spelling a second time, a broad overview of grammar points a third time and so on. And of course, listened to the mp3 audios a lot. I wish I hadn't worried about pronunciation so much when doing the listening. I would have picked this up on repeated listening. Then I should leave the listening for later as I am mainly concerned about grammar, spelling and vocab at this stage. 

Then I can tackle books, starting from real easy books and moving onto harder material such as news articles. Then I can supplement this by watching dramas I enjoyed. I wouldn't need to read subtitles much. I would be able to watch them without subtitles as I recognize most of the vocabulary. And then it's a matter of focusing on how the words are put together, thinking about how the grammar I have learned is applied in real life speech. 

Then I would spend time tackling harder vocabulary and so on and attempt to read harder stuff just striving for understanding of the material. I wouldn't try and translate the sentences or reproduce the sentences in writing. I am just trying to become comfortable reading Hangeul and not being put off by the 'weird' (unexpected) endings.

Korean grammar IS confusing. I have heard that Korean grammar is 10 times more complex than Japanese grammar and that's saying a lot. I do think Korean grammar is complicated. It's not only the different speech forms that you use for addressing different sorts of people, it's also the order of the sentences and the passive forms, the endings, the conjugations and so on.

Colloquial speech is the WORST. I can't make head or tail of manwha! Maybe it's because my vocab is still poor. Could be. I really need to up my vocab level to understand manwha for adults.

I can't understand even ONE sentence myself in St Marie.

So vocab is the key. I think if one studies vocabulary intensively for about two months and try and pick up as much vocab in that time period, say about 8,000 - 10,000 vocab words,  then one can learn the language VERY quickly. Then one can learn the grammar quickly and then start reading and talking and listening. 

Reading and talking and listening (and understanding) will be much easier after that. A lot of the input will be comprehensible. So I think many people study grammar too early first.  Grammar should be studied after one has studied vocabulary. I wish I had learned vocab first. Just common basic words that everyone needs to know. About 600 first and then a study of grammar and then back to studying vocab. 

I think you can learn any language FAST if you concentrate PURELY on vocab in the early stages. Do not hassle yourself with anything too much - just study vocabulary and some basic grammar. Vocab should be learned before grammar. A little listening to get the pronunciation right is OK at this stage. When you are learning vocab you are probably sounding out the words at this stage, so knowing some pronunciation rules is helpful.

But the priority is aiming to pick up as many vocab words as you can. It doesn't matter whether you forget the vocab words the next day, later on when you learn the words again, you will find it much easier to put them into your permanent memory bank.

Then one should check what vocab level one is at by doing some reading. If one cannot read a newspaper yet, time to break out the vocab books and learn higher-level vocab.

Then after one has acquired a lot of vocabulary, one can relax and watch movies and dramas that one enjoys. Doing these kinds of activities is much more enjoyable when one has a lot of vocab under one's belt.

Learning really accelerates at this point. One is not hampered by having to look up a dictionary at every third word and one can read for pleasure and understanding. Things will be more comprehensible including speech and text.

Then one can concentrate on just picking up the grammar naturally and not worry about the vocabulary. One can focus on refining one's language ability. One can concentrate on how Koreans put their words together, how they express themselves, the "style" of the language.  

One is just reading and not looking up reference materials so the reading is smooth.

I think this is the KEY.  

Order of study - revised

Unlike Krashen, I don't think exposing oneself to conversation (comprehensible input) is that necessary at the early stage. I think the best thing to do is to learn vocabulary. I agree with him that grammar is only useful in the only stages in making input more comprehensible. So I think that studying grammar early on, with this purpose in mind, is helpful. So that by the time, one is exposed to input, one has the necessary tools to make that input comprehensible. I am mainly talking about people like myself where comprehensible input is hard to come by in our lives. In that case, I think we should not stress too much about whether we are getting access to that input or not. If not, we can watch movies and listen to audios of people speaking the foreign language to get some kind of idea of how the language sounds. 

I think at the early stages, in MY case, exposure to basic vocab would have been useful. I never learned the basic 600 words or so first when I learned the Korean language. I think a solid course in this and nothing else is really a good idea. After that, a study of basic grammar would be useful. Then a simple reader would be good to introduce at this stage. Then more vocabulary study from easy books. Then progressively harder vocabulary. Lots and lots of vocabulary until one has got quite a good bank of vocab words (about 2000 - 3000). So I think concentrating on vocabulary in my case would have been helpful. Then when I watched dramas and read books, my comprehension level would be high. I can concentrate on the action and story and listen to how the sentences are put together instead of thinking, "I don't understand any of the words they are saying. What are they talking about?" 

So I think building up the basic vocabulary is so important. It doesn't really matter how one does it, so long as one does it, and does it early. One doesn't have to do extensive drills because a certain percentage of words are going to be forgotten regardless. But because one has spent time learning them once, picking up the vocab a second time will be easier. Also seeing the vocab in context in movies and readers will make it easier to remember vocabulary. So at this stage, one wants to be exposed to as wide range of common vocab words as possible.

Then one is not lost in a maze later on when reading/conversing/listening and watching (movies, dramas, TV programs).

Then one can concentrate on just the grammar or the sentence structure or the meaning of the sentence.

So I think the importance of studying vocabulary is not emphasized as it should be in a lot of current theories out there. Nobody likes to learn masses of vocabulary and everyone wants to be fluent fast, but there is no getting around it. Superior foreign language speakers have a wide range of vocabulary. They are able to recognize the words in speech and in writing (reading).

I wish I had concentrated on vocabulary early on. I wish I had studied the grammar books, I had done the vocab drill books and just memorized the vocab books. I think I confused myself by hopping around too much, going to reading, then studying vocab, then watching dramas, then trying to get comprehensible spoken input.

I should just have studied the grammar book once. Then I should have gone through some of the basic vocab books like the 600-word Magic book (for children), then memorized more vocab from other books (children's books), then moved onto higher level vocab books. (I need to buy higher level vocab books. Pity the books that are available to me are English -> Korean and not the other way around.) 

I think then after I had acquired enough vocab to recognize most words in a newspaper article, I should have studied the grammar book again. I should also study the book "Using Korean". When I studied the Korean Grammar in Use for a second time, I should have studied in a way so that the contents were clearly organized in my mind. When I studied that book for the second and third time, the contents were a jumble in my mind. I should have spent time clarifying confusing points in my mind and then lightly gone over the other areas. I should have understood how the different grammar points relate to one another. Instead of studying in rote fashion from beginning to end as I did, I should have been more selective in what I concentrated on and what I studied in depth. I could have studied the grammar book with different aims each time I studied it. I could concentrate on vocab one time, spelling a second time, a broad overview of grammar points a third time and so on. And of course, listened to the mp3 audios a lot. I wish I hadn't worried about pronunciation so much when doing the listening. I would have picked this up on repeated listening. Then I should leave the listening for later as I am mainly concerned about grammar, spelling and vocab at this stage. 

Then I can tackle books, starting from real easy books and moving onto harder material such as news articles. Then I can supplement this by watching dramas I enjoyed. I wouldn't need to read subtitles much. I would be able to watch them without subtitles as I recognize most of the vocabulary. And then it's a matter of focusing on how the words are put together, thinking about how the grammar I have learned is applied in real life speech. 

Then I would spend time tackling harder vocabulary and so on and attempt to read harder stuff just striving for understanding of the material. I wouldn't try and translate the sentences or reproduce the sentences in writing. I am just trying to become comfortable reading Hangeul and not being put off by the 'weird' (unexpected) endings.

Korean grammar IS confusing. I have heard that Korean grammar is 10 times more complex than Japanese grammar and that's saying a lot. I do think Korean grammar is complicated. It's not only the different speech forms that you use for addressing different sorts of people, it's also the order of the sentences and the passive forms, the endings, the conjugations and so on.

Colloquial speech is the WORST. I can't make head or tail of manwha! Maybe it's because my vocab is still poor. Could be. I really need to up my vocab level to understand manwha for adults.

I can't understand even ONE sentence myself in St Marie.

So vocab is the key. I think if one studies vocabulary intensively for about two months and try and pick up as much vocab in that time period, say about 8,000 - 10,000 vocab words,  then one can learn the language VERY quickly. Then one can learn the grammar quickly and then start reading and talking and listening. 

Reading and talking and listening (and understanding) will be much easier after that. A lot of the input will be comprehensible. So I think many people study grammar too early first.  Grammar should be studied after one has studied vocabulary. I wish I had learned vocab first. Just common basic words that everyone needs to know. About 600 first and then a study of grammar and then back to studying vocab. 

I think you can learn any language FAST if you concentrate PURELY on vocab in the early stages. Do not hassle yourself with anything too much - just study vocabulary and some basic grammar. Vocab should be learned before grammar. A little listening to get the pronunciation right is OK at this stage. When you are learning vocab you are probably sounding out the words at this stage, so knowing some pronunciation rules is helpful.

But the priority is aiming to pick up as many vocab words as you can. It doesn't matter whether you forget the vocab words the next day, later on when you learn the words again, you will find it much easier to put them into your permanent memory bank.

Then one should check what vocab level one is at by doing some reading. If one cannot read a newspaper yet, time to break out the vocab books and learn higher-level vocab.

Then after one has acquired a lot of vocabulary, one can relax and watch movies and dramas that one enjoys. Doing these kinds of activities is much more enjoyable when one has a lot of vocab under one's belt.

Learning really accelerates at this point. One is not hampered by having to look up a dictionary at every third word and one can read for pleasure and understanding. Things will be more comprehensible including speech and text.

Then one can concentrate on just picking up the grammar naturally and not worry about the vocabulary. One can focus on refining one's language ability. One can concentrate on how Koreans put their words together, how they express themselves, the "style" of the language.  

One is just reading and not looking up reference materials so the reading is smooth.

I think this is the KEY.  

Order of study - revised

Unlike Krashen, I don't think exposing oneself to conversation (comprehensible input) is that necessary at the early stage. I think the best thing to do is to learn vocabulary. I agree with him that grammar is only useful in the only stages in making input more comprehensible. So I think that studying grammar early on, with this purpose in mind, is helpful. So that by the time, one is exposed to input, one has the necessary tools to make that input comprehensible. I am mainly talking about people like myself where comprehensible input is hard to come by in our lives. In that case, I think we should not stress too much about whether we are getting access to that input or not. If not, we can watch movies and listen to audios of people speaking the foreign language to get some kind of idea of how the language sounds. 

I think at the early stages, in MY case, exposure to basic vocab would have been useful. I never learned the basic 600 words or so first when I learned the Korean language. I think a solid course in this and nothing else is really a good idea. After that, a study of basic grammar would be useful. Then a simple reader would be good to introduce at this stage. Then more vocabulary study from easy books. Then progressively harder vocabulary. Lots and lots of vocabulary until one has got quite a good bank of vocab words (about 2000 - 3000). So I think concentrating on vocabulary in my case would have been helpful. Then when I watched dramas and read books, my comprehension level would be high. I can concentrate on the action and story and listen to how the sentences are put together instead of thinking, "I don't understand any of the words they are saying. What are they talking about?" 

So I think building up the basic vocabulary is so important. It doesn't really matter how one does it, so long as one does it, and does it early. One doesn't have to do extensive drills because a certain percentage of words are going to be forgotten regardless. But because one has spent time learning them once, picking up the vocab a second time will be easier. Also seeing the vocab in context in movies and readers will make it easier to remember vocabulary. So at this stage, one wants to be exposed to as wide range of common vocab words as possible.

Then one is not lost in a maze later on when reading/conversing/listening and watching (movies, dramas, TV programs).

Then one can concentrate on just the grammar or the sentence structure or the meaning of the sentence.

So I think the importance of studying vocabulary is not emphasized as it should be in a lot of current theories out there. Nobody likes to learn masses of vocabulary and everyone wants to be fluent fast, but there is no getting around it. Superior foreign language speakers have a wide range of vocabulary. They are able to recognize the words in speech and in writing (reading).

I wish I had concentrated on vocabulary early on. I wish I had studied the grammar books, I had done the vocab drill books and just memorized the vocab books. I think I confused myself by hopping around too much, going to reading, then studying vocab, then watching dramas, then trying to get comprehensible spoken input.

I should just have studied the grammar book once. Then I should have gone through some of the basic vocab books like the 600-word Magic book (for children), then memorized more vocab from other books (children's books), then moved onto higher level vocab books. (I need to buy higher level vocab books. Pity the books that are available to me are English -> Korean and not the other way around.) 

I think then after I had acquired enough vocab to recognize most words in a newspaper article, I should have studied the grammar book again. I should also study the book "Using Korean". When I studied the Korean Grammar in Use for a second time, I should have studied in a way so that the contents were clearly organized in my mind. When I studied that book for the second and third time, the contents were a jumble in my mind. I should have spent time clarifying confusing points in my mind and then lightly gone over the other areas. I should have understood how the different grammar points relate to one another. Instead of studying in rote fashion from beginning to end as I did, I should have been more selective in what I concentrated on and what I studied in depth. I could have studied the grammar book with different aims each time I studied it. I could concentrate on vocab one time, spelling a second time, a broad overview of grammar points a third time and so on. And of course, listened to the mp3 audios a lot. I wish I hadn't worried about pronunciation so much when doing the listening. I would have picked this up on repeated listening. Then I should leave the listening for later as I am mainly concerned about grammar, spelling and vocab at this stage. 

Then I can tackle books, starting from real easy books and moving onto harder material such as news articles. Then I can supplement this by watching dramas I enjoyed. I wouldn't need to read subtitles much. I would be able to watch them without subtitles as I recognize most of the vocabulary. And then it's a matter of focusing on how the words are put together, thinking about how the grammar I have learned is applied in real life speech. 

Then I would spend time tackling harder vocabulary and so on and attempt to read harder stuff just striving for understanding of the material. I wouldn't try and translate the sentences or reproduce the sentences in writing. I am just trying to become comfortable reading Hangeul and not being put off by the 'weird' (unexpected) endings.

Korean grammar IS confusing. I have heard that Korean grammar is 10 times more complex than Japanese grammar and that's saying a lot. I do think Korean grammar is complicated. It's not only the different speech forms that you use for addressing different sorts of people, it's also the order of the sentences and the passive forms, the endings, the conjugations and so on.

Colloquial speech is the WORST. I can't make head or tail of manwha! Maybe it's because my vocab is still poor. Could be. I really need to up my vocab level to understand manwha for adults.

I can't understand even ONE sentence myself in St Marie.

So vocab is the key. I think if one studies vocabulary intensively for about two months and try and pick up as much vocab in that time period, say about 8,000 - 10,000 vocab words,  then one can learn the language VERY quickly. Then one can learn the grammar quickly and then start reading and talking and listening. 

Reading and talking and listening (and understanding) will be much easier after that. A lot of the input will be comprehensible. So I think many people study grammar too early first.  Grammar should be studied after one has studied vocabulary. I wish I had learned vocab first. Just common basic words that everyone needs to know. About 600 first and then a study of grammar and then back to studying vocab. 

I think you can learn any language FAST if you concentrate PURELY on vocab in the early stages. Do not hassle yourself with anything too much - just study vocabulary and some basic grammar. Vocab should be learned before grammar. A little listening to get the pronunciation right is OK at this stage. When you are learning vocab you are probably sounding out the words at this stage, so knowing some pronunciation rules is helpful.

But the priority is aiming to pick up as many vocab words as you can. It doesn't matter whether you forget the vocab words the next day, later on when you learn the words again, you will find it much easier to put them into your permanent memory bank.

Then one should check what vocab level one is at by doing some reading. If one cannot read a newspaper yet, time to break out the vocab books and learn higher-level vocab.

Then after one has acquired a lot of vocabulary, one can relax and watch movies and dramas that one enjoys. Doing these kinds of activities is much more enjoyable when one has a lot of vocab under one's belt.

Learning really accelerates at this point. One is not hampered by having to look up a dictionary at every third word and one can read for pleasure and understanding. Things will be more comprehensible including speech and text.

Then one can concentrate on just picking up the grammar naturally and not worry about the vocabulary. One can focus on refining one's language ability. One can concentrate on how Koreans put their words together, how they express themselves, the "style" of the language.  

One is just reading and not looking up reference materials so the reading is smooth.

I think this is the KEY.  

Order of study - revised

Unlike Krashen, I don't think exposing oneself to conversation (comprehensible input) is that necessary at the early stage. I think the best thing to do is to learn vocabulary. I agree with him that grammar is only useful in the only stages in making input more comprehensible. So I think that studying grammar early on, with this purpose in mind, is helpful. So that by the time, one is exposed to input, one has the necessary tools to make that input comprehensible. I am mainly talking about people like myself where comprehensible input is hard to come by in our lives. In that case, I think we should not stress too much about whether we are getting access to that input or not. If not, we can watch movies and listen to audios of people speaking the foreign language to get some kind of idea of how the language sounds. 

I think at the early stages, in MY case, exposure to basic vocab would have been useful. I never learned the basic 600 words or so first when I learned the Korean language. I think a solid course in this and nothing else is really a good idea. After that, a study of basic grammar would be useful. Then a simple reader would be good to introduce at this stage. Then more vocabulary study from easy books. Then progressively harder vocabulary. Lots and lots of vocabulary until one has got quite a good bank of vocab words (about 2000 - 3000). So I think concentrating on vocabulary in my case would have been helpful. Then when I watched dramas and read books, my comprehension level would be high. I can concentrate on the action and story and listen to how the sentences are put together instead of thinking, "I don't understand any of the words they are saying. What are they talking about?" 

So I think building up the basic vocabulary is so important. It doesn't really matter how one does it, so long as one does it, and does it early. One doesn't have to do extensive drills because a certain percentage of words are going to be forgotten regardless. But because one has spent time learning them once, picking up the vocab a second time will be easier. Also seeing the vocab in context in movies and readers will make it easier to remember vocabulary. So at this stage, one wants to be exposed to as wide range of common vocab words as possible.

Then one is not lost in a maze later on when reading/conversing/listening and watching (movies, dramas, TV programs).

Then one can concentrate on just the grammar or the sentence structure or the meaning of the sentence.

So I think the importance of studying vocabulary is not emphasized as it should be in a lot of current theories out there. Nobody likes to learn masses of vocabulary and everyone wants to be fluent fast, but there is no getting around it. Superior foreign language speakers have a wide range of vocabulary. They are able to recognize the words in speech and in writing (reading).

I wish I had concentrated on vocabulary early on. I wish I had studied the grammar books, I had done the vocab drill books and just memorized the vocab books. I think I confused myself by hopping around too much, going to reading, then studying vocab, then watching dramas, then trying to get comprehensible spoken input.

I should just have studied the grammar book once. Then I should have gone through some of the basic vocab books like the 600-word Magic book (for children), then memorized more vocab from other books (children's books), then moved onto higher level vocab books. (I need to buy higher level vocab books. Pity the books that are available to me are English -> Korean and not the other way around.) 

I think then after I had acquired enough vocab to recognize most words in a newspaper article, I should have studied the grammar book again. I should also study the book "Using Korean". When I studied the Korean Grammar in Use for a second time, I should have studied in a way so that the contents were clearly organized in my mind. When I studied that book for the second and third time, the contents were a jumble in my mind. I should have spent time clarifying confusing points in my mind and then lightly gone over the other areas. I should have understood how the different grammar points relate to one another. Instead of studying in rote fashion from beginning to end as I did, I should have been more selective in what I concentrated on and what I studied in depth. I could have studied the grammar book with different aims each time I studied it. I could concentrate on vocab one time, spelling a second time, a broad overview of grammar points a third time and so on. And of course, listened to the mp3 audios a lot. I wish I hadn't worried about pronunciation so much when doing the listening. I would have picked this up on repeated listening. Then I should leave the listening for later as I am mainly concerned about grammar, spelling and vocab at this stage. 

Then I can tackle books, starting from real easy books and moving onto harder material such as news articles. Then I can supplement this by watching dramas I enjoyed. I wouldn't need to read subtitles much. I would be able to watch them without subtitles as I recognize most of the vocabulary. And then it's a matter of focusing on how the words are put together, thinking about how the grammar I have learned is applied in real life speech. 

Then I would spend time tackling harder vocabulary and so on and attempt to read harder stuff just striving for understanding of the material. I wouldn't try and translate the sentences or reproduce the sentences in writing. I am just trying to become comfortable reading Hangeul and not being put off by the 'weird' (unexpected) endings.

Korean grammar IS confusing. I have heard that Korean grammar is 10 times more complex than Japanese grammar and that's saying a lot. I do think Korean grammar is complicated. It's not only the different speech forms that you use for addressing different sorts of people, it's also the order of the sentences and the passive forms, the endings, the conjugations and so on.

Colloquial speech is the WORST. I can't make head or tail of manwha! Maybe it's because my vocab is still poor. Could be. I really need to up my vocab level to understand manwha for adults.

I can't understand even ONE sentence myself in St Marie.

So vocab is the key. I think if one studies vocabulary intensively for about two months and try and pick up as much vocab in that time period, say about 8,000 - 10,000 vocab words,  then one can learn the language VERY quickly. Then one can learn the grammar quickly and then start reading and talking and listening. 

Reading and talking and listening (and understanding) will be much easier after that. A lot of the input will be comprehensible. So I think many people study grammar too early first.  Grammar should be studied after one has studied vocabulary. I wish I had learned vocab first. Just common basic words that everyone needs to know. About 600 first and then a study of grammar and then back to studying vocab. 

I think you can learn any language FAST if you concentrate PURELY on vocab in the early stages. Do not hassle yourself with anything too much - just study vocabulary and some basic grammar. Vocab should be learned before grammar. A little listening to get the pronunciation right is OK at this stage. When you are learning vocab you are probably sounding out the words at this stage, so knowing some pronunciation rules is helpful.

But the priority is aiming to pick up as many vocab words as you can. It doesn't matter whether you forget the vocab words the next day, later on when you learn the words again, you will find it much easier to put them into your permanent memory bank.

Then one should check what vocab level one is at by doing some reading. If one cannot read a newspaper yet, time to break out the vocab books and learn higher-level vocab.

Then after one has acquired a lot of vocabulary, one can relax and watch movies and dramas that one enjoys. Doing these kinds of activities is much more enjoyable when one has a lot of vocab under one's belt.

Learning really accelerates at this point. One is not hampered by having to look up a dictionary at every third word and one can read for pleasure and understanding. Things will be more comprehensible including speech and text.

Then one can concentrate on just picking up the grammar naturally and not worry about the vocabulary. One can focus on refining one's language ability. One can concentrate on how Koreans put their words together, how they express themselves, the "style" of the language.  

One is just reading and not looking up reference materials so the reading is smooth.

I think this is the KEY.  

Order of study - revised

Unlike Krashen, I don't think exposing oneself to conversation (comprehensible input) is that necessary at the early stage. I think the best thing to do is to learn vocabulary. I agree with him that grammar is only useful in the only stages in making input more comprehensible. So I think that studying grammar early on, with this purpose in mind, is helpful. So that by the time, one is exposed to input, one has the necessary tools to make that input comprehensible. I am mainly talking about people like myself where comprehensible input is hard to come by in our lives. In that case, I think we should not stress too much about whether we are getting access to that input or not. If not, we can watch movies and listen to audios of people speaking the foreign language to get some kind of idea of how the language sounds. 

I think at the early stages, in MY case, exposure to basic vocab would have been useful. I never learned the basic 600 words or so first when I learned the Korean language. I think a solid course in this and nothing else is really a good idea. After that, a study of basic grammar would be useful. Then a simple reader would be good to introduce at this stage. Then more vocabulary study from easy books. Then progressively harder vocabulary. Lots and lots of vocabulary until one has got quite a good bank of vocab words (about 2000 - 3000). So I think concentrating on vocabulary in my case would have been helpful. Then when I watched dramas and read books, my comprehension level would be high. I can concentrate on the action and story and listen to how the sentences are put together instead of thinking, "I don't understand any of the words they are saying. What are they talking about?" 

So I think building up the basic vocabulary is so important. It doesn't really matter how one does it, so long as one does it, and does it early. One doesn't have to do extensive drills because a certain percentage of words are going to be forgotten regardless. But because one has spent time learning them once, picking up the vocab a second time will be easier. Also seeing the vocab in context in movies and readers will make it easier to remember vocabulary. So at this stage, one wants to be exposed to as wide range of common vocab words as possible.

Then one is not lost in a maze later on when reading/conversing/listening and watching (movies, dramas, TV programs).

Then one can concentrate on just the grammar or the sentence structure or the meaning of the sentence.

So I think the importance of studying vocabulary is not emphasized as it should be in a lot of current theories out there. Nobody likes to learn masses of vocabulary and everyone wants to be fluent fast, but there is no getting around it. Superior foreign language speakers have a wide range of vocabulary. They are able to recognize the words in speech and in writing (reading).

I wish I had concentrated on vocabulary early on. I wish I had studied the grammar books, I had done the vocab drill books and just memorized the vocab books. I think I confused myself by hopping around too much, going to reading, then studying vocab, then watching dramas, then trying to get comprehensible spoken input.

I should just have studied the grammar book once. Then I should have gone through some of the basic vocab books like the 600-word Magic book (for children), then memorized more vocab from other books (children's books), then moved onto higher level vocab books. (I need to buy higher level vocab books. Pity the books that are available to me are English -> Korean and not the other way around.) 

I think then after I had acquired enough vocab to recognize most words in a newspaper article, I should have studied the grammar book again. I should also study the book "Using Korean". When I studied the Korean Grammar in Use for a second time, I should have studied in a way so that the contents were clearly organized in my mind. When I studied that book for the second and third time, the contents were a jumble in my mind. I should have spent time clarifying confusing points in my mind and then lightly gone over the other areas. I should have understood how the different grammar points relate to one another. Instead of studying in rote fashion from beginning to end as I did, I should have been more selective in what I concentrated on and what I studied in depth. I could have studied the grammar book with different aims each time I studied it. I could concentrate on vocab one time, spelling a second time, a broad overview of grammar points a third time and so on. And of course, listened to the mp3 audios a lot. I wish I hadn't worried about pronunciation so much when doing the listening. I would have picked this up on repeated listening. Then I should leave the listening for later as I am mainly concerned about grammar, spelling and vocab at this stage. 

Then I can tackle books, starting from real easy books and moving onto harder material such as news articles. Then I can supplement this by watching dramas I enjoyed. I wouldn't need to read subtitles much. I would be able to watch them without subtitles as I recognize most of the vocabulary. And then it's a matter of focusing on how the words are put together, thinking about how the grammar I have learned is applied in real life speech. 

Then I would spend time tackling harder vocabulary and so on and attempt to read harder stuff just striving for understanding of the material. I wouldn't try and translate the sentences or reproduce the sentences in writing. I am just trying to become comfortable reading Hangeul and not being put off by the 'weird' (unexpected) endings.

Korean grammar IS confusing. I have heard that Korean grammar is 10 times more complex than Japanese grammar and that's saying a lot. I do think Korean grammar is complicated. It's not only the different speech forms that you use for addressing different sorts of people, it's also the order of the sentences and the passive forms, the endings, the conjugations and so on.

Colloquial speech is the WORST. I can't make head or tail of manwha! Maybe it's because my vocab is still poor. Could be. I really need to up my vocab level to understand manwha for adults.

I can't understand even ONE sentence myself in St Marie.

So vocab is the key. I think if one studies vocabulary intensively for about two months and try and pick up as much vocab in that time period, say about 8,000 - 10,000 vocab words,  then one can learn the language VERY quickly. Then one can learn the grammar quickly and then start reading and talking and listening. 

Reading and talking and listening (and understanding) will be much easier after that. A lot of the input will be comprehensible. So I think many people study grammar too early first.  Grammar should be studied after one has studied vocabulary. I wish I had learned vocab first. Just common basic words that everyone needs to know. About 600 first and then a study of grammar and then back to studying vocab. 

I think you can learn any language FAST if you concentrate PURELY on vocab in the early stages. Do not hassle yourself with anything too much - just study vocabulary and some basic grammar. Vocab should be learned before grammar. A little listening to get the pronunciation right is OK at this stage. When you are learning vocab you are probably sounding out the words at this stage, so knowing some pronunciation rules is helpful.

But the priority is aiming to pick up as many vocab words as you can. It doesn't matter whether you forget the vocab words the next day, later on when you learn the words again, you will find it much easier to put them into your permanent memory bank.

Then one should check what vocab level one is at by doing some reading. If one cannot read a newspaper yet, time to break out the vocab books and learn higher-level vocab.

Then after one has acquired a lot of vocabulary, one can relax and watch movies and dramas that one enjoys. Doing these kinds of activities is much more enjoyable when one has a lot of vocab under one's belt.

Learning really accelerates at this point. One is not hampered by having to look up a dictionary at every third word and one can read for pleasure and understanding. Things will be more comprehensible including speech and text.

Then one can concentrate on just picking up the grammar naturally and not worry about the vocabulary. One can focus on refining one's language ability. One can concentrate on how Koreans put their words together, how they express themselves, the "style" of the language.  

One is just reading and not looking up reference materials so the reading is smooth.

I think this is the KEY.