My Korean progress

I haven't learned any new way to conjugate words or combine sentences during the last 2 days, I have mainly been reviewing the vocabulary. I just came back from doing the Eng --> Kor translation exercise with 45 parts. (Lesson 10 out of 15 in my Elementary Korean book, this lesson focused on reviewing all the content from the previous lessons).

Here are the translations, according to the book they were right but to a native ear some of them may sound superfluous. I'm posting them here to keep track of my progress

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I will advance to Lesson 11 tomorrow, I already looked at the pages a little bit and I'm going to learn some new particles, which is always fun. I have also started to check out the audio podcasts at talktomeinkorean.com, because my listening is lacking behind.

여러분 안영하세요, 돌아왔어요. 지난주 동안에는 아직 한국어를 배우고 있었지만 요즘 더 어려웠는데, 잘 안 배웠어요... 그래도 괜잖아요, 정말 최선을 다할래요.

Roughly translated, "hello everyone, I'm back. I have still kept studying Korean during the last week, but it has gotten more difficult, so I haven't learned that much.. But even so it's ok, I'm really trying my best." I would be curious to hear a correct and a more natural way of saying the lines above in Korean, but I'm convinced that most of it was at least intelligible.

Right now I'm at lesson 13 in my Elementary Korean book. I'm thinking of slowing my pace down a little bit because the content is getting more complex, and there are lots of new vocabulary. I've learned new ways to end verbs, but they don't come off as naturally out of me as the more basic stuff yet, which means I need to repeat more by trying write down more example sentences and saying them out loud.

Lesson 11 contained a lot of information about numerals in general; telling the time, dates, telephone numbers and so on. Something which intimidated me for a while was how Koreans apparently count days, they don't say '1 day', '2 days', '3 days' like in English, but they say 하루, 이틀, 사흘, which are almost like individual words respectively. Then there are also the dreaded counters for various kinds of objects, so you can't just say '2 dogs' in Korean as you would say in English, instead you say literally something like 'dog two heads' (개 두 마리). There are hundreds of counters in Korean for different objects and items, but right now I can easily recall only about 5 or 6 of them.

I also learned 4 new particles for nouns, 마다, 만, 씩, 쯤, but I'm still not very comfortable with them, because there are just so many tiny nuances and usages to almost all particles in Korean, so I mostly just have a general grasp of them.

I also learned to conjugate verbs using the formal style, 합니다, but that was relatively easy.

In lesson 12 I learned a bunch more ways to conjugate verbs and connect sentences.
The 'suspective' form, -지 attached to verbs, which with I can make long negatives like 가지 않아요/가지 못해요 and to give a 'but' suffix to the verb like 먹지만. On top of that I can comfortably make tentative suggestions with the verb ending "- (으)ㄹ까 (요)?" such as "걸어 갈까요?" (How about walking there?), and use another ending ( (으) ㄹ까 해요) to imply "I'm thinking of doing something", and the "wanna"-form, '(으)ㄹ래요).

All those above are still somewhat easy to adapt into my thinking after some consistent practice and repetition, but I can't hammer into my head the small marginal differences and usages between 또, 또는, 도 and (이)나, which are all supposed to be different kinds of saying 'or', 'moreover', 'either', 'neither', 'nor' etc. depending on the context and variety of things... On top of that, the (이)나 particle, according to my book, can work also as a 'generalizer' and as a way of approximating measures like 쯤, and I'm unfamiliar with the nuances of those usages as well.

Lesson 13 was easier, if I leave out the 9 hundred billion ways to refer to members in the greater family branch from the side of both genders and levels of formality... Seriously, does the book expect me to learn all the 8 ways of saying 'uncle', 8 ways of saying 'aunt', 4 ways of saying 'cousin' and so on? I don't even know most of these in Finnish, and never had to use them... This is the first time I took the decision to scrap most of the vocabulary section for kinship terms and only learn the most relevant ones (2 ways of saying sister, brother, father, mother et cetera).
Aside from that there were some new verb forms which are always fun to learn.
Here is the list:

Sequential form - (으)니(까) , 하니까, 먹으니까
Probable futures - (으)ㄹ 거에요 , 바쁠 거에요, 살 거에요
Rhetorical retorts - 잖아요 , 젊지잖아요?!, 무겁잖아요!
'Is doing' - 고 있어요, 자고 있어요, 잡주시고 계세요 *honorific*
'As soon as' - 자 마자, 먹자 마자

As tempting as it is to declare success and proceed to next levels while self-studying a certain lesson, I think I need to take a step back this week and carefully and thoroughly review, rinse and repeat, and 'defrag' the content I've learned from lessons 11-13, especially lesson 12.

Not to insult any Koreans, but I'm starting to get a glimpse on how much of a + Show Spoiler + Korean is starting to be, when I need to adapt and differentiate all these small nuances at the elementary level already. I can only imagine how bizarre it will be when (and if) I reach the intermediate level... That is not a bad thing however, I enjoy challenges, and I'm somewhat satisfied in my progress during the last month when I started from knowing only the phrases 안영하세요, 스타2 and 아저씨, 소주 주세요.

Regardless of it's difficulty, I've got some motivation from starting to get more glimpses of what is being said in movies and songs, it's a very rewarding feeling. I have watched a lot of Korean movies recently, I especially like the thrillers and crime movies. An action movie from 2010 called "The Yellow Sea" / 황해 was especially good..

I also watched Taegukgi recently, and it was incredible, thumbs up best war movie I've ever seen.



Yesterday I stumbled upon some North Korean music videos with Korean lyrics along, I was very happy to be able to vaguely understand at least 50% of the general meaning of what was sung in this one:
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I'm happy to see that people actually replied after my last update, I thought this thread sunk without any replies before I checked it again today.

It has now been about 1 month since I 'officially' started to study from an almost nonexistent basis (Only knew a few words and phrases), and I'm very much satisfied with my progress.

Right now I know comfortably around 600-700 words by checking my Anki statistics, but a fraction of that I haven't actually used in practice yet, but they are "there".

I also finally finished my textbook, and I'm fairly comfortable using most of the verb endings, while with some others I still need to see and experience to get that second-nature grasp of them. I'm really only concerned about the future-presumptive -겠-ending in lesson 14 because while other Korean sources introduce it simply as a way of forming futures, this one demonstrated a few more usages and nuances to it, which I still need to review. Aside from that, most of everything else I'm comfortable with at this point.

I'm planning to order the sequel to 'Elementary Korean' called 'Continuing Korean' and a few other books, called 'Integrated Korean: Intermediate 1' and its separate workbook, which I want to use after I've gone through 'Continuing Korean'. I'm also ordering a hanja book presenting the 500 most basic hanja thoroughly... Some people may ask: "Why hanja?", but I feel they can be really useful to know since recognizing and acquiring new vocabulary should be a whole lot easier when you know the roots and contents of the more complex words in Korean. Another reason is that Mandarin has been in my 'desire to learn'-list for several years, so having a basic command with the characters wouldn't definitely hurt at all if I someday decide to try that language as well.


Anyway, I'm very happy to finally start seeing small but positive results from my effort during the last month... I made an account on Nate and downloaded NateOn where I've been adding some Korean people I've met in the internet during the years. Today and yesterday I had some fairly long conversations about general subjects such as living, activities, future plans, past actions et cetera. The Koreans often used some unknown ways to connect sentences, but I was still able to at least vaguely guess what they said, and I only needed the dictionary on approximately every 4th sentence they sent me, plus I added all the unknown words to Anki. Some Korean girl even asked me if we could talk via phone later when my oral skills get better.

I don't listen to K-pop much unlike most other Korean learners, but lately I've been listening to K-pop radios simply to test how much I can understand. I'm not anywhere near the level that I could fully translate the language used in songs, but it felt superb to understand small pieces from here and there, sometimes even small sentences. I don't remember when I got this feeling before, but I'm starting to see a big puzzle in front of me that is only partially done, but the pieces I have arranged represent my current knowledge, adding more pieces as I learn more. It's the same kind of feeling when you start working out regularly and see changes in your body and confidence as well, just in an intellectual manner. With a new language you start to build up a new mental dimension, a way of thinking and a way of interpreting the world. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to do weightlifting for almost half a year due to knee problems (squats and deadlifts impossible). I have been a little bit depressed from that, but I feel that learning Korean has given me a similar feeling of success and self-improvement as weightlifting has. Now wait 'till I can do both...




Do you have the second edition? I don't, there as few mistakes with translations and spelling every now and then, but generally the content is very good.




That is very true... There are so many ways to say the same thing depending on the context, so it's pretty much impossible to translate Korean in a straightforward manner. Google Translate is a pretty good example of this




Wait, you watched 아저씨 too? That movie was brilliant, no contest. I'm baffled for why we don't see movies like that promoted in the west as I was delighted to stumble upon a movie with such a great cinematic value.

Using all sorts of media in the target language is obviously a must, as you said... But one thing — I'm not watching K-dramas. I have been trying to find some decent ones, but they all seem to be some kind of cheesy romantic soapfests, so not really my taste. People say K-dramas are better for learning Korean since the language used is clearer than in the movies, but I will stick with my movies at least for now.

But, if anyone here knows some really good dramas that differ from my description, then please say so. If it's a romantic drama that is actually good (good acting, production etc.) then I think I might take a look into it as well.

화이팅~

다시 오래간만에 만나요. 오늘 마지막 브로그를 쓰는 것때에서 11일이니까, 내가 다시 뭔가 쓸고 싶고 다른것대해서도 말하고 싶었요. 지난 주에 시켰던 교과서는 아직 안 왔어서 난 좀 귀찮았어요, 그럼 이동안에 다른법으로 한국어를 공부했어서 이렇게 나쁘지 않아요. 조금만 더 기다리야 되지요..
오늘도 내 한국어공부에서 1달 반쯤이고, 진행이 빨랐어서 기분이 꽤 좋아요. 아직 초보이지만 더 공부할거야.

Same in English: (I would appreciate if anyone fluent in Korean could correct the above in case there are any mistakes)

"We meet again after a long while. Today is 11 days since the last time I wrote a blog, so I wanted to write something again and talk about other things too. The textbooks I ordered last week have still not arrived so I'm a little bit impatient in that matter, but during this period I have been studying by other methods, so it's not really that bad. I just have to wait a little bit more..
Today it's also about 1 and a half month since I began studying Korean, and I'm happy because my progress has been quite fast. I'm still a hard beginner, but I'm going to study more."

In addition, the language is slowly but steadily getting more difficult now. I have taken a look to some new verb endings, and some have nuances so intricate that giving an exact English translation is near impossible, such as the -거든요 ending, whose flavor in the verb is crudely translated as '..you see?', altough the usage is much more deeper and varying than that. All these numerous endings with their tiny little intricacies I haven't learned yet, are still quite charming to me. I feel that Korean has a high expressional value when mastered, with these countless ways to convey more or less the same idea, but with nuances unknown to any other languages... I'm not even near that point yet, but I know it's out there possible to be achieved, so I will have to go forward and see where I can get.

Also, I have taken the initiative to study some hanja every day, usually 5 but sometimes 10 if I have more time. Altough they are not going to be practical for me at all because they are never used on the internet, they are entertaining to learn because you can actually perceive the Sino-Korean words in their entirety without having to scratch your head and memorize them by raw force. For example, the word 교과서 (textbook) makes much more sense to me now since I know the word is derived from 敎科書, where the 3 characters literally stand for teaching, science and writing, respectively. I also love Chinese characters in general. They are ridiculous - but fascinating anyway. I know hangul is a hundred times more practical way to write Korean, but I feel just a little bit disappointed (Call me crazy..) that hanja usage, even in todays media in Korea, has withered to almost non-existence. I'm still going to try and learn them along, just so I can at least memorize the more complex 4-syllable behemoths in the later stage of Korean, because by hanja it should be less difficult to do that.

Here are some of the words I can already picture much better after having learned some basic hanja (with their literal meanings written in oblique) :

母國 (native country, mother-country)
敎室 (classroom, teaching room)
人道 (sidewalk, person-road)
同生 (younger sibling, same-life)
文法 (grammar, literature-method)
美男 (handsome man, beautiful-man)
動力 (electrical power, motion-strength)

As you can probably guess, learning the Sino-Korean vocabulary becomes much more efficient with hanja, and since about 70% of the modern Korean vocabulary is borrowed from Chinese, this is a huge boost generally.

Talking about Chinese characters, I had a sort of a dilemma last weekend. Mandarin has always been 'there' in my head that I would surely someday like to study in intensely too. I went to the library and took a look at some Finnish-made Mandarin textbooks (which were of abhorrent quality), but I couldn't help feeling utterly in love with all the Chinese texts. I thought to myself, 'Hey, why couldn't I learn Korean while also checking out Mandarin'?
I went through the first lesson of Pimsleur after which I was able to ask whether you could speak English, to apologize et cetera (your typical Pimsleur 1st lesson content). Through the transcripts, I learned how to say, read and write " 你会说普通话吗？(Can you speak Mandarin?)", and it felt 'kinda' cool. Even so, in the end I made the decision that I will stick with Korean, and Korean alone until I'm at least decent in it, before I even start thinking about other languages. It felt nice to think that I could learn both of the languages at the same time, but so does thinking about climbing Mt. Everest and building a pyramid simultaneously. I figured out it would be much more efficient for me to spend my energy on 1 language instead, and I believe it's the best option generally for language learners who wish to attain a high level in any language (unless you are a polyglot already).

Overall, my current level in Korean probably somewhere around mid-elementary, excluding speaking and listening, to which I haven't had that much access to. However, I'm not really worried about those aspects lacking behind, because it was exactly the same when I learned English throughout my teenage years. I was bad at school then (I still am, just not as much, heh), and I used to be behind the computer screen all day long and play games like Diablo 2, Starcraft and Counter-Strike, where I would interact with people every day, throughout the weeks, months and years of my childhood. On top of that, no matter what game I played, I used to surf some kind of a forum based around that, where I would attempt to read and write coherent posts. I'm bringing up this example, because at some point (when I was 14), I could very well already understand and produce advanced texts in the literal aspect, but my listening was just so bad I couldn't understand English movies without English subtitles nearly as much. My talking was equally as poor, but both my listening and talking caught up almost instantly when I went to travel abroad first time for a long while, where I had to use English.
I believe the same could be with Korean, so that is the reason I'm not really stressing out even if I cannot understand the spoken language right now. I'm sure it will catch up should I ever pay a visit to Korea again.

Cheers

안녕하세요. 이번은 지난번보다 상당히 오랫동안이라서 다시 새 댓글을 남고 싶어졌는데요. 시간이 진짜 없기 때문에 전에 쓸 수 없었어서 좀 미안해요. 시키던 교과서를 다 드디어 받았어서 기분이 정말로 좋고, 진행도 빨라졌어서 요즘 한국어를 아무리 공무해도 계속만 하고 싶어요. 그걸 받음 전에 단어만 주로 외우고 있으니까, 지금은 이편이 훨씬 좋죠. 아프로 얼마 빠르게 낫고 계속할 걸까요.. 아무도 모르지만 아프로는 전에보다 부지런히 공부하기로 혼자에게 약속했는데, 난 아직 안 끝났거든요. 지금이라도 아직 잘 못 해도 오늘까지 공부를 2달밖에 하지 않았죠, 그래서 앞으로는 언제 한번 당신들에게 보일께요.

보시다시피 내 한국어를 할 수 있는 거가 아직 짧아서 길은 메시지를 아직 쓸 수 없지만, 공부를 열심히 계속만 할께면 나중에 더 좋게 아마 할 수 있을 거에요.

Translation:

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I'm sure the last piece of writing contained at least a dozen of incorrect sentences, but I'm not worrying about that very much yet, because I feel that the most integral priority in learning a language (and the most natural one), is understanding.
If you compare my Korean writings to their previous counterparts, I'm somewhat overusing the same vocabulary and theme (working hard, et cetera) but that is all what I can think about right now if I want to keep the content relevant to my blog. Maybe later if I get better will I try to add more depth to the text, or I could describe my past activities in more precise detail, but my ability to produce Korean right now is probably only 50% of what I can understand, but I don't worry about it, since it was the same when I was learning English as a kid.

I have now taken a more multipronged approach to my language learning, and I really see it wielding good results. I used to go through the basics only by a textbook, but at the same time that came off as a good springboard to proceed to different ways of learning the language. I still use textbooks as a backbone in my learning (and everyone should), but I've been adapting a few supplementary methods to my learning as well, most importantly:

Listening - Not just listening to dialogues in a book that you can understand, actually that's only about 10% of my listening. By listening I mean listening to anything, even if you cannot understand it. For example, yesterday I watched my first Korean movie without subtitles, and although I didn't understand the key points, I still felt that without subtitles I grew just a little bit more familiar to the language, although most of the time I had no idea what was being talked about. I also watch a piece of Korean news every day, ranging from 15 minutes to an hour depending on my mood. I've even started listening to K-Pop every day for at least a while. While most of the songs are terrible, there are a few beautiful tunes every now and then, and I can sometimes understand a lot what is being sung, so that is also very motivating. But the general goal of listening like that is not 'learning', I just feel that when you listen to a language at a native level long enough, the structure will slowly start to become ingrained in your subconscious. You don't realize it yet, but when you reach the advanced level by traditional methods of studying, I bet it will be easier to adapt to the long and obscure structures when your subconscious is already somewhat familiar with them from hearing them continuously in the past.

Sentences - For the last 3 weeks I've been not adding just new vocabulary, but also new sentences to Anki. While with the vocabulary I usually have the English meaning on the front side of the card and having to remember the Korean meaning, with the sentences it's the opposite. I usually copy the sentences from my textbook or Naver dictionary when I look up a new word and see a handy sentence included with it. I must say, the sentences are so good to learn. You can't necessarily produce the sentence yourself yet, but you can understand them and get the feel for them. So when I'm reviewing the sentences, after some intervals I just get the meaning right away without even thinking in English, and if I don't get it, I will just put that on due for the next day and eventually the meanings and nuances will become ingrained to your thinking. An example would be a sentence I found yesterday in a reading passage in my textbook, that was the longest I had ever understood before.
Here it is "한국사람은 한국어 문법을 따로 공부하지 않아도 문법을 자연스럽게 이해하며 자연스럽게 얘기할 수 있지만 외국사람은 문법을 제대로 알아야 한국말을 잘 배울 수 있습니다."
Translation: "Even though Koreans do not study their grammar separately, they understand the grammar naturally and can speak freely, but foreigners have to know grammar properly if they are to learn Korean well."
At first it took me about 10 seconds to comprehend the sentence in its entirety, but after adding it to Anki and having it reviewed a few times, the meaning pops up into my head much more smoothly and quicker already after just 1 day.

Hanja - I already wrote about these in my last post. I'm now progressing with about 6-12 Hanja a day, depending on how many new ones I find per lesson in my new book. Although the Hanja book I have includes readings aimed for high intermediate/low advanced readers, right now I'm using it only to learn the Hanja. I realized that I'm still at a very early stage to learn Hanja, but since I love learning them, plus it's better to learn them too early than too late. On top of that, if I already know most of the necessary Hanja, the dreaded transition between the high intermediate and advanced level in Korean should be much smoother. As I mentioned in my previous posts, Hanja are also great for learning new vocabulary, although at my level grammar is still more important to learn, but I'm sure they will come off as handy in the later stages.
Right now after a month of studying I know about 180 Hanja, and I'm planning to learn at least 320 more in the upcoming 2 months, totaling at 500 Hanja, after which I will probably take a break from them for a while.
Two crazy Hanjas I already know (the more complicated the more fun): 驛, 體

Note that the three points I mentioned above are only supplementary - You can't rely on them. Instead I would recommend everyone to rely on a good textbook, as that will 1) help you build a solid foundation, and 2) enhance your overall learning progress.

A comment about my new textbooks:

Continuing Korean: This is just as complete in every way as Elementary Korean was. Detailed explanations, solid pace of progressing and relevant drill exercises. The only downside is that the example sentences don't have audio examples, and that some of the vocabulary introduced is irrelevant and not reinforced in the later chapters, so sometimes it can feel like you are learning words from a dictionary. However, these small cons don't really change the fact that in every other way this book shines. If you don't like extremely detailed grammatical descriptions and prefer a more simplified approach, then maybe you should consider another book, but if you don't live in Korea and you don't like the grammar, then that mindset is pretty much flawed from the beginning when learning Korean, in my opinion.

Integrated Korean (Intermediate 1): This seems more user-friendly than Elementary Korean and Continuing Korean, in that the grammar sections aren't as "excessively" deep. But it's a matter of opinion whether or not it's a good thing. What this book has that Continuing Korean doesn't is the culture sections, often 1-page longs descriptions about a certain aspect of a Korean culture such as Korean fashion, work ethic et cetera. The introduced vocabulary is also more relevant than in Continuing Korean, but there are two big downsides for a self-learner that I wasn't aware of before I received the book:

1) Many exercises are directed towards a classroom situation where you would have a learning partner, so you have to skip some of the content (unless you want to talk in front of a mirror).

2) No answers to exercises. This is what really disappointed me. I ordered the Intermediate 1 workbook for the textbook, assuming there would be correct answers listed somewhere to check whether you had done something wrong, but for no avail. This is a big no-no for a self learner, so I'm considering whether to continue with this series or not.

Apart from these 2 aspects the book is very solid. I should also mention that one big advantage of Integrated Korean is that there are a lot of audio files for every lessons downloadable from their website. You can learn a lot from Integrated Korean, but I feel it's not as complete for a self learner like Elementary Korean and Continuing Korean are.

A comment about my speaking abilities - The previous week a Korean lady called me on Skype and at first we talked a bit in English. We made an agreement to try to have a basic conversation in Korean - in which I was utterly destroyed. First, because I'm not used to the fast speech yet. She asked me "학교에서는 어떤 과목을 공부해요?" which means "What subjects do you study in school?" I understood the the first word but the "어떤 과목을 (what subjects)" just passed through my head in a whim, I thought I heard something more like "어꺼가모", and so I had to ask her to speak slowly after almost every phrase. The fact that the sound quality was terrible didn't help either, but at the same time it relieves me to know that without the sound quality I would have at least understood a bit more.
So it was awkward to talk; In speech you don't have time to think about the verb endings or the syntax, it just comes out naturally. Instead, I was stumbling and mumbling and pausing all the time, which often led to an awkward laugh or silence. She was patient, however, and she could understand why I couldn't give my best in my first ever live Korean conversation.
One thing I was glad about that she commended me on my pronunciation. She gave me some example sentences for me to read aloud, and she was surprised that my pronunciation almost sounded like a native. That's at least someting I can be happy about in case I end up trashed again in a conversational situation. I'm also not really worrying about my speech, because while it lacks behind the other aspects of the target language, it will catch up later in case I would ever go to Korea and stay there for a while.

Looking back at where I started, this is my first drill sentence I had written in my notebook a day after I started Korean: "저 사람은 일본사람이에요" ("That person is Japanese"). At the time this was still pretty new to me, but now I laugh everytime I see it because it is so simple. It feels incredible to feel how much my Korean has compounded during the last 2 months after that day. Sometimes I even feel a bit dizzy because there is so much information, but somehow I manage to suck it all in and go forward, and this has allowed me to start to already 'feel' this new dimension that is the Korean language. As I wrote in my very first post in this blog, "So far I'm just touching the surface of this mysteriously huge complex of infinite variables, and entering waters with depth I have no idea about, but I believe I can at least dive in a little bit in with some hard work." I think this is what I'm experiencing right now, I'm 'diving in' into the language. Not anywhere deep yet, but I'm already feeling the surface and it's actually much easier than I had thought, at least for now.
Initially the reason I started Korean was just to experiment — I had quit SC2 about a month earlier. In Starcraft 2, it took me about 6 months to climb the way from bronze up to diamond, and I didn't even play much, only 2-4 games a day. I spend so much time stressing over this game, and in the end thought to myself, "Why am I playing this?". What I was left over with was the knowledge of myself, that I could improve in something if I really wanted to. I thought to myself, "If I was able to improve in SC2 during that long period, why not a language? Perhaps Korean?", so I decided to apply the same mindset into learning a language, in this case Korean (after deciding between Mandarin and Korean a month earlier before starting this blog).

During my learning period I have 'found' more reasons to learn the language, which keep me motivated:

- Korean movies; There are so many good Korean movies around, especially action and thriller ones, which means that understanding them would be a huge plus if you love these hidden gems.
- The language itself; All the rich idioms and vocabulary are there. Even now when I listen to Korean, I feel like thinking in a different dimension, which keeps pulling me towards it even more. Plus, Korean language is probably the most sonorous language ever. The syntax is shaped so that the most important information is always expressed in the end, so it adds to this 'verbal climax' in public speeches.
- Overall Korea is a very unique country, and understanding the language is essential.
- Not so much of a reason, but if North Korea would ever collapse, it would be intriguing to get a firsthand access to all the information contained there.
- Kimchi (Although this is fine even without knowing the language. But it would be blasphemy to not include kimchi in the list for the reasons to like Korea.)

Some Koreaboo contacted me in another website and asked me what is my favourite K-Pop band, told her "None.". She was like "Why are you learning Korean then?", I put her on mute.

Next time I would like to talk about some funny coincidental similarities between my native tongues and Korean that have helped me to adapt to some aspects in it. This post was already long enough that you are probably half-asleep at this point.

'Till next time ->

Hello

It's been a really long time since I gave any concrete information about my current progress in Korean grammar and such, so I came to the realization that I should at least write here weekly about the verb endings, particles, amount of vocab, hanja and possible idioms I might have learned. Not necessarily for others, also for myself to better see how much I have learned during a certain time period. So, I want to make this post a big status update of my current progress since the day I began my journey on August 7th.

I finished lesson 21 in my Continuing Korean book today, and it was easy overall.


Current status (13.9.2011) :


Vocabulary:

I have about 850 words in my misc vocabulary deck in Anki, most of which I can recall comfortably in both ways from English to Korean and vice versa. I've actually now switched the layouts so that I see the Korean word every time, because there are sometimes too many synonyms to list for the same word, for example 매우, 굉장히, 아주, 너무, 몹시, 무척 and a few more. All these adverbs mean 'very much/extremely/excessively', so whenever I started with the English side first, I got tired from listing all the possibilities for one word/expression. There are many more.

In my verb deck I have about 400 verbs, although I would say that about 75 of them are just the action forms of some nouns I have in my misc deck.

On top of that, I have a Hanja vocabulary deck where I add words for every hanja I have learned. There are many random and really irrelevant words but they are just there for the sake of practicing the hanja. Even so the are still in my passive memory.

Putting all these together, I would say I know about 1000 words familiarly and about 250 more in a more passive way. I have to wait till I can learn some more grammar in order to be able to start reading some basic stuff and getting myself familiar with any possible idioms and contexts.


Here is a list of all the 228 hanja I know right now:

一二三四五六七八九十山父母兄弟東西南北大江高敎科校
區口國男女年道同動洞力毛文門問美本副富不上生洗世水
市新信身室心語驛王外雨園日入子字者自中紙小月火木金
土靑白先韓軍民萬長寸車天退出品下學休家歌間工空氣記
冬來老林立面物方色植食安育邑足左直村秋春平夏活答百
川千正手數地時每半分週曜英今光化授堂圖書館店業銀行
右前後多線少午族祖親姉妹姓名氏李孫朴全耳目鼻相之體
宗訓音洋表意季節花草風寒溫雪然錄赤黃黑電場所發昨見
內農原里都夫郡放送局社聞言論界近死幸福現反對短低感
漢情算


The particles and verb endings I have learned to far:


Particles/Suffixes:

-까지
-께
-께서(는)
-도
-들
-마다
-만
-부터
-씩
-밖에
-에
--> -에 중에서
--> -에 대해(서) / -에 관해서
--> -에 따라
-에게(서)
-한테(서)
-와/과
-(으)로
-를/을
-는/은
-의
-이/가
-(이)나
-(이)랑
-쯤
-처럼
-하고
-(을) 통해(서)
-보다
-->보다도
-->보다는

I feel I might know a few more particles passively.


Verb endings with some having further structures:


One-shape endings:

-ㅆ-
-지
-->지 않다
-->지요
-->지만
-겠-
-잖아요
-고
-->고 있-
-->고 싶
-다
-자 마자
-네요
-는데(요), -은데(요), -ㄴ데(요)
-기
--> -기 좋다
--> -기 싫다
--> -기 전에
--> -기 시작하다
--> -기 때문에
--> -기로 하다
-자
-거든요
-게
-어/-아
--> -어도/-아도
--> -어야/-아야
---->-아야/-아야 되다/하다
--> -어서/-아서
--> -어서/-아서 좋다
--> -어서/-아서 죽겠다
--> -어지다
--> -어 하다
--> -어 가다 , -어 오다
--> -어 있다
--> -어 보다
--> -어 주다


Two-shape endings:

-(으)시-
-(으)세요
-(으)니까
-(으)러
-(스)ㅂ니다
-(으)십시오
-(으)ㅂ시다
-(스)ㅂ니까
-(으)ㄹ까요
-(으)ㄹ까 하다
-(으)ㄹ래요
-(으)ㄹ 거에요
-(으)ㄹ게요
-(는)군요
-(으)ㄹ, -(으)ㄴ, -는, -던
--> -(으)ㄹ 수 있다/없다
--> -는 일이/적이 있다/없다
--> -(으)ㄴ 일이/적이 있다/없다
--> -는/은 것
-(으)며
-(으)면
--> -(었)으면
-----> -(었)으면 얼마나 좋겠다
--> -(으)면 좋겠다
--> -(으)면 고맙겠다
--> -(으)면 안 되다
-(으)려(고)


This might not seem much, but there are several usages for many of these endings and getting used to them has taken a while. Especially with the Korean infinitive form (-어/-아) you can construct tons of different verb forms. You can do similar stuff with the modifier endings (으)ㄹ, -(으)ㄴ, -는, -던), but I only know a few of them so far. Same with -고. I know a few more endings passively but I'm not going to include them until I know them thoroughly. You can also combine quite a lot of these endings and particles to create new structures, such as -지 않다 plus -(으)면 안 되다 which leads into -지 않으면 않 되다 meaning a certain type of obligation dedicated to an action. This is just one example. One thing I'm glad about in Korean is how the conjugation is very logical. Even the so called 'irregular verbs' follow certain rules that are easy to learn, and there are only very few truly irregular verbs, of which I know at most 3 at the moment.I still can't keep myself from praising the book I'm learning Korean from. It explains things in a seemingly complicated way, yet progressing is really smooth and relatively quick. It truly gives a good foundation for someone who likes to know the basics in and out, and that is essential in the long term..

There are still 9 lessons left in this book, and I'm looking forward to learn them as best as I can.

Hello. A sorry for my false promise 2 weeks ago, as I resolved to post a new entry weekly even though I didn't write anything last week. In fact, as I commented here a month ago, I had slacked off a little bit last week, plus I'm tad tired writing this entry today as well due to bad sleep last night, so I may come short in content.

Today is 2 months and 3 weeks since I started my Korean learning. Although it may not sound much, it's still 85 days to be exact, and you can do a lot in that time. I'm actually feeling very positive about my progress right now. You may have read my past entries from over a month ago how I was worried about the difficulty of the elementary level already, but I feel like I overexaggerated it a lot. The language is finally starting to make sense to me on the grand scheme — I'm extremely far from any decent fluency yet, but every week I can compare to the previous one and actually perceive that I'm 'more aware' in Korean, and it's a superb sensation. I'm progressing through Continuing Korean fairly quickly, although I could do better. Despite the fact that I took it easier last week, I feel like it has helped me to slow down and give my head time to clear all the dizziness that resulted from the previous self-immersion that I had continued for 2 months straight, and I find myself in a great shape again, ready to absorb more information.

Analogous to what I just said about being more 'aware' by every week, I can relate my feelings to a man whom I once saw a documentary about; He used to have a maximum memory span of only half a minute due to a severe case of amnesia. When a nurse once gave him a notebook on which to jot down his current thoughts, the pages were later filled with messages where he claimed to be aware at just that very moment, and he could not believe the previous notes were written by him, since he was not 'aware' by then yet. My sentiments are somewhat similar at the moment — I just read my own blog entry from 1 and a half months ago where I claimed the same I'm doing in this entry, that the language is starting to make sense and I'm adapting to the new realm of thinking, but looking back at it now, I feel like I was not aware at that moment as much as I am now, and same thing will probably go on and on should I progress further onwards from here. A complicated analogy, but holds some truth to language learning in general.

I must say, something great happened lately. A Korean friend of mine, whom I have known through the internet for a month or two, spontaneously sent me a small book written in Korean as a birthday gift last week. How awesome is that. The book is about the Korean traditional p'ungmul drums, and contains several little stories centered around the traditional Korea in the old days. I will plan to read it later on once I get further in the language. Really cool to get some authentic Korean reading materials.


As for my progress, here is a summary of the content learned during the last 1-2 weeks. Not much, but at least the previous week's rest came off beneficial nonetheless:


Miscellaneous:


- Conjugation of the ㅎ-dropping irregular verbs, such as 그렇다 --> 그렇지, 그래요, 그러면 // 까맣다 --> 까맣지, 까매요, 까마면 et cetera.
- More ways to use the verb 말다 (말아요/-지 말고) et cetera.
- The postnoun -네 attached to someone's name, meaning 'his/her family/house etc.', can also be attached to plural pronouns like we, you (plural) et cetera.
- Diminutive -이 attached to names of someone you feel close to, as a way of making it sound cuter. Degrading when attached to someone's full name whom you don't even know well.


One-shape verb endings:


-다(가), indicating sudden shift from an action towards another, similar to English in "I did X, but then, (suddenly), Y happened". Has some contrastive usages as well when used in the past form.


Two-shape verb endings:


- Prospective modifier -(으)ㄹ, used in conjunction with futuric expression
---> - (으)ㄹ 때 — ' When X does...', another extremely useful pattern constructed on the above modifier
------> - (으)ㄹ 때마다/때까지/때부터 — 'Every time X does Y.../Until X does.../Starting when X does...' respectively. Built on the above form by using the particles I learned 2 months ago already, so it's very simple.
- (으)면서 — expressing simultaneity of two actions by the same subject
---> (으)면서도 — similar to above, except that it has the meaning of 'even though' in English. Requires the same subject.
- (으)ㄴ/-는 김에 — has a crude translation of "As long as you are at it, do X aswell" and so on.
- Modifiers + 것 같아요 — a very essential pattern I've looked forward to learn for a long time. Can be used to indicate 'Seems like something was/did/is/will X...'
- (으)려다가 — a combination of the (으)려고 (intent of doing something) and the -다(가) (sudden shift of an action), translating logically into something as 'I was going to, but (suddenly) X occurred...'.


Also a three-shape ending:


- 는데(요)/-(으)ㄴ데(요) — you will hear this everywhere in Korean. The textbook calls it the 'imminent elaboration ending', and it has various subtle usages varying from crude translations of 'but...', 'so...', 'dot-dot-dot (as a pause between two clauses)', to the indication of sudden realizations et cetera. Learning this form really allows one to sound 10x more Korean when used correctly.
---> 는/-(으)ㄴ데도 — constructed on the above form, meaning approximately something like 'In spite of X.../Despite X...'. The extended form of this is 는/-(으)ㄴ데도 불구하고, which emphasizes the meaning.

I passively know about 5 more verb endings I just learned today by reading through lesson 24 in one go, but I'm not going to list them yet because I haven't finished the lesson yet.


Vocabulary:


As for vocabulary, only 100-150 or so learned during the last week, although I have lowered the priority for learning new vocabulary until I have a solid grasp of all the grammar in my textbook. After a month or so after finishing the book, I'm going to attempt to read some basic Korean materials with the help of a dictionary to look up new words appearing more that 2 or 3 times.


Hanja:


About Hanja, only 82 learned during the last 2 weeks, leaving me at the 310 mark right now, although I would be at 400 at this point if I didn't slack off during the last month with them. No worries though, I will continue as usual ~

List of the new 82 Hanja since my last progress update:

客驗式期觀試末題合主格頂會談共元首話各和戰爭樂旅運
登寫眞最讀英畵無通尊敬初等卒京獨立完院朝夕郎重要羅
忠誠孝義理勇殺果必使用事明示可味便利始作精神解球代
報歷史法待宿藥

More about Hanja: Learning them has slowly paid off, as I have been learning words even when I have not intended to do so. Knowing the roots just makes it incredibly easier. I was reading a random Korean message from a netizen on Naver (Korean equivalent for Google), and saw the the clause '본론으로 갈게요'. The -으로 갈게요 means he is going to somewhere, but I did not recognize what 본론 meant. Funnily enough, I got a gut feeling about the word in only a few seconds, I thought about the Hanja 本 for 본, and 論 for 론, meaning literally 'original discussion', and voila, I found out it meant exactly that. There are more examples.


More about the original discussion of this blog entry (pun unintended), about starting to see even more patterns in the language; I find it already somewhat easily manageable to NOT miss on the structure of the language when listening to it. I picked up Korean movies again after 3-4 weeks, and in just one week I feel much more familiar with the vernacular speech styles and expressions from the movies, as I have been able to actually reconstruct them in my head and recognize why something works the way it does.

Finally, I want to talk about the new attitude I'm practically forcing myself to adopt. One of my bad habits with long term activities has always been that if I work really hard for a few months on something, I might get actually proud of myself and thus lose the drive to continue learning as vigorously as before, resulting in smaller improvements and to swirling into a state of demotivation in the end. To avoid that, instead of thinking to myself I got better in something, I would just say I suck less. "I will always suck at Korean, but my main goal is to work hard in order to suck less and drift closer to the state of 'non-sucking'." That is actually one reason I dislike it when Koreans praise my skills like my level was some sort of an olympian achievement, while it is not. I know their intent is good, but I can't let it get too much into myself, as when it comes to Korean, I still suck. Hard. But the fact that I realize I suck is a good thing for me in order to ever 'not-suck'.

That's it for today, I will write a shorter progress update next weekend.

Hello.

It's now approximately a week since my last update as promised; I'll try to keep this one more brief and mostly just present the material I've learned during the last 7 days. I have gone through 3 lessons in my textbook during this time, although 1 lesson took only an evening because it was basically reviewing the stuff learned from lesson 21 to 24. I just finished lesson 26 today, and will progress to lesson 27 tomorrow.



Vocabulary:


Recently, I have mostly focused on learning vocabulary in a more passive manner, as in being able to understand the vocabulary but not necessarily being able to recall them myself in sudden circumstances. Taking in account that, around 100-125 words learned this week. As I have told before, I don't pay heavy attention to vocabulary at this point yet.



Verb constructions:


- ㄴ다, -는다, -다 — This belongs to the 3-shape ending-category, but I'll present it now, since this is the plain style verb form with some following modifications later on. Not so much of a construction, but rather just another way of shaping the verb to a certain formality level. This verb form is that of neutral style, as it is used when talking towards a non-defined group of people, as in newspapers, documentaries, textbooks et cetera. Not just that, but it can also be used between speakers in more intimate terms, or from an older person to a younger person, similarly to the other more commonly know intimate speech level where you just drop the polite -요 ending.



One-shape verb constructions:


- 는 도중/종안/사이/... — A handy ending for expressing the simultaneity of two actions, similarly to the previously learned -(으)면서, although this one requires different subjects instead of the same subject.

- 게 하다 — Causative form; Allows one to say 'X made Y do something...' etc. Adapting this form was actually more difficult than the other forms learned during the last week, but I'm confident with it now.

- 게 되다 — Structurally similar to above, although this one implies that something turns out to be in a certain way or fashion, as in 'I was going to do X, but it turned out that I had to do Y...' and so on.

- 는 게 좋겠다 — Used to suggest or recommend something, as in 'It would be the best to do X...' I'm not sure how abundant this form is in modern Korean, since I don't recall seeing it in movies or on the internet.

-니 — A plain style question form usually used by intimates and by elders to younger people, although I've heard this ending more from women, whereas men tend to use -냐 more when talking in colloquial terms.

-자 — The plain style suggestion form, as in 'Let's do X!'. I have know this for a long time, but my textbook used the more formal '-(으)ㅂ시다' for so long.

- 느라(고) — Plain style; Used for verbs to imly 'because...', similarly to '-기 때문에' and the later mentioned '... 바람에'. Seems to have more of a nuance similar to the English 'due to.../on the account of...'.



Two-shape verb constructions:


- (으)ㄴ 후에 — A simple construction for implying something don after an action; 'After doing X...'

- (으)ㄹ 'X'이다 — What I mean by 'X' here is that it's possible to use so many verbal nouns with this future prospective (으)ㄹ form, to imply planning, thinking, scheduling etc. for something in the near future. Examples are 계획, 생각, 예정 and 작정, although the last two might be somewhat formal.

- (으)냐/-느냐 — Another plain style question form used in neutral speech and between intimates.

- (으)라 — A plain style command form, as in 'Do this! / Do that! ...'.; This is very rarely used in spoken, colloquial Korean, but is abundant in written announcements or textbooks.

- 어라/-아라 — Very similar to above in terms of both meaning and construction. Only difference is that this is the plain style command form that is used in spoken Korean. I also knew this for a long time, but the textbook has used the more formal and polite equivalent -(으)십시오 and the honorific form -세요 for commands until this point.

- 어/-아다(가) — The action-shifting suffix added to the infinitive verb form preceding the final verb, emphasizing the difference between the shift of the two juxtaposed verbs. Can also be used without a verb for the directional particle -에 as in -에다(가). Although I understand when, how and why it's used, I'm too lazy to even think of starting to explain in depth it right now.



Three-shape verb constructions:


- (으)ㄴ/-는 바람에 — Another way of saying 'because of X, Y happened...'. The only difference of this compared to '-기 때문에' and the earlier mentioned '-느라(고)', is that this way of saying 'because' implies that the outcome is somehow undesirable or negative.

- (으)ㄴ/-는 대로 — Has two major usages; Used for saying 'as soon as...' to a lesser extent, similarly to -자 마자, but mostly for 'in accordance with X', as in 'You must do according to what I say' etc.



Hanja:


67 Hanja learned during this week, leaving me at 379 total right now. This week's Hanja:

鮮以傳統頭交海鐵政治經濟古第由熱有的性人別開養成順
序課聖茶席流醫在仁官博士位病友術志願勝歲因實己告命
令罪罰强張部關調査責任集團定向個決種

(Note that I actually listed 68 Hanja, but one of them is 人, the most basic Chinese character of all time, meaning 'person/human', which I have known for ages. I just forgot to list it, so I never knew it 'officially', lol.)

Only about 120 more to go to finish the book, after which I'll be taking a small break from these. They have proved to be beneficial nonetheless, and I'm hyped to learn more.



Random notes:


I've started reading different Korean netizen materials from the internet, such as blog entries and their comments, or just general Q&A sections from Naver, and I have somewhat often understood quite a bit of the content, sometimes even without a dictionary. I'll try to do some full-scale reading after 2 or 3 weeks, such as Korean e-comics from Naver.


Due to my new school term I have 2 times less free time than I used to, so naturally I won't have as much time to learn. Yesterday, I was worried of whether I could keep continuing to immerse myself to Korean media alongside learning with my new schedule, but I have decided to gather a bunch of movies during the week and watch them all on the weekend, and during the regular week, just listening to Korean music whenever convenient.

It's now 3 months and 3 days since I started this arduous journey. Considering a language like Korean, I think I am on a good track so far, at least by understanding. Speaking it right on the spot is another thing, and I'm fairly convinced it's going to backfire my confidence should a situation like that ever come by, heh.


Looks like this entry was not as brief as I initially planned, but I could not help it. Next time -->

Due to lack of time this will be a fairly shorter update (no lying this time); Everything has gone pretty much as planned, although during this week I only went through 1 lesson in my book because it had a lot of content concerning the way of quoting someone in Korean both directly and directly, although on top of that I also learned some new constructions.

This weeks progress (I will stop categorizing constructions by their number of endings from now on):


Vocabulary:


A bit more compared to previous weeks since I've done a lot of reading while looking up important words and adding them to Anki. I would say I've learned 150-175 words passively, but not necessarily being able to use them myself in proper context, although I don't worry about it since I believe it's natural in vocabulary learning — You first get familiar with the words first, but mastery comes later.


Grammar:


- Both direct and indirect quotations, similar to the English direct style: "He said "Come!" vs. "He told me to come". Initially the Korean way of forming the equivalent felt a bit unnatural so that is why I took the whole week to practise these. After all, quotations are of great importance in no matter what language you learn, and in Korean, you have to change the verb in different ways depending on whether you quote a statement, a command, a suggestion, a favor and so on.

- 의 하면... — 'According to...'

- More ways to use the -(으)로 — I was extremely surprised that this suffix has (coincidentally) very similar usages similar to the -lla and -lle suffixes in Finnish, so learning them felt extremely natural.

- 수록... —'The more X, the more Y' plus a few other usages

- (으)ㄹ 뻔 했다 — 'I almost did X...'

- 나 보다 / (으)ㄴ가 보다 — Conjugation of a verb to imply something like 'I guess he is doing X...' or 'It seems he is doing X...' et cetera.

Another two or three endings introduced outside my textbook during the last week, although in a more passive manner, so I will not include them yet.


Hanja:


73 learned today and last week (452 total):


飛機變結港雲野陸廣島着到路特藝形弱例計曲
商知其服輕買價件培飮求質再效惡習善改過去
基班選制度競當落級約擧念窓船類汽展參練愛
加庭費健康晝夜充失才能功敗


My recognition speed of newly learned Hanja is starting to slow down a little bit. Only 50-60 left to go in my book, so the break after that will definitely help me to polish the first half thousand Hanja.


Miscellaneous:


I've been doing a lot of chatting with Koreans this week and reading random stuff from Korean netizens, and I definitely feel myself getting more and more better. I need to up my listening though — Unlike I promised, I haven't watched a single Korean movie last week. I have been watching Korean news for 30-45 minutes each day and listened to lots of music, but without movies included I don't think I will have enough Korean audio to self-immerse myself.

I also translated 2 North Korean songs (with subtitles) for fun, since I could already understand 95% of the grammar, so it was just a matter of vocabulary. NK music is just hilarious overall.

Update next weekend if I don't slack off -->

Hello,


A week late on the update due to a week's vacation — I actually decided to take one week off the textbook and just do the daily Anki reviews and watching some movies every now and then, spending more time reinforcing the past material I've learned. Moreover, the new lesson included another peculiar verb form, the so-called retrospective ending, which has no English equivalent. It gives off an implication that I did just not simply do something, but I namely also witnessed it, or I heard that something happened/was done. At first this was boggling my mind, but after that I realized that this form is actually very common in Korean, and I've adopted it into my usage ever since figuring out when to use it. There are quite many ways to form these endings depending on the formality level and whether the verb implies statement, question or surprise. Here are a few of them:

Formal style retrospective: (스)ㅂ디다 — According to the book, this form is nowadays used only by the people somewhere around the ages of 50 and 60, and should not be used by others.

Polite style retrospectives: -데요, but also -더라고요 and -던데요 — -데요 is extremely close to the subtracted quotation (간다고 해요 --> 간대요) by pronunciation, so to remove ambiguity, one can also use the two latter forms, which I also myself witness much more often when dealing with Koreans.

One can also combine the retrospective with the conditional clause, leading to -더라면, which is a more common way to imply past conditionality than simply -었으면 — Another preferred way is -었다면.

All of the above forms can be made intimate, futuric, past, questioning or surprising, so due to mathematical consequences I'm reluctant to list them all..


Some other constructions:

- (으)ㄹ 정도(로) — To the extent that...
- 고 나서 — Another way of saying after something...
- 기(를) 위해(서) — For the sake of X, I actually knew this for a long time before coming upon this in the lesson.



Hanja:


Last 70 Hanja learned:


葉太陽婦衣識思考舊永遠億領偉屋住終奉仕他
祝消急速料引石油常産量府財許說炭想根德君
臣幼朋進技良貴省極旗保筆陰置禮智單建仙容
桓雄救望檀樹哀束比婚


I'm now standing at 522 total. I'm relieved to take a small break from these, as I certainly satisfied my hunger for Chinese characters for the moment. It's all good, as I have other aspects in Korean I need to improve on.



Miscellaneous:


I downloaded a random movie I came upon while browsing hancinema.com, called The Bleak Night (파수꾼), which revolves around a father trying to figure out why his high-school-aged son committed suicide.



After obtaining the movie, I noticed it only had Korean subtitles available, and I could not get my hands on English subtitles. I then instead decided to watch it in Korean and see how I fare, and I was quite surprised — I can say with confidence that I understood about a thirth of the clauses perfectly. The other thirth I somewhat got the gist of due to familiar words here and there plus familiar grammar. The final thirth, I did not understand due to unknown vocabulary and/or weird grammatical forms or idiomatic expressions. Overall, my understanding was still on the level that I could actually enjoy the movie, although a part of my understanding owes to the fact that the content of the movie revolved around people and their actions, not academid topics, as I would have been lost in that case. I also liked the movie due to it's dark and melancholic atmosphere, showing another, maybe a more realistic perspective in the Korean way of living in contrast to the romantic and happy-go-lucky-mindset that is otherwise so abundant in exported Korean popular media.
Subtitles were an absolute must though — It is amazing how much Koreans contract their languages in live speech, and this will most likely be the largest obstacle along with speaking. No worries though, time will resolve things.

Talking about speaking, my Korean friend introduced me to a Korean program called TalkOn, where you login with your Nate account and can find various voice chatrooms varying on the topic. I have only spent 2 evenings there, yet listening to all the spoken speech has really upped my understanding. My friend introduced me to his friends and we had quite good time in the chat for hours. However, the time I tried to talk was yet again a situation where I had to submit into trying to speak on the fly and I was stuttering horribly. This is normal though, and I plan to repeat it every day due to having neglected speaking for so long. When my friends went to sleep, I joined some of the other rooms, but after being bombarded with amusing remarks such as 병신 개새끼 씨발놈아 due to not being able to introduce myself in mere seconds, I thought it would be a better idea if I just remained silent with the people I didn't know.

More on that, I wonder how Koreans are able to talk so much about whatever subjects — In just 5 minutes the topic of the conversation shifted from whether the South-Korean government should raise taxes, to who exerts sovereignty over the Liancourt rocks, to the trading relationships between Korea and the U.S., and finally ended to a mutual pondering over a Korean grammatical verb form of which even the Koreans themselves weren't too sure about.

More on Korean chatting — It never ceases to amaze me how colourfully Koreans chat together. I love the English language due to its lexical depth, as one can paint an intricately described thought merely with the fabulous vocabulary it offers. On the other hand, Korean is different, but equally as perplexing. While I'm not even near the the level where I could enjoy the lexical richness of the language (which I'm sure it also has), listening to Koreans chatting, the way they shift word orders to alter emphases and combining all the rich verb conjugations, is truly befuddling, which in my head keeps swirling down into an exquisite emotional cluster of hidden indications and disguised statements; The fact that one can seal so much sentimental information in mere tiny syllables in Korean, is what, to me from a linguistic viewpoint, makes it like a language like no other, and I'm enthusiastic to go on.

Hello.

It is midnight here and I have a test tomorrow, but I finally wanted to write something nevertheless. The truth is, for the last three weeks, I have almost entirely neglected my Korean apart from doing the daily vocabulary reviews. This term's amount of school really grew on me, draining my energy for the rest of the day after school, leaving me apathetic in my room. I hit upon a temporary angst about Korean as well, because this is the first time I have doubted my decision to embark on this journey which I so much touted at the beginning. And this blog — I thought to myself that it will be O.K. even if I ignore updating this blog because I'm only doing it for myself as a way of recording my sentiments on a longer timeline, and I never even expected for people to be interested in this blog. However, every day I checked the view count for this blog even after it had sunk to pages afar from the front page, and I was surprised to see the view count increasing nonetheless. Most of those are probably from people who browse the forum randomly checking out older threads, but I'm sure there is at least one person who follows this blog; Whoever that may be, even if for one person, I will keep updating this blog as long as I'm doing anything significant in Korean.

Last three weeks? I feel like a slob. The last three weeks I have learned the amount of material I used to learn in three days before. Spilled milk though, I'll have to look forward. I've finished Continuing Korean and I will order new books this weekend. Progress since the last update? Around 60 new words or so. I managed to translate one Korean e-comic, only a few sentences gave me trouble; One of them was even unintelligible to my Korean friend, so I guess that's fine.

I have a shortage of Korean media right now — If anyone happens to know some good TV-channels, programs, dramas, whatever, you can freely PM me.

Since I'm waiting for my next textbooks, I figured out I could try to focus on learning a bunch of vocabulary during the upcoming weeks. Let's see how I do...