They do all sorts of things to make it hard to enter your blog. I don't want to create a website.

Geez ...

Anyhow, I converted the mp3s to separate tracks for each sentence which took a long time, about 3 days worth of processing using Audacity and iTunes. It's a lot simpler than I thought to get the separate tracks made. Just highlight the segment and hit export separate segment or something like that. 

A few tweaks needed though for some things such as wiping out metadata. 

Anyhow, mission accomplished, and it's very good. I can repeat shadow individual sentences now and it works quite well. The thing is I think I have to get the Romanization down because seeing the Romanization helps me remember the Korean sentence. 

I've got to mine the KGU book for useful chunks and colloquialize them. 

It's really useful for me when I learn Korean sentences I need. For example, I wanted to say "I don't get enough practice." I can say "yeonseubeul hal kihwega an manhayo." 

"Manhayo" and "Mannayo" sound the same. 

I have to get the Romanization right. 

How do I add diacritical marks? 

I worked out how to type the "breve" as it's known. It's quite simple. I just needed the US extended keyboard and I type the breve first by typing Option-B and then I type the letter I want the breve over, either "u" or "o".

So I got that down OK. 

As for Romanization, I have to stick to a system that suits me. I find the Revised Romanization very difficult to read because it makes the word very long sometimes. I like one-character assignation so that's why I like the McCune-Reischauer Romanization best. Koreans didn't like it but foreigners liked it. Koreans use incorrect Romanization anyway. 

The romanization is mainly for foreigners anyway.  It doesn't take very long to learn the diacritical marks. Really. And also how to use the romanization system in general. It's not that hard at all. 

I will try it out. I think I want to use that system. I will use it for my own use. And then I will use the other system for the actual CD. 

I am going to do the translation and romanization later anyhow, after I've finalized the selection of the chunks I will include. 

So that's a problem for later. 

I think I will include Romanization, but I won't use Hangeul. It confuses people. They can learn to read Hangeul separately. It's not hard to do once they are semi-fluent in the language. 

The romanization that I will employ now is for my own use. I will romanize  the sentences in KGU. I will also romanize any sentences/chunks I learn myself. The romanization has already been done in the Essentials Everyday book.

It took me 2.5 days to convert all the mp3s to separate tracks for each sentence. It really was monumental work. 

I don't look forward to doing that for other things. 

I might not do it for the WOW comics. 

I can just pause and repeat the sentences. I only want to multiple-shadow only some of the sentences - the "chunks". Some sentences are too specific for the narrative and aren't that useful for real life. 

So what am I going to do? 

I am confused about my study plan now. I am sort of lost about the order of study now. 

I've made the mp3 tracks for the Essential Everyday book and the KGU book ... And now I'm at sea about what to do. 

I think with video watching, I will just watch leisurely and make notes as I watch. I might mine for chunks. I might make a page for each video episode and write down the useful chunks from them. I'll only do this for modern dramas. Sageuks aren't that useful for me. 

I think I will treat the Tintin books as translation exercises and for extracting chunks. 

I don't know if I am going to find it useful for making separate sentence tracks of. Probably not. 

So I won't try. 

I also wonder whether it's useful to put the English in the tracks. It will be useful if I am listening to the Galaxy Player on the subway or something where it's awkward to carry the book with me and look up the exact right section ... 

But I wonder if it's worth it. 

It's also useful if I am listening to it just without a book. But then I have to record my voice. I don't like listening to my voice. Also I have to get the Korean to read the English. It's a lot of extra work really. I should just match it up with the book. 

If I do record the English, I don't need the book as much. That's for sure. 

Oooohhh, I don't know what to do. I think I'll forget about it. It's too much work. I'll just study with the book open. 

Now, what about the IL book? How shall I record it?

Hmmm ... Obviously someone has to read it. OK. I will ask them to pause between sentences OR I will ask them to read the English. They must be good at reading English then ... 

With or without the English, I have to make separate tracks for each sentence I think .... 

I am not sure. That will be monumental work ... 

I am not sure at all. 

It will be great if it was already done. I mean there was the English and the Korean sentence on each track. That will mean like a million tracks! The English will have to be on a separate track. I don't want to listen to the English sentence repeatedly. Just once is enough. 

That would be great if it were done like that. However ... 

How can I organize it? Some chapters I won't do however. And some of the English sentences don't fit the Korean sentences well. 

That's going to be a problem. 

What if I just treat it simply, and just get them to read only Korean sentences and pause between sentences  and then I can make tracks for each block? If I want to listen to a sentence again, I have to rewind back to where I think the beginning is. 

It's a bit like KGU actually. I have to make about separate tracks of about eight sentences for each block. It will be much worse though because some of the sentences are really long. 

I don't know. I really think there's value in listening to each sentence multiple times. 

But some of the sentences are so long. It's hard to repeat long sentences really. 

I don't know whether it's worth shadowing. 

Maybe I should just leave it. 

Or use it to extract chunks from. 

Some of the sentences I am never going to use I think. Some are very specific for certain situations. Those aren't very useful. 

So I think I will get a recording, and then I will leave it for later for shadowing, if I am going to shadow the book ever. I might not, but the recording will be there in case. 

I can easily get segments from it now. I know how to split a recording now so it will be easy for future recordings to have them split up. 

So it's there. 

The WOW comics are useful for shadowing. The teenager book is useful for shadowing. 

I am not sure about Tintin. Tintin will be good for shadowing ONCE. The sentences are too long and the contents are too specific for the particular narrative. 

I will learn prosody from shadowing those. Also, I can pick up a few useful chunks as well. 

So that's decided. 

I don't know about the Business book. A lot of long sentences that are specific for a given situation. 

The chunks that I create are the most useful to me because they are sentences I will actually use in my real life. If I work out how to say them ahead of time, I will be fluent! 

So concentrate on getting those chunks! 

Maybe look up the translations yourself too. It's a good exercise in learning how to express yourself. 

I feel really funny because I won't actually be "studying" Korean in the sense that most people think of "study", that is, I won't be reading Korean or studying Korean or listening to it that much, I will be using English most of the time for the next few weeks. I'll be looking at the English sentences for useful chunks and things. 

Oh, I forgot. For movie scripts, I will record someone reading them and I will make separate tracks I think ... I am not sure. These will be good for colloquial Korean ... am not sure about this. I do want to try them out though. 

So (not in any particular order):

1. Get some slang books/resources

2. Mine these books for chunks

3. Have an imaginary conversation and think of expressions in English you will use. 

4. Mine the KGU for chunks

5. Mine the Essential Everyday book for chunks. 

6. Mine the Tintin book ("Tintin in Tibet") for chunks. 

7. Mine the WOW comics for chunks

8. Mine the Migrant book for chunks (this book will be good for chunks)

9. Mine the Japanese book for chunks

10. Mine the phrase books you have at home for chunks. 

11. Mine all the Korean language books for chunks

12. Mine a few episodes of dramas for chunks. 

13. Mine the movie scripts for chunks. 

So what is this for? For the CD-ROM or for yourself? 

I think for both. I'll get the Korean for these raw chunks. 

Then I will pare it down to just 300? 3000 chunks? 

And then I'll make a CD-ROM. So when will you actually study them? I am not sure. 

What about your reading and translating and your grammar study? 

Reading and translating is about learning vocabulary too. When are you going to do them? When are you actually going to listen to the chunks? 

Anyhow, I shouldn't rush things. The chunks are the foundation for my learning so I have to take time to learn and practice them thoroughly and learn how to express things I WANT TO SAY. 

That's the key. There is no point learning sentences for expressions you aren't going to use much in the future. If you know how to say a few thousand key expressions in a different language, you are well on your way to learning that language. So maybe when you do the shadowing, concentrate on the useful sentences. Don't spend too long on sentences that aren't that useful. And don't get hung up on the pronunciation too much. Just move on when you have the phrase locked in your head. You'll know when you have the phrase locked in your head because you can recall it any time. 

So try and learn the romanization of phrases. 

That's the thing. Learn the romanization. 

So don't just try and memorize EVERYTHING. Just memorize the most useful phrases. 

Afterwards, when you've memorized the 3000 most useful phrases, you can move onto other things like learning how to read, memorizing tons of vocabulary and stuff like that. 

Also, once you've got the chunks down, it's easy to learn to speak another language. I mean other than Korean. Say, you wanted to learn Japanese, you just get the romanization for these phrases and you memorize them. And the same for German or whatever.  I think German will be easy.

Other languages will be quick to learn. You could be "fluent" in about less than 6 months per language. If you study intensively, eg. 100 chunks a day, in 30 days, you will know 3000 chunks in the foreign language and maybe you can be "fluent" in about one month. I think this is how foreigners who work in Korea, for example, 3D workers, become fluent in an amazingly short time. 

You can learn many many languages really quickly. So patent your chunk method. 

Is it possible to learn 100 chunks in a day? If you study for 14 hours a day, yes. 14x60=840 minutes. Divide this by 100 and this gives you 8.4 minutes. 8.4 minutes is plenty for one chunk. Actually you could learn 200 chunks a day - 4 minutes each chunk and learn 3000 chunks in two weeks. Or you could learn 6000 chunks in one month! 

I think the thing about learning chunks is not to learn them too close to one another. If you learn too many too close together, you get overwhelmed. 

I think 100 chunks a day is reasonable so long as these are chunks that you will REALLY need in your life. 

So in about 2 months of study, you can learn 6000 chunks and be fluent. 

It will mean all this time is spent learning the chunks, not getting the chunks together and all that. 

Oh god, I forgot about getting the recordings and all that. That will take some time to do. 

I think the priority is to GET THE CHUNKS YOU WANT and then RECORD THE READING OF THE CHUNKS. 

Recording the other stuff isn't as important perhaps. 

Oh ... getting the chunks translated is hard too! 

I might have to hire someone ... or get bbensi to help me. He can do that instead of paying rent or something. 

What you can do is translate the chunks yourself and then get the translations checked by a Korean person. 

I can get a language exchange person to help me with this and this saves me the problem of having to pay someone. Or I can get someone to live with me and ask them to do this. 

So a few ideas. It looks like things are coming together. Once I get the chunks down, I will progress very rapidly. 

I am impatient though. 

I am not going to worry too much about pronunciation though. I might revise the pronunciation rules in the Wikipedia re the McCune-Reischauer system but when I listen to mp3s I'm not going to fuss if I don't sound exactly the same. 

That's for later. I can work on my pronunciation for later by listening to lots of broadcasts and so on. Reading aloud is useful too. 

So just be patient and get the chunk list down. 

Then you can refine it for commercial purposes. 

The master chunk list is mainly for what I find useful. Some of them will be slangy, some of them won't. 

When I do the commercialization, I will make them slangy as possible. That's when these slang books will be useful. Also, they're useful for getting the actual chunks. 

I have all those comics as well - the Japanese and Korean ones. So many of them. 

What I'll do is I'll make separate lists and put the Pages in the Learning the Korean language folder. The reason for this is that I might have to go back to the source of the chunk. Also, it's a way of keeping tabs on what I've covered and what I haven't. 

So during this process, I won't actually be LEARNING Korean. I will be PREPARING to learn Korean. Once I get the preparation done, learning will be fast, efficient, targeted. 

I won't be learning masses of useless stuff. 

Now, if I want to read the paper, that's a separate task in itself. 

Learning to read is different. I am not trying to express myself to others, I am trying to understand what others are trying to express. In which case, grammar is very important and spelling and definition of words. 

Then the learning I have been doing up until now - grammar study - will be helpful. I think the chunk stuff won't be that helpful actually.

And when I do this study I can continue working on fluency by making up my own sentences. I will think of expressions I will be likely to use. 

So ... but understanding and translating will be the priority. 

And when I get recordings, it will be mainly to learn prosody (and phonology), not for memorizing chunks. 

So that's the difference. One type of listening is for memorizing chunks. The other type is for learning prosody and phonology. 

When I listen to the sentences in KGU, I should either listen for prosody and phonology or for memorizing chunks. 

I think I will use it for memorizing chunks. That's why I need the romanization. Prosody and phonology are less important tasks. They'll mainly be background tasks. I'll learn the phrase and then I will learn prosody and phonology. 

How shall I study the KGU book? Shall I mark the sentences that will be useful chunks for me beforehand? I think so. That way I know which ones I should concentrate on. 

I had a quick glance at the KGU and it looks like I highlighted with a highlighting pen the sentences that will be most useful to me already. 

I am not sure. Should I mark the sentences again? With a pencil? I don't have a highlighting pen. 

Maybe I should just make a separate list on a Page document and write the hangeul next to it with the romanization. 

I think I will do this. I can get someone to read the sentences or I can find the sentences myself by marking the title of the track and I can focus on these sentences. 

So I will go through KGU in two different ways. One of them is to listen to ALL the sentences and give them equal weight. Listen mainly for pronunciation. Listen to each sentence at least six times. 

The other way is: I extract the chunk sentences and I write them on a Pages document marking the title of the track for that sentence. 

I can also check with iTunes. 

And then I just go through these sentences and try and memorize them off by heart. Learn how to pronounce them and learn the romanization. Don't worry too much about the grammar. Just do it so that the romanization sticks in your head! Use the McCune-Reischauer romanization method. 

Now you know how to type the breve, you can use this older romanization method. 

So that's that for KGU. You can revise the grammar every now and then in this book. It won't take very long for you to do if you just look at the summaries. 

This book isn't that difficult to learn from. 

So get the chunks from the book and concentrate on them. Memorize these chunks backwards and forwards. 

Now, what about Essential Korean? You can do the same thing. You can highlight with a pencil or something like that the useful sentences in that book that you want to memorize. So go through the book once, repeating each sentence and giving equal weight to each sentence. Then concentrate on the chunks in that book. 

So that's how to do it. 

Memorize those chunks VERY WELL. 

I think you should be discriminating in how you choose your chunks. 

So those are those two books covered. 

Now what about the WOW comics and the teenage book? 

You can do the same thing. 

Now, before you start you need to remember the pronunciation rules again. Go through them in the Wikipedia book. 

And learn the old romanization method thoroughly and be consistent with it. Be familiar with it. 

With the WOW comics, get a recording right through.  Get the chunks you want and when it comes to the recording, listen in Audacity and extract the chunks from it and make a list of tracks. 

With the teenage book, do the same. 

If it's too much work, just get the person to read the chunks and do the reading right through separately. 

So you have the chunks separately. 

And you can extract them easily. 

So that's those books covered. 

The same with Tintin. 

It seems to me that the key is to get the chunks ahead of time. 

Get the chunks first as a priority. 

Get the chunks from the books so you have to do the mining early. 

What needs to be mined? 

1) KGU - don't need recording

2) Essential Korean - don't need recording

3) Migrant book 

4) WOW comics

5) Teenage book

6) My grand chunk list  - I will need translations as well as recordings.

So the prep work actually takes a lot of time. The prep work involves thinking about things in English. BUT the payoff is that when I do the Korean study, it is very EFFICIENT, FAST, TARGETED. 

So I will become fluent very quickly. 

Learning to read is a separate task requiring a different set of skills and stratagems. I just hope it doesn't interfere with my ability to be fluent. 

With learning to read, it is straight out translation. For that you need to have a good knowledge of grammar. And vocabulary is important but less important than grammar because you can always look up words in the dictionary. 

When are you going to memorize the words? I think you will have to memorize them on the spot. What I mean is when you are going through the list and making your own sentences, you need to make a mnemonic of the word at the same time. Write the mnemonic down. Make really good ones. These words you will remember FOREVER. 

Get all the sentences you've made up checked and read by a Korean person. Get them to read the article as well, and record everything. You can use this for the basis of a pseudo-chunk like study. 

But the main priority is learning to recognize grammar in your reading and acquiring new vocabulary. 

Also, learning to READ, that is, learning how to decipher sentences. Korean sentences are hard to decipher but once you get the hang of it, you will be really good at reading. It gets easier with practice in other words. Plus you've collected a few newspapers now. Why don't you practice translating them? Pick up more papers on the plane. Ask for Korean newspapers. You can also buy them. They aren't expensive. 

So there you have it. 

The online articles that have English versions of the articles are good because you can check whether your translation is roughly right from looking at the English version though it might not be the exact translation. 

Also, as always, try and pick up CHUNKS. Write the romanization down for the chunk. 

So that's it. 

But I am still confused about what to do. 

It seems my orderly method of study that I devised a couple of months ago is turned on its head. 

Posted by honeybearsmom at 1:59 PM EST

Updated: Friday, 17 February 2012 5:25 PM EST

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I was able to get separate tracks of each sentence using Audacity. It worked very well. It was a lot simpler than I thought. The key is to press "Stop" if you want to pause the track anywhere and use the menu. If you use "Pause", the menu items will be grayed out.

So the process is relatively quicker than I thought it would be though of course it's going to take a long time because there are so many sentences. 

The KGIU will be a nightmare because there are 226 chapters. With about five sentences, it will be over a thousand tracks. Then I have to create folders in Documents and in the external hard drive labeled "Movies". I also have to create Playlists. It might swallow up a lot of hard space. I will have to remove movies and other stuff. 

That will be a lot of practice. I can do shadowing using iTunes. iTunes is good for shadowing because you can repeat "One". So you can repeat the sentence as many times as you like with relative ease. When I want to stop the repetition I just click onto the next track. 

I think this is going to take ALL DAY to do. Oh well. 

I have to then do the same process for all recordings. I need to make sure that there are pauses between sentences so that I can make the segments easily. 

What about videos? 

I found King Gwanggaeto not that useful. 

I have Stairway to Heaven. I think I will watch that. I might buy Golden Fish using one of those companies that sell DVDs. 

I really want to get Golden Fish. 

Posted by honeybearsmom at 3:22 PM EST

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I feel I have to tweak the plan now that I've tried listening and shadowing.

I found that I can't do repeat shadowing of the chunks just by listening to the mp3 files on the Galaxy Player. 

It wasn't that helpful. I really want to shadow but I can't follow at times. 

So problems with shadowing: 

# Can't do repeat shadowing

# Boring videos

# Can't hear what they say

# Can't get the speed right

# Don't know if the chunk is useful or not

# Too long sentences. 

Shadowing is useful I still feel but remembering phrases is hard.
Maybe I should just work on chunks.

Don't spend too long on the chunks. Just get them down and get someone to translate them. 

And then you can learn these useful phrases. 

I feel that you're floating around too much. The IL workbook is sucking up too much of your time. 

I sometimes feel I should forget it and do the other activities like testing the recall of the grammar terms of the Conjugations, Nouns and Particles chapters. I think this is more useful than doing the workbook. The workbook is like an albatross around my neck. Honestly. 

So these are the choices: 

# Shadowing of known quantities like Pimsleur, Assimil

# Shadowing of my own stuff

  - dramas/Essentials/KGIU/Textbook/Tintin/WOW comics

# Shadowing of the CHUNKS I've chosen

# Studying the grammar text book

# Studying the grammar workbook

# Translating the newspaper articles

# Translating the Tintin books

# Translating other stuff

I find I don't remember stuff if someone else chooses the chunks. 

Also, the sentences are too long. 

I can remember better if I choose the chunk. 

That works best ....

Posted by honeybearsmom at 5:30 AM EST

Updated: Wednesday, 15 February 2012 1:09 PM EST

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I can't wait to get started. I will start once all the other stuff is out of the way. I will learn by doing chunks as well as make a program to do it.

I will have to start off with making up the chunks themselves. 

This will be the tricky part. 

I will really have to mine my brain for the most useful chunks. Prune the list once I have a chance and try and make it as short as possible, in English as well as in the target language. 

It's hard to do. Well, easy and hard at the same time. I will just think about it, and look things up. I can start now actually. 

Just make a page and add stuff to it as required. Also get little notepads and add chunks to it. Also, keep up with your study. I want to finish the grammar workbook. Seriously. I want to forget about it. I will just memorize stuff and move on with it. Read a lot and look things up. And then work on the chunks. 

After the chunks, what next? Well, chunks is probably ongoing ... 

What about after the basic chunks? Then shadow longer sentences ... 

Be choosy about what you shadow ... 

Maybe get some stuff from Tintin as well. 

Make sure you know the chunk WELL. 

There's no point not knowing the chunk well so that you can say it spontaneously. 

I've started a Page document. 

Posted by honeybearsmom at 1:25 PM EST

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Essentially these chunks can cover any language in existence.

I will start off with Korean first, then do German, then do some other languages. 

Mostly for adults because there are some rude expressions. 

Very colloquial casual every day speech, spoken among friends. 

So have to get a notebook and essentially write the phrases that come to mind. 

I will work on the pictures and the situations with these phrases simultaneously. 

So I need a notebook on me all the time to jot down these phrases as they occur to me. Also keep a notebook by your bed! That's a good idea! 

And you can also keep a notebook on your desk. 

Then of course you can keep a note on your computer - use Pages. 

Or use Excel? 

I think Pages is better. 

Then get the pictures down. Be as imaginative as you want. 

Now, how to get the situation across??? 

You might have to have some English in the dialog. 

Posted by honeybearsmom at 11:01 PM EST

Updated: Friday, 10 February 2012 11:50 PM EST

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I think I understand why these language enthusiasts want to spend every spare minute learning languages. I am the same. I found I was studying grammar while waiting at the bus, waiting for the doctor or any available time I could. It was more fun studying than watching TV or even - browsing the Internet!!! (Surprise)

Now back to chunks. 

I have to start creating that list and get work on getting the translations. Who shall I ask? I can ask Bbensi. He's interested in languages. 

I think I will have insults. This will be of interest to people. Stuff like "Mind your own business!" 

I think that will be good. Lots of insults and colloquial expressions. A few sayings as well. 

So there will be about 500 to start off with. And if that goes well, another 500 and keep going until you have about 3000. I think I will stop at 3000. 

And then do another language. 

And keep going. 

So that will be it. Lots of categories. Insults. This is everyday language. 

So insults, arguments will be in order. 

It's to let people communicate. They don't even know what they are saying really but they know what they mean when they say it. 

What other interesting categories are there? 

Shall I mix everything up or put things into categories? 

Shall I make a dialog like a skit or something?

Might be too difficult. 

I think the key is to make short chunks. 

The problem with Korean are the many speech levels. You are actually learning several languages not just the one. 

That's the problem with Korean. Say there are four speech levels, you are learning about three languages. 

So that's why the language is difficult. 

You need to learn each of the speech levels separately. 

I think the chunks business will be great. 

There will be audio and pictures, photos and cultural tips, points of interest, and interesting stuff all around. 

And the thing is the person will be talking after the first day! 

Doing the revision will be tricky. 

I don't know how to do the revision. 

Maybe repeat the previous part's lesson. So keep the revision in cohorts. 

Don't do too much revision, the student gets mixed up. After about thirty chunks, there will be a fun revision section. 

The thing is that they speak too fast in these dramas. 

So the good points about CHUNKS! are: 

1) Speak slowly enough for the learner's ear to catch

2) The listener has to depend on LISTENING only

3) There is no grammar but the listener uses grammar perfectly in their speech! 

4) These chunks are USEFUL, every day things used in speech.

5) A lot of variety. 

6) Colloquial expressions galore! 

7) Short so doesn't tax the listener

IDEA for Korean: 

* Make two CDs - one for each level. 

8) Fun

9) Easy

10) Good pronunciation

11) Person is speaking meaningful chunks straightaway

12) Person is learning how to express themselves straightaway

13) The person is learning to speak rapidly

14) Listener doesn't have to know how to read the target language

15) Interesting pictures 

16) The page is interesting as it has lots of useful information

17) Beautifully presented

18) Suitable for any ages

19) Really good for beginners or for learners who are stuck and aren't making progress

20) Bypasses the need for immersion

21) Learner can go as rapidly or as slow as they want

22) Learner will be speaking fluently, automatically from early on

23) Not much memorization, just repetition

24) Revision exercises are built in. 

25) Enjoyable activity - addictive

26) Person can readily see the progress they're making

27) Person can try out the language the first day

28) Their pronunciation will be good from the beginning

29) The person will be able to "converse" from the beginning

30) No need to learn grammar formally

31) No need to learn vocabulary formally

32) No need to learn how to read

33) Learner will be a good listener of the language

34) Learner will be picking up grammar automatically and effortlessly without even trying

35) Learner will be picking up vocabulary even without trying

36) Program is whimsical and appealing for many tastes

37) Easy to use

38) Can pick up at any point

39) Easy to repeat because chunks are short and slowly spoken

40) Normal speed chunks as well. Person practises the slower speed until they reach the faster speed. 

41) The chunks go into long term (aural) memory

42) Learning is effortless, pretty much subconscious

43) Learning style follows "best practice". 

I should charge about $200 for these CDs. 

I don't want to undercharge for these CDs. 

Posted by honeybearsmom at 10:30 PM EST

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I'll call it "Chunks".

That will be the theme. 

So how will I compile the list of chunks? 

I should keep a notebook, and keep a list on the computer as well. 

I think a notebook on the desk is a good idea. 

I like the idea of a large desk. The books keep falling off a small desk. Perhaps, a desk that's intermediate in size between the dining table and the smaller one. 

I think I will get an intermediate desk later ... or add the desk next to mine ... 

And I will do the drawings - get them done! I can tidy them up later. Experiment with different styles. 

Try and tell the short story in pictures. 

Don't put the Korean anywhere! 

This isn't about teaching how to read Korean. 

The key is easy to learn, useful chunks. 

Use your brain to observe what is used in language. There are common phrases or chunks that are used in language. 

Sometimes it's only one word. Sometimes it's a group of words. 

The key is to make the chunk short as possible. 

Keep the chunk useful and EVOCATIVE! 

You can do that by picking a chunk that is spoken, is commonly used in speech, is short, and the ones that are exclamations are particularly memorable. 

So get the chunks, and think of the pictures that are useful for that. 

Some chunks are just CLAUSES and PHRASES. 

Very common phrases. 

It might be a problem of cutting down on the number of chunks. Because drawing all these things is going to take a lot of time. 

What's the pull? 

Chunks concept. 

Best method to learn language. 

The most natural way to learn language. 

Communicating from the beginning. Can use it straightaway.

Useful language. 

Good pronunciation. 

Just focusing on one thing so simple method. 

Way that children learn. 

Quickest way of learning language. 

Learn grammar as well. But not taught explicitly.

Learn vocabulary as well. But it's not taught explicitly. 

Fun pictures. 

Suitable for all ages. 

Can get a boost quickly. 

Fun revision, repetition. 

Puts it into your long term memory. 

TRY FORGETTING THE CHUNK. YOU CAN'T. 

Good pronunciation. Communicating. 

You can EXPRESS yourself. 

These are the building blocks for more learning language, for learning other skills. Learning vocabulary, grammar, reading and writing will be helped a lot by learning these chunks. 

These chunks are the basis for learning more language. 

So these chunks are the things that will fuel learning. They will rocket learning. 

This will be FUN, PAINLESS, and give IMMEDIATE REWARDS. 

The program will be fun to do. 

It's easy. 

Anyone can use the CHUNKS system. 

The thing is cute and fun. 

There will be fun tips as well. 

The thing is easy to navigate. 

I think each CD should be 500 chunks each.

Once again, you have to get the most common 500 chunks in a language. This is actually the equivalent of learning about 2000 words. 

The thing is that you are learning 500 chunks but in the process SUBLIMINALLY learning 2000 words! And you are learning about 100 points of grammar. You are getting grammar lessons as well. 

And just stick with the chunks as much as possible. 

Don't make the chunks hard. 

The longest should be six words. 

Remember to break it up into short segments. 

How much is this? 

Keep a chunk book on the desk. 

Where shall I find chunks? Watching TV. 

Some tests will not have English. 

Shall I call them "tests"? 

Reviews? 

Some tests will just have the pictures. 

I think if the person wants to find the English, they can. But they should try to do it from the pictures first. 

These are simple tests. The person says the chunks, and then listens to the correct answer afterwards by clicking on the mp3.

I think the mp3 in the actual teaching of the chunk should be one file. It should consist of SIX recordings from slower to fast. 

I won't slow it down using artificial means as it distorts the pitch. I will just ask the speaker to speak slowly. But not stilted. 

What about people who want to see the Korean sentences? 

I would advise against it. 

What about the different speech levels? 

Well, they might have to just buy a different speech level CD. 

I can't do anything about that. 

Just use the casual speech level. Though some people might be scared off by it. The advantage is that casual speech level is easier. 

Maybe use the polite informal level: "yo" level. 

I could do that too. This might be the most sensible solution. 

Posted by honeybearsmom at 11:25 AM EST

Updated: Friday, 10 February 2012 11:58 AM EST

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The chunks must be completely understood. There should be no ambiguity about the chunks. So you need easy chunks.

Maybe I should start a language program called, "Learn from chunks". 

Some chunks are:

• Don't touch!

• You surprised me! 

• There's a problem. 

• Insult words: "Drop dead!" 

The problem is analyzing the English language and getting the CHUNKS. Working out the chunks. These chunks are common in any language. 

• Stop

• What I mean

• You know

• You understand? 

• Don't do it!

The thing about these sentences is that they should be as short as possible. Bigger sentences can be made from these short chunks. These chunks are actually the building blocks of these sentences. 

So once you have a stable of about 500 chunks, you can make an interactive CD-ROM. 

Call it CHUNKS! 

The CD-ROM has lots of pictures to make it interesting. There is slow repetition and then faster repetition. 

There should be a PHONETIC translation below. Do you think this will help? There should be lots of little notes about how to pronounce ... 

So lovely cute pictures. Phonetic translations. Tips on pronunciation. Repetition of audios from slow to fast. 

About five hundred of them. 

Then three thousand of them. 

There is a little individual vocabulary to learn but not much. 

Grammar and reading are taught another way. AFTER the person has learned chunks. 

Short dialog situations. 

Short little tests. 

So the task is to get the CHUNKS. Then to draw pictures relating to the chunks. The ideas for the pictures will come easily once the chunks are worked out. 

Don't worry about the alphabet. 

Just get the chunks down! 

Get as many chunks as you need. 

You can learn any language quickly like this. Get the native speaker to read the chunks. 

So work out the chunks FIRST. Spend about a week? 

Get as many USEFUL chunks as possible. You can look at dialogs and see what chunks are commonly used. 

The chunks should be useful to daily life and conversation as possible. 

So think about commonly used phrases and expressions. 

Dictionaries can jog your memory. 

Just listen to things. 

Watch something. 

The pictures will create the situation. 

I prefer animals in the pictures. 

Just think about the chunks. 

Later on, you can create about thousands of chunks. There is no limit to the number of chunks. 

Might it be too much trouble creating pictures for everything? Note there are no drills. 

Maybe have a fun review part where you put the chunks together or there is a test for recalling the chunk. 

It's important the person does NO TRANSLATION. So individual words will NOT be taught or emphasized. 

Because there is LOTS of review, the person gets practise and a kind of spaced review. 

They will hear the chunks over and over again. 

They will see the phonetics as well. 

I am unsure about the phonetics though ... 

They might get the wrong idea about spelling from that ... 

I am not sure. 

Maybe they can turn on and turn off the phonetics. 

Just listen ... 

And get the most useful chunks. 

Once you've done it for ONE language, you can do it for MANY languages. 

So work on just the ONE language. 

Get the phrases bank. 

Work out the scenarios for the pictures and then draw the pictures. 

Get a Korean person to translate. 

Get the recording. 

Then make the exercises. 

Design just one chunk with all the bells and whistles. 

Then do it for the rest. 

I think 500 chunks is enough. 

This will be good for a test CD-ROM. 

You can advertise that they can learn twenty of these chunks a day as a part time learner. 20x5 minutes = 100 minutes. So they will learn everything in a month. 

Then if they are really keen, they can learn fifty of these chunks in a day. So they will complete it in 10 days. 

If you have a CD-ROM that teaches 1000 of these chunks, they can complete this in twenty days. 

If you learn fifty of these chunks a day. Say it takes five minutes to learn a chunk and revise it, that will be 250 minutes or about four hours a day. Then you can learn 1000 of these chunks in about 20 days. 

Then there is a 5000 chunk one. You can learn these chunks in 100 days. 

With 5000 chunks, you should be pretty good at the language. 

The strength is the repetition and review exercises.

The pictures should trigger memory. 

There will be some pictures with English translations and some without. 

How many revisions should be done? 

After about ten of these chunks, there should be reviews. There should be about one review of each chunk ... 

There could be another review after about twenty of these chunks ... 

I think this could work. 

The CD-ROMs should be broken up into 500 chunks. If the person collects them, they should buy about 6 of them. So 3000 chunks in total. Each CD should cost almost $50. There should be an interactive component too. 

As for reading, vocabulary and grammar ... this should not be emphasized at all. None of this is TAUGHT. 

There should be minimal Korean or whatever target language. 

Students can learn vocabulary and reading separately AFTER they have learned the chunks. 

You can direct them to learning these things. But really these things should be learned on their own with books. 

So these CHUNKS are really useful for me too. 

Make a list of chunks. 

How are you going to keep tabs of the chunks? So you don't duplicate them? I don't know. 

Make a list of chunks and get a Korean person to say these chunks and then repeat them, shadow them. 

Keep the Korean to a minimum. 

Speaking and reading are two separate tasks. 

What a great idea! 

I've breathed life into the CD-ROM! 

CHUNKS!

Posted by honeybearsmom at 2:07 AM EST

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If there is a systematic way of learning chunks, it will make my learning faster and easier.

I like to follow a system if I can. 

There are some ways I believe. 

Chunks should be short, consisting at the most of five words. 

Chunks should be clearly delineated so you are learning the chunk and nothing more. 

You should understand what the chunk means in English. 

You shouldn't worry about the grammar of the chunk. 

You should hear the chunk read clearly and slowly.

You should be able to repeat it easily (because you can hear it well). 

You need someone to read very slowly. But not in a stilted way. They should read smoothly but definitely not fast. They must pronounce words distinctly. If they speak too fast, eliminate them as potential readers. Only keep the ones who can read slowly but not artificially. 

Then learn the chunk without reading the Korean too much. Just get the English meaning. 

Now about the English translation - it's best if you get the colloquial translation rather than the word-for-word translation. 

You are learning the whole "chunk", not the individual words. So focusing on the separate words interferes with learning. 

The chunks must be meaningful though. 

Try and get commonly used chunks.

Don't spend time on chunks that you will rarely use. Those are for later. 

So English translations are useful. 

Don't worry about grammar when doing shadowing. 

Grammar is only useful for learning to read primarily. 

Vocabulary ... what's this useful for? For everything. It's useful for reading and for speaking but more important for reading. If you focus on the individual words too much, you will miss the chunk. You will be missing the forest for the trees. 

So it's emerging that there are two different but related tasks.

One of them is: SPEAKING. The other is READING. Writing is related to speaking. 

For speaking, grammar isn't that important. For speaking, a little vocabulary is helpful. Good colloquial translations are helpful. Good audios are helpful, meaning the readings are slow, clear and therefore easy to follow and repeat. The chunks should be short. How are you going to get short chunks? You have to get short sentences shadowed. Maybe dialog is good for that. 

Tintin is good for that. So I will get that done. Also, movie scripts are good. So I will buy several books with movie scripts. 

Movies like King Gwanggaeto are too difficult to shadow and the chunks aren't that useful for modern life. 

So we're getting warmer. Get the movie scripts, the Tintin books and shadow them and try and learn chunks. Short phrases and sentences are better than longer ones. Break down a longer sentence into digestible chunks. 

How many times should you repeat the chunks? Until you remember them in your LONG TERM memory. 

Try and associate an EMOTION with them. This really helps. Maybe think of a color? Try and get the emotion behind the chunk. 

So I will be learning CHUNKS. Don't worry about the whole long sentence. Try and SEE the chunk. 

That's the secret. Learning chunks. There's no other way to become fluent. So basically learning a language is about having a GOOD EAR. 

Things that speed the process is having someone speak in a COMPREHENSIBLE fashion. Not too slowly so that it sounds really unnatural. But not so fast that you can't repeat it. 

You really need something slow at first. Then repeat it as many times as you have to so that you have placed it in your long term memory. 

Rinse and repeat. Keep doing it. The newspaper articles aren't that good for shadowing. Neither is the IL textbook really. The Tintin books and the movie scripts are good for shadowing. Stuff with commonly spoken phrases. The shadowing of textbooks, and more formal, less colloquial stuff is for LATER.

Right now, you have to shadow chunks of phrases that are commonly spoken. So the type of movie scripts matter.  You want something contemporary and not too far out a subject.

So shadow these things. Get the rough meaning but don't worry about the grammar and the meanings of the individual words. Just concentrate on learning chunks. 

Shadow these chunks as much as possible. Get the sounds right. Get the emotions behind the expressions. 

Repeat until saying the phrase becomes automatic. Worrying too much about the meaning of the individual words and about the grammar INTERFERES with your acquisition of language. 

But of course, meanings and grammar are helpful for READING. 

And since reading is a priority, you need to do a lot of study of vocabulary and grammar ...

You can just read the English and then listen to the chunk. Don't worry about reading the Korean too much. 

How to find the chunk? That's the problem. You have to hunt for short phrases to shadow. Ideally a chunk is less than five words. 

So treat READING and SHADOWING as completely different activities with different methods of study required for each. 

READING requires: vocabulary, lots and lots of it. And a good knowledge of grammar. 

SHADOWING requires good material to shadow. Dialogs are good to shadow. Short sentences are good to shadow. Simple sentences are good to shadow. Well-translated sentences are good to shadow, ones that have their colloquial meanings. 

So just concentrate on those things. 

Maybe skip grammar study for the time being. 

Just make lists of words and memorize them, using mnemonics. Use lots of mnemonics. You can do the grammar workout later .... 

The priority is picking up chunks. 

Just try and pick up chunks as many as possible. 

So memorize long lists of words. 

What about common collocations? 

Are dictionaries good sources of chunks? 

Actually, they aren't bad sources of chunks. 

Write down the phrases and collocations, the examples from the dictionary and you can get someone to read them. 

That's a good thing to shadow. 

But the main thing you are reading these articles is to mine them for useful vocabulary. 

And you will get some reading practice. 

See if there are any useful chunks in the articles. Probably not that many ... maybe a few ... it depends ... whether you can see the chunks or not. 

Slowing down audios of videos ... How can I extract audios? How can I slow down the audios? 

I can do that on the Galaxy Player. I can slow down the Gwanggaeto videos on the Player. You can try. Now that you have the hard subs you can try. Then just repeat and try and pick up chunks. 

Learn the chunks as much as possible. Try and learn the chunks!!!! 

I found a way to slow down video! I can use vlc for this! This is great! 

But doing this for sageuks isn't good. The speech is obsolete, especially the word endings. 

I need to watch contemporary dramas but there aren't ANY that are interesting for me. Maybe some movies? So there is a hunt for good videos to shadow. I want to shadow L dramas. I only like watching him. :) I don't like anyone else actually. I don't really like Love in Heaven ... I think Golden Fish would be good. I will do that one when I find it. 

Hooray! I have a found a good way to watch dramas and learn from them. Maybe I will watch Jewel Bibimbap that way. I will shadow it. 

So there will be lots of good chunks for me to shadow in video format: 

• Dramas that have been hardsubbed

• Some Korean DVDs

So just keep in mind there are TWO things to learn: 

1) Reading - requires vocab and grammar

2) Speaking/becoming fluent in the language - ie producing language automatically - requires shadowing and picking up chunks

Hopefully, the two things don't interfere with one another. 

The problem with shadowing is finding easy material that progressively gets harder as my level improves. 

Reading isn't that big a problem ... It's just BORING looking up all those words. Getting collocations might help ... maybe I will pick up the collocations in speech ... 

So pick up CHUNKS of language, learn PHRASES. Don't learn individual words ... learn PHRASES. 

Try and recognize the useful PHRASES. 

You should shadow about 200 of these phrases a day. 

So three months shadowing phrases - maybe about 100 of them a day. So about 9000 after 3 months. It would take about 2 minutes to repeat a chunk so about 200 minutes a day .... 

And then three months of learning vocabulary. It takes longer ... about three minutes to learn a word and translate and do all those things ... so about 300 minutes a day (100 words a day) which is about 5 hours a day ... Then in about 3 months, you will have learned about 9000 of these words. 

About 1000 of these words are vocabulary words ... 

So this is a very interesting post. 

I've learned a lot about CHUNKS and how to acquire language. 

Try and pick up SHORT chunks and internalize them as much as possible. 

Try and watch slowed-down video. 

So ditch the sentence-making. Just memorize the words using mnemonics. Try and translate the article. Move on to the next article. 

Later on, you can learn the grammar and stuff and make sentences. 

Just try and understand the article, get the vocab down. 

Maybe learn the words using mnemonics. Should you write down the mnemonics? Maybe. Write them in your notebook. 

So most of the time is spent thinking of the mnemonic. 

Just try this method and see what happens. 

If you learn the word properly the first time you come across it, the better. 

What if you pick up chunks in your reading? 

Those chunks might be useful for later ... 

Then you can ask someone to shadow for you. 

If you translate and understand something really well and then read the Korean sentence many times, maybe some chunks will stick in your head. And especially if you get someone to read the sentences ... 

It wouldn't take long to record some articles and shadow them. Don't get stuck on all of the sentence; just concentrate on shadowing the chunks. 

Shadow USEFUL chunks. 

The chunks should be as short as possible. 

Posted by honeybearsmom at 12:40 AM EST

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There's something to be said about learning language in chunks. That's how kids do it. They don't understand the parts of speech, grammar and so on but they can be fluent. I think that's the only way to be fluent. To learn phrases. So when I do shadowing, I have to be alert for phrases. Don't focus so much on the individual words but think in phrases. That's the way to do it. And listen a lot. You'll hear the same phrases over and over again.

So there is a drive on many fronts: 

• The drive to learn as many chunks as possible and speak these chunks fluently. 

• There is the drive to acquire as much vocabulary as possible.

• There is the drive to remember as many grammatical forms as possible. 

Those are the main drives. 

The vocabulary acquisition can be measured by how many articles, books, materials I process using vocabulary acquisition methods. Don't neglect mnemonics when learning vocabulary. Mnemonics is very very important. They will lock the word in your long term memory.

It's not that hard to learn 200 words in a day if one has the time. So in about one month, you should have learned 6000 words. 

How long would it take to learn 200 words? Well, if you spend five minutes per word, that will be 1000 minutes. That is 16 hours a day, I think. And I think five minutes is a long time to spend learning a word. 

Maybe a better figure would be 3 minutes. So 600 minutes. That will mean 10 hours a day. So that is doable. I will have time to do shadowing as well. So I have to try and keep to this figure of 3 minutes per word. Three minutes per word involves thinking of a mnemonic. Writing a sentence with the word in it, looking up the dictionary. Repeating the word several times a day. Using visualization. Reading the phrase I've learned with the word in it. So I think 200 words a day is doable. Then afterwards, you can do some shadowing. Shadowing doesn't take too long. Try and listen for chunks. That will be hard actually. The English translation may get in the way. That's why learning languages through pictures is better. Because the English doesn't get in the way. 

Learning individual words is also helpful. But learning phrases is the best way of becoming fluent. I wish I could do shadowing soon. But I will eventually have to move away from shadowing too. 

The problem with shadowing is that one is relying on English too much. Even reading Korean might be a problem. Try and listen to the sounds. Try and pick up "chunks" or phrases.

I will have to learn intensively for the next six months. Just relax. You've made a lot of progress. Korean is a difficult language to read. Try and get to the point where you recognize 98% of the words in any text without looking up any words. 

By then your progress will be rapid. You want to get to the point of reading where you don't want to parse all the time. 

By the time you've translated and parsed 100 newspaper articles (easy and difficult; short and long) and shadowed all the sentences in them, and then translated and parsed one Tintin book and then done the shadowing for it, and parsed and translated the grammar book and shadowed the sentences, and then done a lot of shadowing of the essential mp3s, and then done revision of the grammar in the IL book as well as the grammar in the KGIU book ... my Korean - meaning my ability to read, my pronunciation of words and the ability to say a few phrases, will be pretty good. 

I will be especially pleased when I can read an article of a newspaper easily. That will be a thrill. I really hate looking up words. I hope my method of study will help me remember words. I think the words I learn from newspapers are repeated many times in articles. So learning from articles is a way of revising stuff I already know. 

I also must not neglect listening. Not just listening of stuff I want to shadow but listening to contemporary dramas. 

So this is the make and break stage. Reading newspapers won't be such a chore as it was before. I can understand a lot now. I really can. I can translate articles a lot more. And then I can work on speaking. So it's not only about reading and translating, it's about speaking and listening and memorizing words and phrases in my aural memory as well as in my visual memory. 

I have to learn all these phrases, maybe about 5000 of them. That will be great when I've learned so many phrases. 

And then I can work on being more fluent by practising with Koreans. It will be a pain because many of them aren't that interesting to talk to. 

I can watch variety shows and things like that and try and understand them. 

It will be great once I can understand a show on TV completely. That will be great. 

So the key is to learn tons of vocabulary - not just sight recognition of the word but the spoken form of the word. Keep an eye and ear out for "chunks".  If you catch a chunk, that will be golden. 

So try and learn common collocations and phrases. Don't worry about learning whole sentences. 

Don't worry too much about the different speech levels. 

The news articles will be a good source of vocabulary. Tintin books won't be too bad. And then you can do the teenage books as well. The manga like St Marie, forget about. It's too colloquial. 

I should really be good by the end of one year. I am understanding more, and listening is my weakest point so maybe my listening isn't too bad. 

If I were able to study as much as I had wanted, I would be doing vocab study and shadowing by now. I would have made the vocab lists of the grammar book, done the self-testing of the grammar words, done the workbook, made the categories of grammar words, and I would be at the stage where I am writing sentences for the words and making up mnemonics. 

And then I think in six months, I can learn 20,000 words. If I learn 200 words a day, then in six months, I will have learned 200x6x30=36000 words. So after three months, I should have learned all the words I need and more. When I mean "learned", know them to a sufficient level so that I can learn them for good the next time I "learn" them. Some words will stay in my long term memory if I use mnemonics for them. 

I will get better and better at understanding written grammar too. So probably my reading and writing wouldn't be too bad but I won't be fluent. The only way to become fluent is to shadow. 

I will just have to shadow as much as possible. I will do TONS of shadowing and then reassess my methods to see if I am making progress. I will test my newspaper reading too occasionally. Right now, I am having trouble because I don't understand near enough higher-level words. 

I need to learn these words as quickly as possible. But you've made progress. You were at the stage where you didn't know many simple words. 

You are at the stage of learning intermediate-level words. 

So when you practice speaking, don't obsess too much about the meaning. Try and get the intonation down pat. Try and get the pronunciation right. 

I think you will make it. You will be better than the FSI people because you will be able to read and write fluently as well as speak fluently. Once you learn many "chunks", writing will be easier. Chunks will help you write, speak and read. Chunks will be helpful for understanding grammar too. 

So looking up words, doing mnemonics, doing tons of shadowing and trying to pick up chunks and doing tons of free listening as well will all help. Also, try and get your reading up to speed. Test yourself with simple stuff when you get back to your apartment. Also, try translating Tintin and see whether it's easier with the better dictionary that you have and also with your knowledge of grammar. 

I think your understanding of Korean has improved so much. You can't expect miracles of course. And watching sageuks isn't really helpful for your Korean. Watching contemporary shows is good for your Korean. 

I love learning grammar though. It's a good feeling when I have a handle on it. When I approach it as learning vocabulary, I feel the pressure is off. 

So just approach it like that. And try and "simplify" it. The book makes it more complicated than it is. 

So concentrate on learning as many chunks as possible. If you learn ten chunks a day, after a year, you will learn 3500 chunks. That's a great many chunks and you will be effectively fluent. So try and learn as many chunks while you are studying. 

Is there a systematic way of learning chunks? 

Posted by honeybearsmom at 11:29 PM EST

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