I guess I should preface this with a huge disclaimer: this post isn't going to teach you Korean. There's only one person who can teach you Korean, and that's you. This post will, however, tell you, if you are really motivated to learn Korean (or any other language), the fastest and most accurate way to learn. As a primary point of reference I'll be using English, because that's the language of this board.
I've noticed there's a good amount of interest in learning Korean here on this board, which would seem rather obvious, but there's a lot of curiosity about Korean just as a language in general, aside from the 15 some threads that have been made with questions/comments about learning Korean, so after I just spent 2 weeks with a second language acquisition (henceforth SLA) expert in Asian languages (primarily Cantonese, but others as well) I figured I ought to make a thread that would answer a lot of these questions. I'm going to try and condense this as much as possible, but I'll go into considerable depth in spoilers beneath the relevant topics. So here's the good, the bad, and the ugly about SLA:
The good
Learning another language is a rewarding task that opens a whole new culture, people, and way of looking at things for you. The other good news is if you're bilingual or if you've spent many years in acquisition of a second language (linguists who study SLA make a sharp distinction between a second language acquired in childhood and a second language acquired in adulthood for reasons I will explain below) you'll find your third language coming to you rather easily.
The bad
Presumably, the task you've chosen is Korean. The U.S government has classified Korean as a category 4 language, a language so different from English they estimate 2200 classroom hours to pass as a competent speaker. I have many issues with this idea, which gets into some serious linguistics jargon. I would be happy to indulge the curious mind but as this post will already be very long I'll stop short. Nevertheless, it is still a difficult language to learn.
Why? Because Korean is what is known as a language isolate, that is, a language with no known relations to other languages, and Korean itself remains something of a mystery to linguists in terms of its history. Korean has a number of sounds, luckily only a few, but unluckily for you, primarily vowels, that are not native to English or other European languages. The consonants aren't hard but drawing distinctions in regards the vowels won't be simple. Korean syntax is not of a particularly difficult variety (not like Turkish) but it is very foreign to English speakers.
In terms of syntax, Korean will be foreign to nearly everyone unless you're Finnish. Korean employs a case system, a concept foreign (but still attested) in English. What this means is that Korean, instead of employing extremely strict word order (like English), affixes morphemes (small units of meaning like the English plural suffix -s) to words to show what the word is doing in the sentence. English used to use this system, and if you ever remember your 1st grade teacher teaching you the difference between who and whom, that's what cases are, who being used only for subjects and whom for the object of the sentence and other grammatical functions.
In languages with case systems, the word order tends to be more flexible. Korean, however, tends to be Subject-Object-Verb more by convention than necessity though it is supposedly the most common. Native speakers might switch it up to emphasize elements of a sentence by changing the word order. It's nice to stick to the fairly easy SOV word order when learning, and playing with other word orders as learning progresses.
The ugly
SLA is very difficult. There's no getting around that. Programs like 'Rosetta Stone' (tirade in first spoiler below) and the various language tapes floating around there can't teach you a language. SLA experts agree on three major factors in accurate, fast acquisition of a second language (in no particular order): motivation, interaction with native speakers, natural aptitude. Motivation is a huge part; if you're not trying to learn a language and staying committed and practicing, there's no way you're going to learn. All those interviews with IdrA seem to indicate this is his problem in learning Korean. Interaction with native speakers is the most important thing in learning a second language. Living in Seoul for 6 months with a Korean family and no access to English would teach you Korean very fast, because you're forced to communicate.
Finally, the murky idea of aptitude has been strongly advocated by some SLA experts, others insist it is a product of native intelligence. There is some evidence in linguistic savants and plenty of anecdotes, but it's a factor you can't do anything about. My parents both acquired second languages swiftly and French came rather easily for me, and I knew the opposite situation for some close friends, but it could just have to do with motivation, etc. It's hard to pin down, but people have tried to measure it (like the U.S Foreign Services, State Department, and Department of Defense) in tests like the MLAT and DLAB.
Don't buy 'Rosetta Stone.' I've heard their ads, the whole 'same way you learned your first language...by matching pictures to words' is such a silly idea I can't even begin to describe it. Blind people learn language, so clearly it's not just 'matching pictures to words.' You learn your first language by intuiting the stimuli around you, by making guesses and generalizations which you refine and deduce from more evidence. There are even claims (in fact, you might even call it main stream) that language is 'instinctual,' that the rules of the various grammars of the world are hard wired into biases of language learning in infants. The truth that everyone does agree on, however, is that you can't go back to learning languages the way you did when you were an infant.
Only buy tapes or programs (still don't buy Rosetta Stone) if you have no other way to learn the language, and you are using them as practice or to get you started off for a serious engagement to learn the language. Otherwise, they are a waste. I can't reiterate enough how much you need to interact with native speakers.
Some hypotheses state that SLA gets harder as you get older, as more neurons commit to other things, and as fluid intelligence wanes, etc. There is no contention over the drop off in language learning ability after about the age of 6 or 7 after which it becomes much harder to learn a second language, but there is significant disagreement as to whether that ability remains relatively static after that period or whether it continues to decrease at a significant rate.
Of those I mentioned, there are two factors you can control in learning Korean: your motivation, and interaction with native speakers. So, answering the question I started with, how do you learn Korean? Be serious about learning the language; make a Korean friend, or better yet, study abroad in Korea. Actively engage speakers of Korean in their language. Make a conscious effort, and most of them will be thrilled. From what I hear, they have pride in their language, and are impressed by Westerners who can speak it. You'll be surprised by how quickly you can pick it up if you really really try.
SLA experts agree on three major factors in accurate, fast acquisition of a second language (in no particular order): motivation, interaction with native speakers, natural aptitude.
Starcraft player in a Korean night club.
On June 30 2010 09:58 Arrian wrote: Of those I mentioned, there are two factors you can control in learning Korean: your motivation, and interaction with native speakers. So, answering the question I started with, how do you learn Korean? Be serious about learning the language; make a Korean friend, or better yet, study abroad in Korea. Actively engage speakers of Korean in their language. Make a conscious effort, and most of them will be thrilled. From what I hear, they have pride in their language, and are impressed by Westerners who can speak it. You'll be surprised by how quickly you can pick it up if you really really try.
Koreans definitely get impressed by any non-Korean with Korean speaking ability. But more so than actually just knowing words and grammar being a true good Korean speaker requires ALOT of social experience with Koreans. If you don't know the culture and how they think about stuff it doesn't matter how book-smart you are in the language, you will come across as a fool. Korean culture + cute language inuendos can allow you to say something that wouldn't be funny in english in Korean and have a whole room ROFL'ing and staring at you as if you're some angel sent from heaven (or demon from hell depending on what you said).
P.S. Whenever I see a non-korean that has been here over 2 years and can only speak like 10 phrases I lol really really hard. Basically every single english teacher.
Never really thought about it (speak it at home), but come to think of it you can rearrange word orders in a sentence really freely. Plus everything can be mashed into a verb so you don't even have to use subject/object.
Are you a linguist arrian? I find these sort of threads real interesting. Please do elaborate about what's so complex about turkish syntax. You aroused my interest
i currently am learning spanish and german in school, and during my free time, i wanted to learn korean, but i was too busy and quit, maybe i should start again since i am so bored over summer
I've met a bunch of teachers here who can't even read yet, but have managed to live here 2+ years. Unreal.
I'm a teacher, but I hate all of them and slightly pissed at myself for being associated. But, it's a consolation knowing that I can wake up and not be any of them.
Oh yeah, not to mention, there's not one other English teacher in my language classes. Says something about the motivation here. It's about the money (with benefits monetized is only around $45k-$55k), meeting other retards, and getting pissed drunk in a foreigner district--it has nothing to do with Korea for most of them.
I currently type with one in arms distance. Fuuuuu-------
Is Korean really that isolated? There's a lot of shared words and similar grammatical systems with Japanese. When it comes to etymology it is heavily rooted in Chinese as well. I wasn't aware that linguists consider the Korean language to be isolated.
On June 30 2010 12:40 Katsuge wrote: i thought korean deviated from CHinese language?
just like Japanese, too.
You're fucking stupid. Would you mind describing what it's like to have Swine Flu.
How is he fucking stupid? Have you ever actually learned 한자 before? If you've ever even briefly touched upon hanja then you would know that the etymology of most Korean words is rooted in the written language that has originated from China.
On June 30 2010 12:45 koreasilver wrote: Is Korean really that isolated? There's a lot of shared words and similar grammatical systems with Japanese. When it comes to etymology it is heavily rooted in Chinese as well. I wasn't aware that linguists consider the Korean language to be isolated.
English contains many Latin words that came to it through French but they are definitely not in the same language family.
Edit: No, Indo-European doesn't count in this context.
On June 30 2010 12:45 koreasilver wrote: Is Korean really that isolated? There's a lot of shared words and similar grammatical systems with Japanese. When it comes to etymology it is heavily rooted in Chinese as well. I wasn't aware that linguists consider the Korean language to be isolated.
English contains many Latin words that came to it through French but they are definitely not in the same language family.
Edit: No, Indo-European doesn't count in this context.
I guess you are right in that way then. I don't really have a clue with linguistics so this was quite surprising to me.
On June 30 2010 12:49 lyk503 wrote: A Korean king made the unique language back when there were dynasties, but of course, he borrowed from other languages.
That's only the written language though. And even still, the etymology of words still remained almost concretely founded upon the written Chinese language. The Korean spoken language was always quite different from both Mandarin and Cantonese.
About Rosetta Stone : even though I do agree that it's probably not the most useful tool, and it's not very complete either, it is actually a very interesting and fun start to learn a language. I mean : it feels like a videogame. You won't learn enough out of it, and you may get frustrated at times, but it's still a very interesting and "fun" experience, unlike reading through a textbook.
On June 30 2010 12:49 lyk503 wrote: A Korean king made the unique language back when there were dynasties, but of course, he borrowed from other languages.
He didn't "make" the language...King Sojeon only created 한글 (hangul), the Korean alphabet. You make it sound like people just communicated with hand signals or mime before this guy came along and mysteriously "invented" Korean =P
Secondly, I don't know the statistics but a LOT of words in Korean are based in Chinese, especially a lot of "higher level" vocab. I speak Chinese and it's a huge help when learning vocabulary because a lot of the words are so similar that you will never forget them after seeing or reading them only once (eg: 传统 --> 전통). It's like learning the word for "restaurant" in French for English speakers (hint: it's the same).
Thirdly, in defence of Rosetta Stone. I think RS is actually pretty good software, but it's certainly not worth paying the exorbitant price they charge for it. But having said that, you can acquire it for free through teh internets if you know where to look (hint: Google) and it's a good place to start for beginners. Even if you only spend an hour a day you can easily and quickly learn a lot of the most basic vocab that you need to get started (colours, clothes, body parts, days of the week, simple objects etc). But I agree with you that paying for RS is not a good idea.
When I first saw the title I was intrigued. The thread wasn't what I was hoping for, but it turned out to be helpful regardless, well done!
I was unaware of Korean being a language isolate, so I learned something too from this thread. I always figured that at least the written language of Korean and Japanese have their origins placed in Chinese. Spoken, I have no idea about though, ahah, so it probably applies to this.
Just wondering, are the word endings in Korean mentioned comparative to the endings in Latin? For example, in Latin the first things in grammar you learn are the five main cases of nouns (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative and ablative) and the 6 main parts of verbs. These affect the ending of the word, and what it means.
For example, in the word servus (servant, slave) serv-us is the nominative and is the subject. However, if you changed the ending to serv-o, then (depending on the context) you would make it "to or for the slave."
Is this somewhat like what's in Korean? My literature teacher said that the further you go back into the Indo-European languages (such as Latin and Greek, or even further), the more structured and logical of a language you would find. Considering the rather ancient and isolated nature of Oriental culture, I wouldn't be surprised if Korean (and other languages related to Chinese) had a logical case system (and, according to the OP) still have it today.
I was interested in picking up Korean a while ago but i soon found out that the amount of Korean classes in Sweden were pretty limited, maybe in the future.
Also, i'm curious about those government classifications that says that Korean is a category 4 language, is there a site somewhere that lists all these different classifications?
While your post wasn't that enlightning or illuminating for me Arrian, it's a great idea to have one of these threads. What I would like to see is people writing their own experience in learning korean and hopefully hear some stories about closing the cultural gap once you're in Korea.
I've been debating hard which east asian language I should attempt to learn. I think the language which would help me most in almost any career would be mandarin, because of Chinas growing economy and the increase in exported goods. Knowing how to speak mandarin on your resume is very impressive as well.
Then again if I know Korean I can watch korean SC2 games as they are happening.
On June 30 2010 13:48 Belegorm wrote:Just wondering, are the word endings in Korean mentioned comparative to the endings in Latin? For example, in Latin the first things in grammar you learn are the five main cases of nouns (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative and ablative) and the 6 main parts of verbs. These affect the ending of the word, and what it means
Yes, essentially. However, one important difference is that the Latin declensions (like conjugations, but for nouns) are inflected (that is, they are somewhat more dependent on the base word), while Korean (and for that matter, a bit moreso, Japanese) case particles are more isolated (structures independent of the base word). Admittedly, Korean particles do consider whether the base word ends in a vowel or a consonant, but otherwise they remain the same for each case no matter the base word.
Another difference is that Korean has more cases than Latin. A quick wiki check on Korean and Latin grammar gives 7 cases for Latin and about 12 particle groups (pairs for each case, 1 post-consonant, 1 post-vowel) for Korean. For the most part it matches up, but Korean (and, as a side note, Japanese) has a topic particle, which doesn't quite match up to Latin subject case, as it can define something broader than a sentence subject (I can't think of examples at the moment). It also has a subject particle, but I believe that may be more limited than the Latin subject case.
Note: I may be wrong about this, I've done some research on Korean, but most of my knowledge about it comes from mapping it to what resembles Japanese (my third language, though a bit iffy from lack of practice), which is a fair amount, at least in the detached and non-conversational sense. Conversationally, Japanese seems to allow for more information to be dropped while preserving a comprehensible sentence than Korean, but that may be wrong.
I thought Korean was really similar to Japanese. Unless.... it's those two languages that are isolated from the rest of the other languages. If you know Japanese, you can learn Korean really quickly (faster than those who don't know Japanese, at least).
Some of the vocabulary words sound like Chinese as well.
I'd always considered learning one of Korean or Japanese at some point, not becoming a fluent speaker or anything but knowing the language at a college level, and I always figured that with my chinese background both of those languages would be fairly similar. Never knew Korean wasn't really based on chinese syntax or anything at all other than some etymology.
Cool thread, munching a lot of popcorn to all the language info bits being passed here
I was surprised at Korean being a language isolate. But I guess for a non-asian like me it's easy to hear some Chinese words and going "ah, it's like Chinese but with a dialect". (Or well, not that naive of a conclusion maybe, but you catch my drift.)
Anyway, what I was wondering is, for a language isolate, umm....how isolated is it? I mean for example as compared to Finnish. For a Swede like me, Norwegian and Danish are both handily understandable, but in Finland which is just as close a neighbor, they speak a language which is just completely unintelligible to me. Hardly a single word has anything to do with Swedish/Norwegian/Danish. And the same would go for the rest of the world, aside from Hungarian of all languages (which I've always found very odd since Hungary is so far from Scandinavia), and some minor languages spoken by natives, like the Sami. Finnish is just from outer space compared to all other languages.
So maybe I'll ask this: for you Chinese and Japanese reading this, how different is Korean to your languages? I mean, can you understand anything at all? Can you "get by" on using your language in Korea at all?
I've tried learning Korean 3 times, I have given up because I have just lost motivation to continue to learn... I would love to speak Korean or any language other then English but I just do not have the self determination to learn a language.
On June 30 2010 18:55 AlgeriaT wrote: So maybe I'll ask this: for you Chinese and Japanese reading this, how different is Korean to your languages? I mean, can you understand anything at all? Can you "get by" on using your language in Korea at all?
All three spoken languages are completely different, at least in the terms you stated. Even most Chinese dialects are mutually unintelligible.
i am a Chinses and choose english as my major in universty. and nowadays i try to learn Japenese as my third language.(i really want to learn Korean but unfortunately there are no such a choice in undergraduate in my university).but i have a friend who is a Korean Chinese(you know in north-east China, there are still a lot of Korean people but they are Chinese indeed.) .he told me something about Korean and Japenese that the grammar structure are almost the same but much different compared to Chinese.and because i can speak Chinese ,English and Japenese(a little), I have to say, all of those three asian language ie,Chinese, japenese and korean, Chinses is most difficult(even i am a Chinese), and korean are much easy to learn.
On June 30 2010 20:34 Comet702 wrote: korean are much easy to learn.
I hope no one thinks I'm a prick for doing this (just trying to help):
You want to say "Korean is much easier to learn."; always use "is" for one thing (Korean language) and "are" for more than one thing (a bunch of Koreans). And "easier", well, I can't define the rule so you can use it with other words, but there's three "levels" of the word "easy": "easy" is a broad term, representing something that isn't difficult, but there is nothing to compare it to. "easier" is saying there are two things and one is less difficult than the other. "easiest" means there are 3 or more things that can be compared, of which 1 choice is the least difficult.
Anyway, getting the drive to learn Korean is really, really hard. I would like to be semi-fluent before I get there -- I want to be an English teacher that isn't a douchey like the ones mentioned in this thread that spend several years there without having a clue as to the language around them. Seems like they're missing out on a vast culture, and perhaps women.
^ Well in my opinion you can be that arrogant if you can rival his english ability with your korean ability. Most people don't like to be corrected (myself included) so better OWN UP OR GET THROWN DOWN!
On June 30 2010 21:23 HeIios wrote: ^ Well in my opinion you can be that arrogant if you can rival his english ability with your korean ability. Most people don't like to be corrected (myself included) so better OWN UP OR GET THROWN DOWN!
I don't understand this. I still will openly ask what a word in English means, even in a large group setting, and it's my native language. One can never truly perfect their first language, but I will give it my best effort.
My opinion on language learning is that you absolutely have to have solid grammar before trying to immerse yourself in it. A couple of months getting used to the grammar makes you progress a huge amount faster.
Is the ㅇsymbol as it should be? I tried to copy a korean dictionary and it has a small vertical line above the ㅇ. Just want to make sure I'm not learning incorrect korean
On June 30 2010 21:23 HeIios wrote: ^ Well in my opinion you can be that arrogant if you can rival his english ability with your korean ability. Most people don't like to be corrected (myself included) so better OWN UP OR GET THROWN DOWN!
I don't understand this. I still will openly ask what a word in English means, even in a large group setting, and it's mynative language. One can never truly perfect their first language, but I will give it my best effort.
Ponder my boldness, I love you as much as I love anyone else on the internet so don't worry, I'm not trying to attack you or anything.
On June 30 2010 21:23 HeIios wrote: ^ Well in my opinion you can be that arrogant if you can rival his english ability with your korean ability. Most people don't like to be corrected (myself included) so better OWN UP OR GET THROWN DOWN!
I don't understand this. I still will openly ask what a word in English means, even in a large group setting, and it's mynative language. One can never truly perfect their first language, but I will give it my best effort.
Ponder my boldness, I love you as much as I love anyone else on the internet so don't worry, I'm not trying to attack you or anything.
Again, I don't understand. I'm also very, very tired, and am not always trying to be perfect, anyway. I simply saw an easily correctable error earlier, and thought I could help.
Cool thread. I call BS on Korean being a language isolate though. That's still only a theory right now and I think the way it's currently written, it could confuse people who think it's a neat fact to tell others.
That theory is propagated by Western linguists, which imo are not very credible when it comes to E. Asian languages. There's still a lot of research that needs to be done comparing Korean/Japanese to other Altaic language branches, AKA Tungusic/Mongolian etc.
I'm in Korea right now learning Korean from different people about 3 times a week (hot girl + cool guy in language exchange who speak good english, landlady who doesn't speak english but gestures well and talks to me a lot, old teacher who is in love with me). I've been here for two months and I can already understand many basic sentences spoken to me and catch the gist of tougher ones. I work in a school 9-5 and play poker with a mix of koreans and foreigners about 3-4 times a week.
I lived in Japan when I was younger, and the language is pretty similar, they both use postpositions (as opposed to prepositions) and some of the words are even the same. They're both derived from Chinese, though, as Hanja and Kanji are exactly the same. The big difference is that nobody really uses Hanja in Korea, and lots of people use Kanji in Japan. I'm not saying that it's particularly easy to pick up, as a ton of the vowels are fucking hard to distinguish and pronounce correctly, but I'm not having a super hard time learning it. I'm like 1/8 korean and 1/2 japanese/okinawan (the rest is dutch irish welsch native american and chinese) from Hawaii so I have been around a lot of Korean people all my life. Most of my gfs in high school spoke korean, but I never learned anything from them. I do remember them saying "araso" a lot which roughly translates to "i see", something which I've learned very recently.
It's a lot easier for me because I look full korean and everyone speaks to me in korean off the bat but honestly, from my experience, korean isn't any harder to learn than any other language if you take the time to learn the basic syntax and grammar and have a good deal of immersion. I realize that's not feasible for many of you, but if you want to learn Korean just move to Korea and teach english. There are plenty of opportunities and nearly everyone I know is having a great time up here, douchebag or otherwise.
On June 30 2010 22:51 Fantistic wrote: Need to clarify another word:
예 = yes
Is the ㅇsymbol as it should be? I tried to copy a korean dictionary and it has a small vertical line above the ㅇ. Just want to make sure I'm not learning incorrect korean
Are you confusing ㅎ with ㅇ? ㅎ looks like ㅇ but with two vertical lines above it.
I have only lived in Korea for 6 months, but "yes" is usually written as 네. Pronounced like "neh".
And to the person who asked about Korean keyboards... they look the same as any keyboard. Korean "words" are compounded from multiple letters, just like in English, but they look much more complicated sometimes...
Like...
ㅅ + ㅓ + ㅇ + ㅗ + ㄹ = 서울 Which is "Seoul". So that thing that might look like two "letters" is actually 5 characters. To type that I type "tjdhf".
Another easy to type and understand word would be "Gangnam" (an area of Seoul) spelled 강님. ㄱ = "g/k" sound. ㅏ = "ah" sound. ㅇ = "ng" sound (or it's a silent vowel if at the start of a word... like if you want to right just "ah" you write 아) ㄴ = "n" sound. ㅏ = as above, "ah" sound. ㅁ = "m" sound.
(To type that you hit rkdska)
Once you have a general idea of what each letter should sound like, reading becomes pretty easy (after practicing, of course... it took me a couple weeks before I felt comfortable. Still not fully comfortable!)
Learning Korean can be pretty hard, but it's fun. If I put too much effort into it, I'd probably get pretty frustrated. But I have a lot of Korean friends that teach me, and I do study on my own when I feel like it. I am pleased that I can spell most words the first time I hear them nowadays in Hangeul. I still (stupidly) get confused with the sound differences for letters like ㅐ ㅑ ㅕ ㅔ ㅜ ㅗ but mostly I'm pretty good.
I also understand the sentiment behind disliking so many of the other English teachers here who aren't doing much for themselves here, but I don't really agree with it! I work at a big hagwon with over 20 foreigners, and many of them don't know much Korean besides the basics, some can speak a lot, but I'd say they're all good people.
In Hongdae though... certainly a lot of douchebags who look like they're just begging to be punched. But what I'm saying is, a lot of them aren't so bad. Even the ones who don't really embrace the culture as much as someone else. Some people experience different cultures in different ways.
Anyway, I'm not sure how people like Rek really picked up Korean so fast! I guess being continuously immersed in it kind of forces you to do that, though.
On June 30 2010 22:51 Fantistic wrote: Need to clarify another word:
예 = yes
Is the ㅇsymbol as it should be? I tried to copy a korean dictionary and it has a small vertical line above the ㅇ. Just want to make sure I'm not learning incorrect korean
Are you confusing ㅎ with ㅇ? ㅎ looks like ㅇ but with two vertical lines above it.
I have only lived in Korea for 6 months, but "yes" is usually written as 네. Pronounced like "neh".
You've been in Korea 6 months and you've never heard someone say "yae"? [edit2] might be romanized "yeh" [/edit2]
[edit] It might be a dialect thing, Gyeongnam has a super thick dialect that most Seoul people don't understand well, but we say it all the time here. [/edit]
On June 30 2010 22:51 Fantistic wrote: Need to clarify another word:
예 = yes
Is the ㅇsymbol as it should be? I tried to copy a korean dictionary and it has a small vertical line above the ㅇ. Just want to make sure I'm not learning incorrect korean
Are you confusing ㅎ with ㅇ? ㅎ looks like ㅇ but with two vertical lines above it.
I have only lived in Korea for 6 months, but "yes" is usually written as 네. Pronounced like "neh".
You've been in Korea 6 months and you've never heard someone say "yae"?
Of course I have, but I'd say 90% of the time or more it's 네, heh.
It's a lot easier for me because I look full korean and everyone speaks to me in korean off the bat but honestly, from my experience, korean isn't any harder to learn than any other language if you take the time to learn the basic syntax and grammar and have a good deal of immersion.
I would think that one reason why people perceive it to be harder is simply because they pick it up when they are older than they did with the other languages they learnt, at least that's how it was with me, I learnt Japanese when I was around 6-7 and had no issues at all picking it up, while trying to learn French at the age of 20 was horrible. Languages is just one of those things that gets harder to learn the older you get.
It's a lot easier for me because I look full korean and everyone speaks to me in korean off the bat but honestly, from my experience, korean isn't any harder to learn than any other language if you take the time to learn the basic syntax and grammar and have a good deal of immersion.
I would think that one reason why people perceive it to be harder is simply because they pick it up when they are older than they did with the other languages they learnt, at least that's how it was with me, I learnt Japanese when I was around 6-7 and had no issues at all picking it up, while trying to learn French at the age of 20 was horrible. Languages is just one of those things that gets harder to learn the older you get.
Of course, my native language is English and I learned Japanese at 10 and now I'm in my twenties in Korea learning Korean--it's harder, but not significantly, I remember being just as confused when I was 10.
It's a lot easier for me because I look full korean and everyone speaks to me in korean off the bat but honestly, from my experience, korean isn't any harder to learn than any other language if you take the time to learn the basic syntax and grammar and have a good deal of immersion.
I would think that one reason why people perceive it to be harder is simply because they pick it up when they are older than they did with the other languages they learnt, at least that's how it was with me, I learnt Japanese when I was around 6-7 and had no issues at all picking it up, while trying to learn French at the age of 20 was horrible. Languages is just one of those things that gets harder to learn the older you get.
Of course, my native language is English and I learned Japanese at 10 and now I'm in my twenties in Korea learning Korean--it's harder, but not significantly, I remember being just as confused when I was 10.
Some people have easier to learn languages than others, I was mearly pointing out that the languages that usually gets pointed out as "Really hard to learn" rarely are the ones people tend to be exposed to in their early years.
im korean yet i cannot speak korean very well . only enough to find a phone and make a collect call to someone who knows english.
dont forget the one aspect that makes it harder then english is your ability to know when to use proper replies to a person with a higher status (almost always use it to an old person, else you are going to get the broomstick in your face) then you.
learning the alphabet or pronouncing is not the hard part. korean is one of the few languages that is easy to do. unlike english where you pronounce know as in "no" (the "k" is silent), in korean what you see is what you say. i would type some korean letters to give an example though i do not have the program at the time.
Interesting thread - I'm learning Chinese (while living in China), which is going ok. My main problem is that while I can read pinyin, I can't read Chinese characters, which cuts out a lot of potential learning.
On the other hand, one of the smartest people I know have tried to learn the Chinese characters, at a time when they weren't working (just studying Chinese), and they said it was very difficult, which has made me focus on conversation.
How does the Korean written language compare to the Chinese? I guess it's somewhat easier, but is it still a hard slog?
Hangul is quite easy to learn, especially if you know the basis of it. There is a quick summary over at wikipedia. Essentially, the script is designed to match the area of the mouth the sound is produced in. For example, ㄱ represents the tongue at the back of the throat, whee you would say a g/k sound.
One small thing that makes it hard for english speakers is that Korean script does not assume vowels where they aren't written. This means that ending a word in ㅅ will sound like a 't' even though it is listed as 's', because you are making the shape of the sound without pushing any air through. This is also the reason why characters seem to change value depending on whether they are in front of a vowel or a consonant.
On July 01 2010 02:36 Tal wrote: Interesting thread - I'm learning Chinese (while living in China), which is going ok. My main problem is that while I can read pinyin, I can't read Chinese characters, which cuts out a lot of potential learning.
On the other hand, one of the smartest people I know have tried to learn the Chinese characters, at a time when they weren't working (just studying Chinese), and they said it was very difficult, which has made me focus on conversation.
How does the Korean written language compare to the Chinese? I guess it's somewhat easier, but is it still a hard slog?
Korean script 'hangul' will take you about 2 hours to learn the basics to read and write, not that you will suddenly know the grammar, meanings and have perfect pronounciation etc, but it is that straightforward.
Its been said in this thread already, but Korean can't be understood by any other language, but we have virtually identical grammar to the Japanese. So if a Korean learns Japanese or vice-versa, its pretty straightforward, but if we meet for the first time, we won't know what the fuck the other person is saying. While Korea is grouped with the Ural-Altaic group: Mongols, Turks, Hungary, Fins and Japanese, I've met Mongolians as well and I have no fucking idea what they were saying as well. But, I can see that we are all from central Asia and were all at one point savage barbarians born with green bums.
Many modern western words are the same or similar to the Japanese as they were introduced to Korea during Japan's occupation to Korea (battery,newspaper), whereas many very old words (king, princess) are the same as mandarin.
Korea didn't have it's own script until after King Sejong the Great commissioned it back in the 14th century, so it was only Chinese. Korean's are very proud of this heritage from the Chinese and all classical texts are in Chinese and as mentioned in the previous posts, many Korean words have their root meaning in Chinese, such as English does in Latin, but the pronounciation from these root Chinese words are completely Korean. The use of these Chinese characters in Korean is called hanja and every Korean person's name has a corresponding hanja meaning behind it.
Nowadays hanja as a Chinese script is not used frequently but in newspaper headlines and sprinkled in text, but anyone who graduated from highschool will have a knowledge of hanja as it gets taught from elementary school and is a sign of very high education; for some Korean Chairmen have their Korean name cards not in Hangul, but completely in Hanja. But my wife who graduated from law, without knowing hanja, you couldn't get through your Korean law texts as the hanja is not sprinkled, but very much a part of the text for understanding.
Hangul is a very easy to learn (the Korean script) but Korean is not an easy language to just pick up, but I'm sure you'll find it a very surprising language that has a lot of words that identify so many types of emotional states. Plus, Korean girls love foreign guys who speak Korean keke. As stated by Rek, who is both an Angel and Devil to the local Seoul girl population.
On July 01 2010 03:27 Shadowfury333 wrote: Hangul is quite easy to learn, especially if you know the basis of it. There is a quick summary over at wikipedia. Essentially, the script is designed to match the area of the mouth the sound is produced in. For example, ㄱ represents the tongue at the back of the throat, whee you would say a g/k sound.
One small thing that makes it hard for english speakers is that Korean script does not assume vowels where they aren't written. This means that ending a word in ㅅ will sound like a 't' even though it is listed as 's', because you are making the shape of the sound without pushing any air through. This is also the reason why characters seem to change value depending on whether they are in front of a vowel or a consonant.
interesting to know. I was always just impressed with the system of stacking syllables hehe. Didnt know it had sound systems too.
Something semi-related. For native speakers/in native country, how accurate do you feel tv shows/dramas etc reflect your language? I use to think that watching tv could help a lot, but then i thought, cartoons/shows here talk retardedly. You'd sound really weird if you talked like a northamerica cartoon/sitcom lol
Basically going to reinforce the concept of speaking-with-native-speakers. Not only are you forced to communicate and learn on-the-fly, you will learn more of the "street" language that you might not encounter so easily in textbooks and formal learning programs. Unless you're learning Korean as a formal study kind of stuff, I'd say learning the commonly spoken language is far better.
On June 30 2010 23:21 Peekay.switch wrote: All right, I got a legitimate question that will sound very retarded, but since we're kind of on topic.
What does a Korean keyboard looks like? How does it work sort of? I'm just kind of curious in general how they manage to deal with this problem =o
The Korean keyboard layout looks like this:
The consonants are on the left and the vowels are on the right. As you're typing, the input system automatically figures out if the consonant you just put in is an initial consonant or a final one so you just keep typing. In general, the typing is left hand, right hand, left hand, right hand, etc. so I find that touch typing in Korean is faster than in English.
I feel I have to also chime in in defense of Rosetta Stone.
1. It is very good as a piece of software. 2. It is MUCH better than learning language in a classroom (which people have been doing wrong for a very long time). 3. It's true that the absolute best way to learn a language is still total immersion, that is, to go live in a country that speaks the other language and immerse yourself. Barring this, I feel that Rosetta Stone comes in as a close second-best choice.
That said, Rosetta Stone is very expensive. Very expensive. If you want to use it to learn a language instead of total immersion, I recommend against paying for it. If someone else will pay for it for you instead, like an employer, university, or public program, then so much the better for your wallet. As the OP said, you must stick with it or you're not going to learn/retain anything. Learning a language in any manner has to be a habitual discipline like most other developmental activities.
My credentials: I've studied Spanish in a classroom as well as with Rosetta Stone, allowing me to compare, and I'm married to a language teacher who is fluent in Spanish.
I don't see any vertical lines above the ㅇ in these examples. It looks more like ㅇ than ㅎ.
It's 예. 혜 is "hyeh" ㅎ is the 'h' sound.
Anyways, a native Korean living in Korea can eeeeeeeeeasily tell the difference between a native Korean and a Korean that's living in some western country. It's kind of embarassing really
I don't see any vertical lines above the ㅇ in these examples. It looks more like ㅇ than ㅎ.
You see a small vertical line above the ㅇ in that image simply because it's using a different typeface. Before the invention of printing, all writing in Korean was done with ink and a brush, so different writing styles developed. Three of these were carried into the age of printing and further into computerized text. The default style for web browsers is a simpler style that is easier to read and distinguish characters at smaller sizes. The one used in the image is slightly more stylized.
Just think about the difference between serif fonts like times new roman and sans serif fonts like arial, with respect to the Latin character set, if that helps to understand the difference.
Stumbled upon some more confusion. How do you pronounce ㅢ ?
@javiskefka, that makes a lot of sense so thanks for this Yeh, I'm aware that the computerised version may be a little different from the written version. It's just that it takes quite some time and effort to learn each word or individual syllable so I'm worried about wasting a lot of time learning the wrong thing.
I don't see any vertical lines above the ㅇ in these examples. It looks more like ㅇ than ㅎ.
It's 예. 혜 is "hyeh" ㅎ is the 'h' sound.
Anyways, a native Korean living in Korea can eeeeeeeeeasily tell the difference between a native Korean and a Korean that's living in some western country. It's kind of embarassing really
Actually they have a really hard time with me until I tell them I don't speak Korean well, the first thing I get is always rapid-fire Korean.
And to reinforce the point, because everyone has made it confusing-- Fantistic (lol spelling errors in your name though): Yes, you're correct, and you have been the whole time.
On July 01 2010 06:46 Fantistic wrote: Stumbled upon some more confusion. How do you pronounce ㅢ ?
It's sort of a cross between 'oo' and 'ee' with very little emphasis on the 'oo', which is 'ui' I guess. This kind of turns out to sound pretty much identical to 이 (ee) half the time.
ie. 오늘의 and 오늘이 are pretty much said the same, "oh-neul-ee" when said fast.
On June 30 2010 13:49 grobo wrote: Also, i'm curious about those government classifications that says that Korean is a category 4 language, is there a site somewhere that lists all these different classifications?
Im curious about this too. Where can I find more info on this?
Two things that I found to be hugely helpful was a flashcard program like mnemosynehttp://www.mnemosyne-proj.org/ where it uses the best known algorithms to help your recollection, with pre built databases for many topics, like Korean (it's free).
Second one is Pimsleur's langauge learning tapes, they also use algorithm to gauge the best time to remind you of something, and I found it extremely useful.
I also found Rosetta to be fun and useful and I increased my vocabulary with it.
None of these methods are by themselves or perhaps even together sufficient to learn a language for me, but they are all still excellent boosts, with the chief advantage being that they are sufficiently dissimilar to getting out there talking to people that I can do both with enthusiasm without feeling drained, they are mostly vocab builders for me, but if you have poor pronunciation then perhaps you won't find them helpful.
Mnemosyne > Pimsleur > Rosetta But Rosetta is easier than Pimsleur which is easier than Mnemosyne
How is chatting on a webcam for learning language? I meant to try it but never did.
On July 01 2010 02:36 Tal wrote: Interesting thread - I'm learning Chinese (while living in China), which is going ok. My main problem is that while I can read pinyin, I can't read Chinese characters, which cuts out a lot of potential learning.
On the other hand, one of the smartest people I know have tried to learn the Chinese characters, at a time when they weren't working (just studying Chinese), and they said it was very difficult, which has made me focus on conversation.
How does the Korean written language compare to the Chinese? I guess it's somewhat easier, but is it still a hard slog?
Korean script 'hangul' will take you about 2 hours to learn the basics to read and write, not that you will suddenly know the grammar, meanings and have perfect pronounciation etc, but it is that straightforward.
Its been said in this thread already, but Korean can't be understood by any other language, but we have virtually identical grammar to the Japanese. So if a Korean learns Japanese or vice-versa, its pretty straightforward, but if we meet for the first time, we won't know what the fuck the other person is saying. While Korea is grouped with the Ural-Altaic group: Mongols, Turks, Hungary, Fins and Japanese, I've met Mongolians as well and I have no fucking idea what they were saying as well. But, I can see that we are all from central Asia and were all at one point savage barbarians born with green bums.
Many modern western words are the same or similar to the Japanese as they were introduced to Korea during Japan's occupation to Korea (battery,newspaper), whereas many very old words (king, princess) are the same as mandarin.
Korea didn't have it's own script until after King Sejong the Great commissioned it back in the 14th century, so it was only Chinese. Korean's are very proud of this heritage from the Chinese and all classical texts are in Chinese and as mentioned in the previous posts, many Korean words have their root meaning in Chinese, such as English does in Latin, but the pronounciation from these root Chinese words are completely Korean. The use of these Chinese characters in Korean is called hanja and every Korean person's name has a corresponding hanja meaning behind it.
Nowadays hanja as a Chinese script is not used frequently but in newspaper headlines and sprinkled in text, but anyone who graduated from highschool will have a knowledge of hanja as it gets taught from elementary school and is a sign of very high education; for some Korean Chairmen have their Korean name cards not in Hangul, but completely in Hanja. But my wife who graduated from law, without knowing hanja, you couldn't get through your Korean law texts as the hanja is not sprinkled, but very much a part of the text for understanding.
Hangul is a very easy to learn (the Korean script) but Korean is not an easy language to just pick up, but I'm sure you'll find it a very surprising language that has a lot of words that identify so many types of emotional states. Plus, Korean girls love foreign guys who speak Korean keke. As stated by Rek, who is both an Angel and Devil to the local Seoul girl population.
Cool post, Atom! Thanks for this. I don't think language isolate in the linguistic sense means that someone who speaks a different language won't understand you though. I speak Mandarin but I can't understand a damn thing when a Fukianese person is speaking their dialect, but they share the same language ancestry... I think. I could be wrong
Really cool that China/Japan/Korea influenced each other so much in literature/history/culture though. I really like the culture of all 3 countries. It's just too bad my Chinese ancestors way back when created such an awesome looking yet ridiculously memory intensive form of writing . I'm really fluent in Mandarin, but my writing sucks.... I was born in the USA and just never see Chinese writing. Sigh. I've forgotten more characters than I currently know lol.
Learn hangul before you learn anything else. Korean romanization does not have a widely accepted standard (like romaji for Japanese, or pinyin for Mandarin). Because of the many pronunciation/spelling nuances in Korean, people romanize it differently (romanization by spelling, romanization by pronunciation etc). It just gets confusing. If you learn hangul first (which is really easy) then you save yourself the trouble because you match Korean hangul to the sounds, not Korean hangul to a romanization to a sound.
Oh man. I love languages. If I can get my damn browser to display the characters I might try and take a whack at some rudimentary Korean, otherwise I can only assume that Korean is homogeneous boxes.
I got all tingly when I red the OP, well done on that post.
I myself studied quite a few languages. Obviously dutch because I live there. English came rather quick as most of my interrests like music and gaming were infact in english. I self-learned myself swedish as I got a taste for folk-metal music. Learned some finnish ( not past the basic level though ).
Having that said, you do need to have a lot of motivation to learn a new language. My first self-taught language swedish was easy in syntax ( to me the easiest grammar known in any germanic-scandinavian language ) and took me only 2 weeks to learn. Finnish however took me over 3 months just to get the grammar sorted out mildly. ( Imagine doing a sudoku while reading a foreign newspaper hanging upside down, thats the difficulty of finnish to foreigners like you and me ).
I started out learning korean on Rosetta stone ( I'm a cheap college student, you don't really need to ask how I got it ). And it was really easy to start learning the basic grammar. Much faster than I have done from books and speaking with swedish people.
Indeed, it isn't greater to get the complete language nailed down. It lays the basic foundations much faster than traditional methods in my eyes though ( although you do need some help of a dictionairy to completely understand all of the words they just throw at you ).
My basic goal is to understand the korean commentators. Thats all I could ever ask for. A long road ahead but I'll get there in a year or so.
Again, great topic and well written OP. Good luck to all of you trying to learn korean.
If anybody here wants some basic Korean lessons over MSN or something, I can help out. I'm a westerner who has been learning (mainly by myself) for a while, and I have plenty of free time at the moment.
Feel free to send me a message with your MSN details
mnemosyne (open-source!), or a similar flash card program is a must-have for learning Korean.
I have a decent sized Korean mnemosyne database if anybody wants a copy of it.
koreanclass101 (www.koreanclass101.com) is a pretty good online resource, as well.
I strongly recommend anyone who has been thinking about learning Korean to go ahead and start! There's nothing to lose in spending a couple of hours learning the writing system, hangul.
On July 01 2010 11:50 StorkHwaiting wrote: Cool post, Atom! Thanks for this. I don't think language isolate in the linguistic sense means that someone who speaks a different language won't understand you though. I speak Mandarin but I can't understand a damn thing when a Fukianese person is speaking their dialect, but they share the same language ancestry... I think. I could be wrong
Pretty much the only reason to call Mandarin, Fukianese, etc dialects of the Chinese language instead of related languages of the same family is for political reasons. Because mainland China's been a single political entity for so long and whichever ethnic group that has held the political power has made stamping out minority culture such a priority over the years, it's unpopular to evaluate those languages by the same criteria that lead linguists to classify French and Spanish as distinct language of the Romance family, for example. You should follow your common sense when you feel that something seems sketchy when a supposedly related language to the one you speak is completely unintelligible to you.
On July 01 2010 11:50 StorkHwaiting wrote: Cool post, Atom! Thanks for this. I don't think language isolate in the linguistic sense means that someone who speaks a different language won't understand you though. I speak Mandarin but I can't understand a damn thing when a Fukianese person is speaking their dialect, but they share the same language ancestry... I think. I could be wrong
Pretty much the only reason to call Mandarin, Fukianese, etc dialects of the Chinese language instead of related languages of the same family is for political reasons. Because mainland China's been a single political entity for so long and whichever ethnic group that has held the political power has made stamping out minority culture such a priority over the years, it's unpopular to evaluate those languages by the same criteria that lead linguists to classify French and Spanish as distinct language of the Romance family, for example. You should follow your common sense when you feel that something seems sketchy when a supposedly related language to the one you speak is completely unintelligible to you.
Good point on dialect vs related languages. But they do share language ancestry still, no?
I just found this website: www.livemocha.com It's very very good. It does the same type of thing as rosetta stone (match picture with sound bite/phrase or vice versa) But the reason it's really good is you do your own writing or record yourself speaking, and native speakers comment on them for you to help you out. Plus it allows you to do live chats with native speakers in their language, etc.
Thought this was relatable because Arrian said speaking to natives is very important, and this is one easy way how.
And hearing non-english speak english is also pretty fun
How possible is it to learn, mainly verbally, to make a good few phrases before going there? Historically, I've been terrible with languages. I'm going there on vacation and I want to be sure and greet people in Korean, say Excuse me, Thank You, please, and as much of that as I can learn.
Does it make any sense to sort of "skip" learning the written language to just try and memorize a bunch of phrases? I would really like to give the impression, being there, that I give a shit enough to have a good cache of phrases for basic communication.
Should I try to understand the written language to make it eaiser? I know it basically in structure (how there are up to 4 sounds in a "word" that is made from consonant/vowel/silent symbols)...
I have 6 months about about an hour or 2 a day at most. And 1 native speaker to talk to on vent. How should I go about learning basic social interaction?
hmm, I want to start learning korean at some point too. I've studied japanese in the past and I've felt stuck with the kanji so I never really pursued it further. I wish I had now. T_T
On June 30 2010 09:58 Arrian wrote: SLA experts agree on three major factors in accurate, fast acquisition of a second language (in no particular order): motivation, interaction with native speakers, natural aptitude.
I know you didn't impose an order on these factors, but I'd argue that interaction with native speakers is the most important. It would be like learning any other skill set without any feedback - you can't correct it if you don't know you're doing it wrong.
On June 30 2010 09:58 Arrian wrote: SLA experts agree on three major factors in accurate, fast acquisition of a second language (in no particular order): motivation, interaction with native speakers, natural aptitude.
I know you didn't impose an order on these factors, but I'd argue that interaction with native speakers is the most important. It would be like learning any other skill set without any feedback - you can't correct it if you don't know you're doing it wrong.
It is for me, but not for everyone. Missionaries are known to be extremely proficient in learning foreign languages without much interaction with native speakers. Frankly I think if you have a suitable attention span, and monastic study habits, self-study with a good textbook is the best way to achieve progress. Unfortunately, most commercial series on bookshelves today are dumbed-down versions of their predecessors, it takes some digging in used book stores to find the best material.
Furthermore, interaction with native speakers tends to emphasize oral expression and comprehension over other aspects of the language (reading, writing, proficiency in literature and rhetoric.) It's important to separate academic purposes from social ones.
It sounds like Korean is not so different from most Indo-European languages with conservative grammars. English has probably the most progressive grammar among them, so it's an outlier in terms of inflection. Also seems that the syntax of Korean is described to be something akin to Latin (flexible word order of which SOV is the most prominent convention.) Gives credit to the general theory that rigid syntax is a functional substitute for loss of inflection.
But yea, Korean is not an isolate. Mongolian, Japanese and what use to be Manchuria (northern china) are related languages. This can be seen historically when the Mongol Empire, under Ghengis Khan, conquered Northeast Asia, they gave Korea special status, unlike say the Han Chinese, because we were considered a sister nation. Likewise, when Japan annexed Korea and Manchuria before WWII it was very easy for Koreans to learn Japanese under the forced school system.
Standard Korean, without all the slang and cultural innuendo is very easy to learn. What makes it difficult is the honorific system where there's a whole set of words one can and cannot use depending on whom you are addressing. But as a foreigner, making mistakes in the honorific sense is actually cute and people will not get offended by it.
And BTW,
예 (ye) and 네 (ne) mean the same thing, but 예 is more honorific than 네. To confuse matters more there are a few more -- 응 (eung) or 엉 (ung) or even 앙 (ang) which all mean "yes". The latter is more conversational Korean used to address a close peer or inferior. The former, 예, is for superiors, 네 is more for less close peers (like work associates) or chumy superiors you can go have a drink with. Considering this is just one word "yes", you can imagine this gets difficult very quickly.
For those who are living in a foreign country speaking a language foreign to you; is it painfully awkward most of the time? I can imagine it being annoying to have lack of communication on an everyday basis but I suppose that's part of the learning process. I wanted to learn Japanese myself (I really love the landscapes there and would love to paint them, I may consider moving there some day in the far far away future). I know that in America sometimes here in FL where I live, some Spanish speakers get dirty looks from some of the older folks (damn hillbillies).
I wonder if that happens often in foreign countries... just curious.
Presumably, the task you've chosen is Korean. The U.S government has classified Korean as a category 4 language, a language so different from English they estimate 2200 classroom hours to pass as a competent speaker.
Is there a site where you can check the category's for all the languages?
Koreans definitely get impressed by any non-Korean with Korean speaking ability. But more so than actually just knowing words and grammar being a true good Korean speaker requires ALOT of social experience with Koreans. If you don't know the culture and how they think about stuff it doesn't matter how book-smart you are in the language, you will come across as a fool. Korean culture + cute language inuendos can allow you to say something that wouldn't be funny in english in Korean and have a whole room ROFL'ing and staring at you as if you're some angel sent from heaven (or demon from hell depending on what you said).
Yeah I think this is very true. There's a lot of times when someone asks me a question in Korean, and I can understand what they said, and come up with an answer that makes perfect sense in English. But when I translate it into Korean they're like... "wtf? how does that relate to what I said?" Or the other way around too, I ask them a question, and I can understand their response but it doesn't seem to answer my question at all. Just the way logic works when you're thinking in Korean is really different.
man I can't even manage to write in korean on my computer. I#ve installed korean keyboard, asian language support, set the keyboard to korean in windows and all it does is continuing to write normal arabic letters omg.
On July 01 2010 04:52 Delerium wrote: I feel I have to also chime in in defense of Rosetta Stone.
1. It is very good as a piece of software. 2. It is MUCH better than learning language in a classroom (which people have been doing wrong for a very long time). 3. It's true that the absolute best way to learn a language is still total immersion, that is, to go live in a country that speaks the other language and immerse yourself. Barring this, I feel that Rosetta Stone comes in as a close second-best choice.
That said, Rosetta Stone is very expensive. Very expensive. If you want to use it to learn a language instead of total immersion, I recommend against paying for it. If someone else will pay for it for you instead, like an employer, university, or public program, then so much the better for your wallet. As the OP said, you must stick with it or you're not going to learn/retain anything. Learning a language in any manner has to be a habitual discipline like most other developmental activities.
My credentials: I've studied Spanish in a classroom as well as with Rosetta Stone, allowing me to compare, and I'm married to a language teacher who is fluent in Spanish.
I'm Currently studying Japanese and in 3 weeks go to study in Japan for a year.. (and be damned non multi-regional starcraft.. *Cough*) I self studied for a year through mostly immersion techniques and what beginning stuff i could find, as well as Kanji and kana learning tools. I also got a *ahem* special edition.. rosetta stone from a friend via his friend... limewire. Can't say I was overly impressed with it. It throws grammar patterns at you without any explanation and although the full Japanese only helps with vocab, throwing sentences at you early with no backup leads to loads of mistakes as you have no basis for when something is correct. I'm not saying it's useless but the general consenus amongst Japanese learners is that its only best used in conjunction with other learning tools and not as a primary means of study.
Although they seemed to have included Korean into category 3 now. They did used to have it in a separate higher category.
Try not to pay too much attention to difficulties. If you're interested in Korean and not interested in Spanish, then Korean will be much easier for you to learn.
Although they seemed to have included Korean into category 3 now. They did used to have it in a separate higher category.
Try not to pay too much attention to difficulties. If you're interested in Korean and not interested in Spanish, then Korean will be much easier for you to learn.
I doubt anyone can be passionate enough for Korea to ever make Korean objectively easier to learn than Spanish, and if you think your passion for Korea is all-conquering, perhaps a few months of being integrated in a Korean course will change your mind. The fact is very few enthusiasms are sufficient to produce the kind of mental discipline and concentration necessary in learning a language. Actually, I would suspect that it's precisely the kind of fickle enthusiasm for a culture engendered by online gaming which makes a person particularly unsuitable for studying Korean, the one workaround being of course force-feeding yourself by going to the target country.
However I find very few things about being transplanted to Korea appealing. I think that life in Korea would be lonely and socially alienating, and most enthusiasms underestimate the difficulties of living among a people with an alien way of thinking.
I am led by these considerations to believe that of every ten people on this forum who will profess a passion for Korea and hence the language, not one will see it through to the end.
P.S. To anyone interested, a while ago I selected a random language to see how far I could progress with no underlying motivation and no encouragement. It turned out that I ended up requiring considerable encouragement and motivation, but the experience largely confirmed my experience with all other languages: the moment you begin learning a language is your "birth," and all learning after the first minute will earn ever-diminishing returns. Beyond a certain point, the returns on investment in time and effort will seem to only marginally improve your ability that motivation stagnates. It's the ability to transcend this point of stagnation and remain committed to your goal that I consider to be the most difficult challenge in learning a language.
Although they seemed to have included Korean into category 3 now. They did used to have it in a separate higher category.
Try not to pay too much attention to difficulties. If you're interested in Korean and not interested in Spanish, then Korean will be much easier for you to learn.
I doubt anyone can be passionate enough for Korea to ever make Korean objectively easier to learn than Spanish, and if you think your passion for Korea is all-conquering, perhaps a few months of being integrated in a Korean course will change your mind. The fact is very few enthusiasms are sufficient to produce the kind of mental discipline and concentration necessary in learning a language. Actually, I would suspect that it's precisely the kind of fickle enthusiasm for a culture engendered by online gaming which makes a person particularly unsuitable for studying Korean, the one workaround being of course force-feeding yourself by going to the target country.
However I find very few things about being transplanted to Korea appealing. I think that life in Korea would be lonely and socially alienating, and most enthusiasms underestimate the difficulties of living among a people with an alien way of thinking.
I remember you saying that you moved to Germany just because you wanted to live there. Did you already know the language before you went, or did you learn it there? And did you find it lonely before you got used to it?
Also I'm curious about what the random language you tried to learn was.
Okay, I'm sorry to bump this and I know TL isn't Google, but Google isn't working in this case.
Does anyone have a translation for 수국차? It's bagged tea. It comes in a white and pink package. Googling has yielded variations on Mountain Jasime tea and Dew-Drop tea. When I ask about those names in tea shops, they always give me a funny look.
I (for the most part) hate tea. Except for this delicious tea! I use it while commentating, and I'm down to my last bag. I would actually go as far as ordering it from Korea, but searching on naver / daum doesn't even yield any results.
Since I'm trying to learn Korean, I did a quick search on this and this is what I found out.
차 is "tea", and "수국" translates to "Hydrangea" on Google translate. Wikipedia Hydrangea page says "In Korean tea, Hydrangea serrata (hangul:산수국 hanja:山水菊) is used for a herbal tea called sugukcha (수국차) or ilsulcha (이슬차)."
On March 25 2011 02:43 Bloody-Killer wrote: Since I'm trying to learn Korean, I did a quick search on this and this is what I found out.
차 is "tea", and "수국" translates to "Hydrangea" on Google translate. Wikipedia Hydrangea page says "In Korean tea, Hydrangea serrata (hangul:산수국 hanja:山水菊) is used for a herbal tea called sugukcha (수국차) or ilsulcha (이슬차)."
I think a pic will help tremendously I know a guy who works at a tea // cheese place who might be able to tell me what it is. Chances are you will probably have to order from Korea =/
On March 25 2011 02:30 Chill wrote: Okay, I'm sorry to bump this and I know TL isn't Google, but Google isn't working in this case.
Does anyone have a translation for 수국차? It's bagged tea. It comes in a white and pink package. Googling has yielded variations on Mountain Jasime tea and Dew-Drop tea. When I ask about those names in tea shops, they always give me a funny look.
I (for the most part) hate tea. Except for this delicious tea! I use it while commentating, and I'm down to my last bag. I would actually go as far as ordering it from Korea, but searching on naver / daum doesn't even yield any results.
I'm desperate!
hydrangea tea.
the leaf/leaves are called hydrangea. it's also called sweet dew tea.
do a google search and you'll see some sites that sell the 수국차 product
just wanted to say that learning korean is not as hard as the way OP describes
it's almost a fusion of japanese (99% same grammar rules) and chinese (origin of the korean language).
it's just hard because there are a lot of slangs. you can learn the formal korean and survive in business settings and so forth, but in order to socialize with your peers you need to know some informal/slang korean.
On July 13 2010 21:48 parasaurolophus wrote: hmm, I want to start learning korean at some point too. I've studied japanese in the past and I've felt stuck with the kanji so I never really pursued it further. I wish I had now. T_T
Kanji is a nightmare man. I've felt the pain too T_T
On July 13 2010 21:48 parasaurolophus wrote: hmm, I want to start learning korean at some point too. I've studied japanese in the past and I've felt stuck with the kanji so I never really pursued it further. I wish I had now. T_T
Kanji is a nightmare man. I've felt the pain too T_T
Even without a Kanji barrier like Japanese/Chinese, I don't think Korean would be an easy language to get into.
So if I'm pretty pro at Chinese and find the Hangul system very intuitive, is it still going to be super hard? I kind of want to drop out of my major and just learn East Asian languages.
I have a question: it says in the OP that you need native speaker interaction and it is nearly a must in order to pick up a second language. Would you say that this native speaker interaction would have to be face-to-face. Could it come through other means such as skype, or e-mails maybe?
On March 25 2011 03:49 dhcustom wrote: just wanted to say that learning korean is not as hard as the way OP describes
it's almost a fusion of japanese (99% same grammar rules) and chinese (origin of the korean language).
it's just hard because there are a lot of slangs. you can learn the formal korean and survive in business settings and so forth, but in order to socialize with your peers you need to know some informal/slang korean.
depends on if you're hanging out with younger people. Even most korean older generations and overseas people have hard time with younger generation language/culture.
and while there probably is larger communication gap in korea. it seems like theyre inventing new memes and slangs every second... Thats how it is with all culture anway. white parents arent gonna be expected to know their todays white kid's ebonics/l337 speek mixed slangs either.
On March 25 2011 04:25 elkram wrote: I have a question: it says in the OP that you need native speaker interaction and it is nearly a must in order to pick up a second language. Would you say that this native speaker interaction would have to be face-to-face. Could it come through other means such as skype, or e-mails maybe?
try to talk with people face to face (via skype or w/e). you are going to have to learn the accents and the "flow" of the language. you won't want to speak korean like you are speaking cantonese (among other possibilities/ not meant to be a dis)
On March 25 2011 03:49 dhcustom wrote: just wanted to say that learning korean is not as hard as the way OP describes
it's almost a fusion of japanese (99% same grammar rules) and chinese (origin of the korean language).
it's just hard because there are a lot of slangs. you can learn the formal korean and survive in business settings and so forth, but in order to socialize with your peers you need to know some informal/slang korean.
depends on if you're hanging out with younger people. Even most korean older generations and overseas people have hard time with younger generation language/culture.
yea... hence why i separated the "formal" from the "informal". unless ur only going to be talking to old people you need to learn the slangs= can be difficult
I have to admit, being Korean, I wish I spoke Korean. My mom speaks fluent English, so I never was challenged with the idea of resorting to speak Korean to get my point across. Don't get me wrong, if I were in Korea, I'd be able to get around just fine, but my vocabulary is around that of a 3-year-old. I really need the motivation and the "surround yourself with Koreans". I have friends from just about every major background, except Korean. I have no idea why.
An interesting read this thread, thanks for bumping it. My thoughts:
I had no interest in the Spanish language, but due to mandatory classes, I took four years of it during middle and high school. (repeating 'levels' 1 and 2 twice) This wasn't that long ago, and honestly all I have retained is very basic knowledge/vocabulary. (I did spend more time goofing off then learning, after all I was not interested)
But then, not shortly long after, I took up French. I wasn't eager at first, but after realizing how little I cared about Spanish I should make an effort this time. I only took one year/course, but I know more French then Spanish because I tried and gave it an effort.
I think if you are properly motivated and seek the tools, any new language can come easily. You just have to want to learn it, and not see it as a chore.
On March 25 2011 05:42 lvlashimaro wrote: I have to admit, being Korean, I wish I spoke Korean. My mom speaks fluent English, so I never was challenged with the idea of resorting to speak Korean to get my point across. Don't get me wrong, if I were in Korea, I'd be able to get around just fine, but my vocabulary is around that of a 3-year-old. I really need the motivation and the "surround yourself with Koreans". I have friends from just about every major background, except Korean. I have no idea why.
I'm kinda the same way with my french. I can get my point across, and I can understand what people are saying to me, but my vocabulary is quite simplistic, and my lexicon of verb tenses is less than impressive. I have german friends, spanish, italian, but not a single french friend
I'm currently trying to learn Korean. I already speak Japanese and Thai (and French, but that's because i'm from Montreal.)but that's because i lived in both countries for academical reasons. The problem is that in Montreal, there's not much Koreans, so it's rather hard for me to find people to practice with. I have never had a problem with learning new languages, but without having chances to have conversations,it's rather hard.
I don't know if anyone have the time to help out or something, that would be cool!
On March 25 2011 06:34 HowSoOnIsNow wrote: I'm currently trying to learn Korean. I already speak Japanese and Thai (and French, but that's because i'm from Montreal.)but that's because i lived in both countries for academical reasons. The problem is that in Montreal, there's not much Koreans, so it's rather hard for me to find people to practice with. I have never had a problem with learning new languages, but without having chances to have conversations,it's rather hard.
yeah, having people around you that you're forced to speak the language with to communicate is really important to making it feasible. i've spent the last few years slowly trying to learn spanish, but without using it, you're basically preparing for a test. i can tell from the few times i've attempted speaking it with a fluent speaker that it's totally necessary to really retain what you're learning. i make really quick, focused bursts of progress in classes and then lose them immediately as soon as we move on to the next chapter or we take so much as 2 weeks off.
plus - and i dunno what it's like for teachers of other languages, but with most of the spanish teachers i've had, there seems to be the attitude that native english speakers will only learn spanish through "understanding" its grammar. frankly i've found that to be super frustrating - obviously the grammar is necessary, but i think it might be a lot better to just make the effort, accept that your (whatever language) is going to be horrendous at first... have a sense of humor i guess? native speakers of the language you're trying to learn probably think it's really cute when you're first starting out. at least native spanish speakers seem to.
i suppose it also depends on how easily you intuit the meaning behind how a language flows or whatever. like if you're the kind of person that picks up slang or accents very easily, then getting thrown into the deep end will probably seem more appealing to you. if you're the kid in class that always says something like "that makes no sense, this is how we say it in english", then life is going to be very difficult for you.
edit: oh and i have rosetta stone - it's pretty good. i remember words and phrases better after using it than if i just read them out of a book. but it's not gonna make you fluent if you're not socializing with people in the language you're trying to learn.
If you're a keeaboo who has more K-pop on his/her iPod than an actual Korean, and/or you love watching BW/SC:2 replays with Korean commentators, chances are at some point you've looked in the mirror and said "I wish I understood what these guys are saying". If you were walking down the street and some Korean girl smiled at you, chances are she wasn't Korean at all (ohyou.jpg). Stick to improving your English, seriously. Or try a language you'd actually use to further your present or future career. If you're going to work in Korea (no, not teaching English, try Samsung though), by all means start. If you're trying to pick up your real-life Yoona, you're better off trying to get rich because she's more expensive than you think.
it's a very interesting read, though it is a bit difficult. it covers all the theories that people have been floating around in this thread and provides evidence for and against them.
I have to say, im learning it through Rosetta stone, and im very happy with what i have achieved with it so far, the new version even has tutors to help you online so its not just a machine, you get real interaction with real koreans.
On June 30 2010 10:14 Snakenah wrote: --- Nuked ---
why do ppl do this? i dont get it...
I think he's banned.
This is quite off topic in some ways but reading the posts here, it won't be too far off.
Coming from someone who self studied and passed an entrance test into Alliance Française putting me on par with other students who studied for 260 hours, and being able to be at ease while conversing in French with some friends in uni in normal non-baby talk- after 1 year, and if it's hard to find natives,
I highly recommend listening to Michel Thomas' stuff. He gives you a really solid foundation on the structure of the language. It really lacks on vocab but having tried learning vocab first, I firmly think you should learn structure and then vocab - you can learn that by using Pimsleur (don't worry when you get irritated by the first few lessons, it will slowly start to make sense later on) or Assim (never tried this before) or find a language exchange partner online.
However, there isn't a Korean one, and their Japanese one is at a very slow pace, and the "student participants" for Mandarin Chinese are terrible at pronouncing. I've only listened short parts of it and it irritates me as a native Malaysian Mandarin speaker but I trust that the fundamental idea of that method would be very very helpful to beginners.
Of course I'm quite hardworking and I drive for about 1-2 hours everyday and I spend that time listening to languages that interest me. Furthermore, I didn't even finish listening to the entire Michel Thomas audiobook course when I sat for the entrance exam. Everyone I've spoken to are usually impressed, even the professor at Alliance Française. Having looked at and cringing my sister's beginner textbooks, I owe it entirely to the brilliant methods and effort.
And I'm taking this chance to sneak in a request for language exchange :D looking for spanish, french, german, sweedish. Please pm me. I can teach Mandarin Chinese and ... Malay.
I don't know if I'm repeating a post, I didn't read the whole thread.
I speak turkish (naturally) and japanese. While I can't speak korean I know these three languages share many common traits and their syntax is almost the same.
Also while I'm quite fluent in japanese I can't read it. Learned the language with romaji and never bothered with kanji. It is totally possible to learn to speak a language without reading foreign alphapets. This should also be the case with korean.
Oh ya I have to add that language exchange sites can help you meet Korean people if you can't find them. There are always many Koreans wanting to learn English. Try:
On March 25 2011 11:07 Xpace wrote: Just thought I'd throw this out there:
If you're a keeaboo who has more K-pop on his/her iPod than an actual Korean, and/or you love watching BW/SC:2 replays with Korean commentators, chances are at some point you've looked in the mirror and said "I wish I understood what these guys are saying". If you were walking down the street and some Korean girl smiled at you, chances are she wasn't Korean at all (ohyou.jpg). Stick to improving your English, seriously. Or try a language you'd actually use to further your present or future career. If you're going to work in Korea (no, not teaching English, try Samsung though), by all means start. If you're trying to pick up your real-life Yoona, you're better off trying to get rich because she's more expensive than you think.
lol this is a very cynical attitude.
for those who had to learn english in school, I would bet korean would be a easier to study simply because there are a lot of rules as to how to pronounce or read a word, unlike english where you basically have to straight up memorize how to pronounce and spell the 30,000 words in the english dictionary since the english language is so undefined in terms of spelling and pronunciation.
On March 25 2011 21:54 Eluadyl wrote: I don't know if I'm repeating a post, I didn't read the whole thread.
I speak turkish (naturally) and japanese. While I can't speak korean I know these three languages share many common traits and their syntax is almost the same.
Also while I'm quite fluent in japanese I can't read it. Learned the language with romaji and never bothered with kanji. It is totally possible to learn to speak a language without reading foreign alphapets. This should also be the case with korean.
Thing is, the romanisation for Korean is really really messy and unorganised and not unified or standardised.
Since it's not in this thread, go here for Korean: http://talktomeinkorean.com/ Solves all the things like motivation issues, lack of material and someone to explain the stuff in depth for you. Lots of lessons, casts, videos and a cute korean chick on the top. Also a good place to find language buddies. It started a few months back and it's getting larger and better every day. If you start now you can still keep up and then just follow as the new lessons appear.
I'm currently learning Korean from some of my Korean friends here in my hometown, having a native speaker to teach you and practice with is imperative. I don't see how you could learn it otherwise.
I can read and write it, but my vocabulary is still ridiculously small.
(referring to your previous post)I doubt that it's going to be worth the shipping fees if you choose to order from Korea. Of course, considering that the link you posted is selling it for twice the cost in Korea, it might be cheaper to pay for the shipping if you're buying in bulk. I'm assuming that you don't have any Korean mules incoming? =[
On March 25 2011 11:07 Xpace wrote: Just thought I'd throw this out there:
If you're a keeaboo who has more K-pop on his/her iPod than an actual Korean, and/or you love watching BW/SC:2 replays with Korean commentators, chances are at some point you've looked in the mirror and said "I wish I understood what these guys are saying". If you were walking down the street and some Korean girl smiled at you, chances are she wasn't Korean at all (ohyou.jpg). Stick to improving your English, seriously. Or try a language you'd actually use to further your present or future career. If you're going to work in Korea (no, not teaching English, try Samsung though), by all means start. If you're trying to pick up your real-life Yoona, you're better off trying to get rich because she's more expensive than you think.
Why wouldn't a korean girl smile at me, I'm a good looking muthafucka hahaha. The least your good looking, the more you have to pay. I've dated a Korean girl before, she wasn't being expansive. Some Asian guys tell me this all the time, that Asian girls are expansive. I've never dated anything but Asian girls and it was never a problem seriously.
Korean is basically Japanese with more difficult sounds but an easier writing system (seeing as how there is only one set of alphabets in Korean in comparison to two in Japanese, and people don't use Chinese characters in Korea as much as they do in Japan).
As a matter of fact, when I was taking Japanese, I was able to find a parallel between Korean and Japanese for almost every grammatical rule that I encountered. I am sure that the main problem is that Korean hasn't been taught as much to foreigners, so there are less well-developed methods for mastering Korean in comparison to something like Japanese.
Regarding the roots of Korean, from my experience in taking two years of Chinese, Korean has almost an entirely different syntax and sounds in comparison to Chinese. As a matter of fact, knowing Korean was almost no help in learning Chinese because Koreans don't even use Chinese characters that much anymore. However, it was evident that Korea had borrowed a ton of words from Chinese since there would be slight resemblance in sound for a lot of nouns (and equivalent number of syllables).
I hate making any claim on cultural similarities in Asia as it usually leads to huge political/nationalistic debates, but I think that Korean and Japanese should belong to the same group or category of language. I might even make the claim that Korean syntax spread to Japan, and then both cultures borrowed words from China, since Korea developed as a civilization earlier than Japan.
On July 01 2010 00:49 StorkHwaiting wrote: Cool thread. I call BS on Korean being a language isolate though. That's still only a theory right now and I think the way it's currently written, it could confuse people who think it's a neat fact to tell others.
That theory is propagated by Western linguists, which imo are not very credible when it comes to E. Asian languages. There's still a lot of research that needs to be done comparing Korean/Japanese to other Altaic language branches, AKA Tungusic/Mongolian etc.
Probably the best way to settle this is to look into their DNA. According to genetic studies, around 40% of Korean males belong to haplogroup O3, betwen 14% and 33% Korean males belong to O2B, and the rest of the males belong to C3.
Haplogroup O3 is believed to have originated in China around 10,000 years ago. Haplogroup O2B originated in northeast China (Manchuria) around 6,000 years ago. Haplogroup C3 is difficult to ascertain its place of origin, but it is likely somwhere in East Asia or Southeast Asia, this haplogroup is around 20,000 years old.
As for the female Koreans interestingly enough most of them belong to haplogroup D4, an ancient Siberian bloodline that originated 48,000 years ago. Around 10% of female Koreans belong to haplogroup A, an ancient bloodline which originated 30,000 to 50,000 years ago and is common in Eskimos, Hukchis, and Na-Denes and many Amerind ethnic groups of North and Central America,. The next most common haplogroup for femake Koreans is B, an ancient bloodline that originated 50,000 years ago and is found in East Asia including China and Japan.
Seems to me that the true origins of Koreans are mostly Siberia and China. The first Koreans arrived around 6000 BCE and couldn't have spoken Chinese because Chinese wasn't invented until around 1100 BCE. Hmm so genetically they are mostly Siberian and Chinese, but that still doesn't answer how they came up with the Korean language.
A lot of people are pointing out that Korean and Chinese(I'm assuming Mandarin?) aren't very similar but then while watching shows I start to find that Korean and Cantonese have some very similar sounding words. For example the numbers are closer to Cantonese pronunciation than Mandarin.
Its much easier to borrow numbers from a language than words for other stuff.
Yes, the idea that Korean is a language iolate is still contested but I can see the evidence for it being relatively strong.
However, as english itself has proven, a language can change rather greatly from its roots, substituting borrowed words for a large portion of the spoken language, as well as modifying the grammar a lot more than most languages do...Trying to learn icelandic as a native english speaker gives you some idea, since Icelandic is probably the modern language closest to old english/germanic roots.
Regardless, the grammar in Korean definitely is somewhat similar to japanese. but being similar to doesn't especially mean much in linguistics anyway.
I don't even care about that specific brand to be honest, but no tea shops here seem to have heard of hydrangea tea.
Where you live in Canada Chill? There's no Descent Korean market in your surrounding?
It's not one of the immensely popular types like 보리차, 옥수수차, or 현미차 so there's a chance that Korean markets don't have them either =[ hmm
Oh i see. So Chill is quite of a Tea enthusiast. That's great. I've never had the chance to taste Korean teas, but I've tasted what the experts call the best in the world, a sort of tea from Taiwan. Sold in the hundreds of dollars for a small bag.
On March 26 2011 07:59 Bobbias wrote: Its much easier to borrow numbers from a language than words for other stuff.
Yes, the idea that Korean is a language iolate is still contested but I can see the evidence for it being relatively strong.
However, as english itself has proven, a language can change rather greatly from its roots, substituting borrowed words for a large portion of the spoken language, as well as modifying the grammar a lot more than most languages do...Trying to learn icelandic as a native english speaker gives you some idea, since Icelandic is probably the modern language closest to old english/germanic roots.
Regardless, the grammar in Korean definitely is somewhat similar to japanese. but being similar to doesn't especially mean much in linguistics anyway.
I've heard Mongolian and it's quite similar. It's of no surprise that the Koreans are believed to be linked with Chinese and Siberians lineages.
Does the anyone know a site that can translate your name from Chinese to Korean? The ones I searched up are either a) broken when you put Chinese in or b) they generate names.
On March 26 2011 08:48 The_LiNk wrote: Doesn't fit the thread entirely:
Does the anyone know a site that can translate your name from Chinese to Korean? The ones I searched up are either a) broken when you put Chinese in or b) they generate names.
If you want to just translate for me: 林志瀚
If you can give it to me in English I can, sorry don't know Chinese :p
On March 26 2011 08:48 The_LiNk wrote: Doesn't fit the thread entirely:
Does the anyone know a site that can translate your name from Chinese to Korean? The ones I searched up are either a) broken when you put Chinese in or b) they generate names.
If you want to just translate for me: 林志瀚
林 임 Lim(actually sounds like "Im," not "Lim" but Koreans generally write this as "Lim" in English when it's a last name) 志 지/치 Jee/Chee (지Jee is the better sounding one) 瀚 한 Han
so 임지한(Lim Jee-han). Hmm, most Chinese names turn out weird in Korean, but this one's very normal.
Now that just makes my eyes hurt... the rest of your post was so good.
I've been wondering how fast I could learn Korean, but I haven't yet seen any language courses around, nor do I have the time or money to go to Korea. I've learned 5 foreign languages (of which I stopped using three) and with every language, learning another becomes a bit easier.
On April 20 2011 12:09 mockturtle wrote: Any suggestions for Korean content available freely online (starcraft related is good) other than random old BW Vods on Youtube?
There's an app for Ipad/Iphone that is free for learning Korean.
Btw what's with all of my threads getting bumped lately
if one approaches learning korean with the 3 things mentioned in the OP, how long do you think it would take to become at least competent in READING korean?
Is Rosetta Stone also bad for something like First Language Reacquisition?
I switched over completely to English before preschool, and while my parents continued to communicate with me in Korean, even to this day, I respond primarily in English since my Korean vocabulary has atrophied, my pronunciation is rusty, and my Korean thinking is slow in comparison to my English thinking, e.g., it takes me around an hour to translate a playxp article sometimes. I was going to buy Rosetta Stone and work on my Korean over the summer, but now that doesn't seem like such a good idea...any tips?
On April 20 2011 12:57 airbombas wrote: if one approaches learning korean with the 3 things mentioned in the OP, how long do you think it would take to become at least competent in READING korean?
everything depends on the individual - your intelligence, the amount of time you put into it everyday, memorization skills, etc etc. Learning how to read Korean itself is actually incredibly easy, at least compared to english where one word could potentially be pronounced 253214 different ways whereas there is pretty much only one given way to pronounce most korean words. The hard part is learning the syntax, vocab, etc
I've just recently started learning Korean. This will probably be my last 'free' summer, so I've decided that's how I'm going to spend it. I'm Korean American, but only my grandparents spoke it regularly. I learned a small amount when I was younger from them, but nothing that's helped me too much now. I've always wanted to learn a second language and decided to learn Korean for a few reasons. The obvious is because I'm half Korean, but more importantly my Grandparents immigrated here in the 60s. My Grandfather has since passed, but my Grandma is still living and she's very proud of her Korean heritage.
I'd like to learn as much as possible on my own, and surprise her. I'm exhausting everyone online resource I can find, and I've even gotten Korean Rosetta Stone. I only hear bad things about it, even personally from a friend who had to learn Chinese BUT, I feel that i'm getting something from it. They throw a lot of random things at you, but there are still things to be learned from it. Here's to learning Korean! :D
So guys how do you practice your korean/learn new vocabulary? These translated interviews with players seem like a good read for me to learn new words... I dunno if this topic is the right one, maybe there is another one more suitable for my question.
I'm 14 and hope to learn fluent Korean by the time I'm 20. Will starting at this age help or hinder me? :/ Probably going to be 2 hours a day or so unless I have a ton of exams to revise for.
Sorry for bumping an old thread but this seems to be the only won that hasn't been closed.
On June 25 2011 04:06 ProxyKnoxy wrote: I'm 14 and hope to learn fluent Korean by the time I'm 20. Will starting at this age help or hinder me? :/ Probably going to be 2 hours a day or so unless I have a ton of exams to revise for.
Sorry for bumping an old thread but this seems to be the only won that hasn't been closed.
I don't think there is much difference when you start. Though I doubt you will be spending 2 hours each day on this matter, but anyway, good luck! I have started learning korean somewhere an year ago, and I am at the age of 20 right now. Maybe we will meet someday in Korea, at something like MSL or OSL finals, and we will talk to eachother in fluent korean. Lol, jk jk jk.
EPT
![[image loading]](http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg168/owbee/Mylinguistics/KoreanKeyboardLayout.png)
![[image loading]](http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2485/4168068867_bd9c1ef8fa.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Chill/Tea.png)
