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Update 25.07.2011:
여러분 안영하세요, 돌아왔어요. 지난주 동안에는 아직 한국어를 배우고 있었지만 요즘 더 어려웠는데, 잘 안 배웠어요... 그래도 괜잖아요, 정말 최선을 다할래요.
Roughly translated, "hello everyone, I'm back. I have still kept studying Korean during the last week, but it has gotten more difficult, so I haven't learned that much.. But even so it's ok, I'm really trying my best." I would be curious to hear a correct and a more natural way of saying the lines above in Korean, but I'm convinced that most of it was at least intelligible.
Right now I'm at lesson 13 in my Elementary Korean book. I'm thinking of slowing my pace down a little bit because the content is getting more complex, and there are lots of new vocabulary. I've learned new ways to end verbs, but they don't come off as naturally out of me as the more basic stuff yet, which means I need to repeat more by trying write down more example sentences and saying them out loud.
Lesson 11 contained a lot of information about numerals in general; telling the time, dates, telephone numbers and so on. Something which intimidated me for a while was how Koreans apparently count days, they don't say '1 day', '2 days', '3 days' like in English, but they say 하루, 이틀, 사흘, which are almost like individual words respectively. Then there are also the dreaded counters for various kinds of objects, so you can't just say '2 dogs' in Korean as you would say in English, instead you say literally something like 'dog two heads' (개 두 마리). There are hundreds of counters in Korean for different objects and items, but right now I can easily recall only about 5 or 6 of them.
I also learned 4 new particles for nouns, 마다, 만, 씩, 쯤, but I'm still not very comfortable with them, because there are just so many tiny nuances and usages to almost all particles in Korean, so I mostly just have a general grasp of them.
I also learned to conjugate verbs using the formal style, 합니다, but that was relatively easy.
In lesson 12 I learned a bunch more ways to conjugate verbs and connect sentences.
The 'suspective' form, -지 attached to verbs, which with I can make long negatives like 가지 않아요/가지 못해요 and to give a 'but' suffix to the verb like 먹지만. On top of that I can comfortably make tentative suggestions with the verb ending "- (으)ㄹ까 (요)?" such as "걸어 갈까요?" (How about walking there?), and use another ending ( (으) ㄹ까 해요) to imply "I'm thinking of doing something", and the "wanna"-form, '(으)ㄹ래요).
All those above are still somewhat easy to adapt into my thinking after some consistent practice and repetition, but I can't hammer into my head the small marginal differences and usages between 또, 또는, 도 and (이)나, which are all supposed to be different kinds of saying 'or', 'moreover', 'either', 'neither', 'nor' etc. depending on the context and variety of things... On top of that, the (이)나 particle, according to my book, can work also as a 'generalizer' and as a way of approximating measures like 쯤, and I'm unfamiliar with the nuances of those usages as well.
Lesson 13 was easier, if I leave out the 9 hundred billion ways to refer to members in the greater family branch from the side of both genders and levels of formality... Seriously, does the book expect me to learn all the 8 ways of saying 'uncle', 8 ways of saying 'aunt', 4 ways of saying 'cousin' and so on? I don't even know most of these in Finnish, and never had to use them... This is the first time I took the decision to scrap most of the vocabulary section for kinship terms and only learn the most relevant ones (2 ways of saying sister, brother, father, mother et cetera).
Aside from that there were some new verb forms which are always fun to learn.
Here is the list:
Sequential form - (으)니(까) , 하니까, 먹으니까
Probable futures - (으)ㄹ 거에요 , 바쁠 거에요, 살 거에요
Rhetorical retorts - 잖아요 , 젊지잖아요?!, 무겁잖아요!
'Is doing' - 고 있어요, 자고 있어요, 잡주시고 계세요 *honorific*
'As soon as' - 자 마자, 먹자 마자
As tempting as it is to declare success and proceed to next levels while self-studying a certain lesson, I think I need to take a step back this week and carefully and thoroughly review, rinse and repeat, and 'defrag' the content I've learned from lessons 11-13, especially lesson 12.
Not to insult any Koreans, but I'm starting to get a glimpse on how much of a + Show Spoiler + Korean is starting to be, when I need to adapt and differentiate all these small nuances at the elementary level already. I can only imagine how bizarre it will be when (and if) I reach the intermediate level... That is not a bad thing however, I enjoy challenges, and I'm somewhat satisfied in my progress during the last month when I started from knowing only the phrases 안영하세요, 스타2 and 아저씨, 소주 주세요.
Regardless of it's difficulty, I've got some motivation from starting to get more glimpses of what is being said in movies and songs, it's a very rewarding feeling. I have watched a lot of Korean movies recently, I especially like the thrillers and crime movies. An action movie from 2010 called "The Yellow Sea" / 황해 was especially good..
I also watched Taegukgi recently, and it was incredible, thumbs up best war movie I've ever seen.
![[image loading]](http://www.hancinema.net/photos/posterphoto534.jpg)
Yesterday I stumbled upon some North Korean music videos with Korean lyrics along, I was very happy to be able to vaguely understand at least 50% of the general meaning of what was sung in this one:
+ Show Spoiler +
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Hey there, I'm learning korean too and I have one simple question that I think you should be able to answer.
What is the difference between i-e-yo(ye-yo) and i-sseo-yo? I think it's "to be" and "to have" but for example, if you say jae-mi-ye-yo and jae-mi-i-sseo-yo doesn't it mean "This is fun" for both? Or is it "It is fun" and "I have fun"? jae-mi-i-sseo-yo can also mean "to be interesting", isn't it the verb "to be" used here instead of "to have"?
Thanks a lot!
Interesting blog btw!
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On July 28 2011 22:57 Essbee wrote:
Hey there, I'm learning korean too and I have one simple question that I think you should be able to answer.
What is the difference between i-e-yo(ye-yo) and i-sseo-yo? I think it's to be and to have but for example, if you say jae-mi-ye-yo and jae-mi-i-sseo-yo doesn't it mean "This is fun" for both? Or is it "It is fun" and "I have fun"? jae-mi-i-sseo-yo can also mean "to be interesting", isn't it the verb "to be" used here instead of "to have"?
Thanks a lot!
이다 (-> 이에요) is the copulative, so it states that some thing is some other thing. 있다 basically means "X exists" but has more grammatical uses than that. You don't use 이다 for outlining something's traits. In English we use "X is Y" and y can be either a thing or an adjective (My dog is a chihuahua/My dog is brown), but in Korean you can't do that. 이다 only draws equivalence between the two terms. So you can't say things like "난 행복이야" because that means like "I'm the physical embodiment of happiness." Likewise with jaemi-iya, you wouldn't be saying "This is enjoyable," but rather "This is enjoyment."
"재미있다" I guess would literally mean "There is happiness/Happiness exists." But it's interpreted as like saying "As far as <subject> goes, there is happiness." This fits with the typical grammar for possessives rather than most adjectives, so you don't always add 있다 to any noun to make it an adjective. Korean doesn't have adjectives proper, so there are a bunch of techniques to form them and this is just one of them.
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On July 28 2011 23:16 Lixler wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2011 22:57 Essbee wrote:
Hey there, I'm learning korean too and I have one simple question that I think you should be able to answer.
What is the difference between i-e-yo(ye-yo) and i-sseo-yo? I think it's to be and to have but for example, if you say jae-mi-ye-yo and jae-mi-i-sseo-yo doesn't it mean "This is fun" for both? Or is it "It is fun" and "I have fun"? jae-mi-i-sseo-yo can also mean "to be interesting", isn't it the verb "to be" used here instead of "to have"?
Thanks a lot! 이다 (-> 이에요) is the copulative, so it states that some thing is some other thing. 있다 basically means "X exists" but has more grammatical uses than that. You don't use 이다 for outlining something's traits. In English we use "X is Y" and y can be either a thing or an adjective (My dog is a chihuahua/My dog is brown), but in Korean you can't do that. 이다 only draws equivalence between the two terms. So you can't say things like "난 행복이야" because that means like "I'm the physical embodiment of happiness." Likewise with jaemi-iya, you wouldn't be saying "This is enjoyable," but rather "This is enjoyment." "재미있다" I guess would literally mean "There is happiness/Happiness exists." But it's interpreted as like saying "As far as <subject> goes, there is happiness." This fits with the typical grammar for possessives rather than most adjectives, so you don't always add 있다 to any noun to make it an adjective. Korean doesn't have adjectives proper, so there are a bunch of techniques to form them and this is just one of them.
Okay thanks, it's not so easy to understand but I can see the difference. I guess that'll come with practice (as i/ga and eun/neun particles which are quite complex too).
Korean seems to be more about interpretation than definite grammar. I may be wrong tho but that's how I see it for now.
Thank you!
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Calgary25954 Posts
I have that book too. It's pretty decent!
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Good luck on learning korean! I'm always really impressed by people learning languages, because I'm awful at it. I tried to learn Spanish and Japanese and after years of both, I think I remember a total of like 10 words..
What really helped me with my korean was watching movies/kpop/dramas/shows (you should watch 아저씨, it's super awesome). It not only helps your vocab but it really helps you learn the culture and how to phrase/pronounce things like a native speaker. As I'm sure you know, Koreans are really big on abbreviations and word play (at least, the koreans I hang out with.. maybe we're just weird), so textbook Korean will always stand out!
DNB 화이팅!
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Update 04.08.2011:
I'm happy to see that people actually replied after my last update, I thought this thread sunk without any replies before I checked it again today.
It has now been about 1 month since I 'officially' started to study from an almost nonexistent basis (Only knew a few words and phrases), and I'm very much satisfied with my progress.
Right now I know comfortably around 600-700 words by checking my Anki statistics, but a fraction of that I haven't actually used in practice yet, but they are "there".
I also finally finished my textbook, and I'm fairly comfortable using most of the verb endings, while with some others I still need to see and experience to get that second-nature grasp of them. I'm really only concerned about the future-presumptive -겠-ending in lesson 14 because while other Korean sources introduce it simply as a way of forming futures, this one demonstrated a few more usages and nuances to it, which I still need to review. Aside from that, most of everything else I'm comfortable with at this point.
I'm planning to order the sequel to 'Elementary Korean' called 'Continuing Korean' and a few other books, called 'Integrated Korean: Intermediate 1' and its separate workbook, which I want to use after I've gone through 'Continuing Korean'. I'm also ordering a hanja book presenting the 500 most basic hanja thoroughly... Some people may ask: "Why hanja?", but I feel they can be really useful to know since recognizing and acquiring new vocabulary should be a whole lot easier when you know the roots and contents of the more complex words in Korean. Another reason is that Mandarin has been in my 'desire to learn'-list for several years, so having a basic command with the characters wouldn't definitely hurt at all if I someday decide to try that language as well.
Anyway, I'm very happy to finally start seeing small but positive results from my effort during the last month... I made an account on Nate and downloaded NateOn where I've been adding some Korean people I've met in the internet during the years. Today and yesterday I had some fairly long conversations about general subjects such as living, activities, future plans, past actions et cetera. The Koreans often used some unknown ways to connect sentences, but I was still able to at least vaguely guess what they said, and I only needed the dictionary on approximately every 4th sentence they sent me, plus I added all the unknown words to Anki. Some Korean girl even asked me if we could talk via phone later when my oral skills get better.
I don't listen to K-pop much unlike most other Korean learners, but lately I've been listening to K-pop radios simply to test how much I can understand. I'm not anywhere near the level that I could fully translate the language used in songs, but it felt superb to understand small pieces from here and there, sometimes even small sentences. I don't remember when I got this feeling before, but I'm starting to see a big puzzle in front of me that is only partially done, but the pieces I have arranged represent my current knowledge, adding more pieces as I learn more. It's the same kind of feeling when you start working out regularly and see changes in your body and confidence as well, just in an intellectual manner. With a new language you start to build up a new mental dimension, a way of thinking and a way of interpreting the world. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to do weightlifting for almost half a year due to knee problems (squats and deadlifts impossible). I have been a little bit depressed from that, but I feel that learning Korean has given me a similar feeling of success and self-improvement as weightlifting has. Now wait 'till I can do both...
On July 29 2011 00:51 Chill wrote:
I have that book too. It's pretty decent!
Do you have the second edition? I don't, there as few mistakes with translations and spelling every now and then, but generally the content is very good.
On July 28 2011 23:34 Essbee wrote:
Korean seems to be more about interpretation than definite grammar. I may be wrong tho but that's how I see it for now.
That is very true... There are so many ways to say the same thing depending on the context, so it's pretty much impossible to translate Korean in a straightforward manner. Google Translate is a practical joke when it comes to translating Asian languages to English.
On July 29 2011 02:22 Xenocide_Knight wrote:
Good luck on learning korean! I'm always really impressed by people learning languages, because I'm awful at it. I tried to learn Spanish and Japanese and after years of both, I think I remember a total of like 10 words..
What really helped me with my korean was watching movies/kpop/dramas/shows (you should watch 아저씨, it's super awesome). It not only helps your vocab but it really helps you learn the culture and how to phrase/pronounce things like a native speaker. As I'm sure you know, Koreans are really big on abbreviations and word play (at least, the koreans I hang out with.. maybe we're just weird), so textbook Korean will always stand out!
DNB 화이팅!
Wait, you watched 아저씨 too? That movie was brilliant, no contest. I'm baffled for why we don't see movies like that promoted in the west as I was delighted to stumble upon a movie with such a great cinematic value.
Using all sorts of media in the target language is obviously a must, as you said... But one thing — I'm not watching K-dramas. I have been trying to find some decent ones, but they all seem to be some kind of cheesy romantic soapfests, so not really my taste. People say K-dramas are better for learning Korean since the language used is clearer than in the movies, but I will stick with my movies at least for now.
But, if anyone here knows some really good dramas that differ from my description, then please say so. If it's a romantic drama that is actually good (good acting, production etc.) then I think I might take a look into it as well.
화이팅~
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Dammit, I just ordered new books from Amazon and they will take about a month to arrive... 
Gotta get more creative for the moment then.
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Update 16.8.2011:
다시 오래간만에 만나요. 오늘 마지막 브로그를 쓰는 것때에서 11일이니까, 내가 다시 뭔가 쓸고 싶고 다른것대해서도 말하고 싶었요. 지난 주에 시켰던 교과서는 아직 안 왔어서 난 좀 귀찮았어요, 그럼 이동안에 다른법으로 한국어를 공부했어서 이렇게 나쁘지 않아요. 조금만 더 기다리야 되지요..
오늘도 내 한국어공부에서 1달 반쯤이고, 진행이 빨랐어서 기분이 꽤 좋아요. 아직 초보이지만 더 공부할거야.
Same in English: (I would appreciate if anyone fluent in Korean could correct the above in case there are any mistakes)
"We meet again after a long while. Today is 11 days since the last time I wrote a blog, so I wanted to write something again and talk about other things too. The textbooks I ordered last week have still not arrived so I'm a little bit impatient in that matter, but during this period I have been studying by other methods, so it's not really that bad. I just have to wait a little bit more..
Today it's also about 1 and a half month since I began studying Korean, and I'm happy because my progress has been quite fast. I'm still a hard beginner, but I'm going to study more."
In addition, the language is slowly but steadily getting more difficult now. I have taken a look to some new verb endings, and some have nuances so intricate that giving an exact English translation is near impossible, such as the -거든요 ending, whose flavor in the verb is crudely translated as '..you see?', altough the usage is much more deeper and varying than that. All these numerous endings with their tiny little intricacies I haven't learned yet, are still quite charming to me. I feel that Korean has a high expressional value when mastered, with these countless ways to convey more or less the same idea, but with nuances unknown to any other languages... I'm not even near that point yet, but I know it's out there possible to be achieved, so I will have to go forward and see where I can get.
Also, I have taken the initiative to study some hanja every day, usually 5 but sometimes 10 if I have more time. Altough they are not going to be practical for me at all because they are never used on the internet, they are entertaining to learn because you can actually perceive the Sino-Korean words in their entirety without having to scratch your head and memorize them by raw force. For example, the word 교과서 (textbook) makes much more sense to me now since I know the word is derived from 敎科書, where the 3 characters literally stand for teaching, science and writing, respectively. I also love Chinese characters in general. They are ridiculous - but fascinating anyway. I know hangul is a hundred times more practical way to write Korean, but I feel just a little bit disappointed (Call me crazy..) that hanja usage, even in todays media in Korea, has withered to almost non-existence. I'm still going to try and learn them along, just so I can at least memorize the more complex 4-syllable behemoths in the later stage of Korean, because by hanja it should be less difficult to do that.
Here are some of the words I can already picture much better after having learned some basic hanja (with their literal meanings written in oblique) :
母國 (native country, mother-country)
敎室 (classroom, teaching room)
人道 (sidewalk, person-road)
同生 (younger sibling, same-life)
文法 (grammar, literature-method)
美男 (handsome man, beautiful-man)
動力 (electrical power, motion-strength)
As you can probably guess, learning the Sino-Korean vocabulary becomes much more efficient with hanja, and since about 70% of the modern Korean vocabulary is borrowed from Chinese, this is a huge boost generally.
Talking about Chinese characters, I had a sort of a dilemma last weekend. Mandarin has always been 'there' in my head that I would surely someday like to study in intensely too. I went to the library and took a look at some Finnish-made Mandarin textbooks (which were of abhorrent quality), but I couldn't help feeling utterly in love with all the Chinese texts. I thought to myself, 'Hey, why couldn't I learn Korean while also checking out Mandarin'?
I went through the first lesson of Pimsleur after which I was able to ask whether you could speak English, to apologize et cetera (your typical Pimsleur 1st lesson content). Through the transcripts, I learned how to say, read and write " 你会说普通话吗？(Can you speak Mandarin?)", and it felt 'kinda' cool. Even so, in the end I made the decision that I will stick with Korean, and Korean alone until I'm at least decent in it, before I even start thinking about other languages. It felt nice to think that I could learn both of the languages at the same time, but so does thinking about climbing Mt. Everest and building a pyramid simultaneously. I figured out it would be much more efficient for me to spend my energy on 1 language instead, and I believe it's the best option generally for language learners who wish to attain a high level in any language (unless you are a polyglot already).
Overall, my current level in Korean probably somewhere around mid-elementary, excluding speaking and listening, to which I haven't had that much access to. However, I'm not really worried about those aspects lacking behind, because it was exactly the same when I learned English throughout my teenage years. I was bad at school then (I still am, just not as much, heh), and I used to be behind the computer screen all day long and play games like Diablo 2, Starcraft and Counter-Strike, where I would interact with people every day, throughout the weeks, months and years of my childhood. On top of that, no matter what game I played, I used to surf some kind of a forum based around that, where I would attempt to read and write coherent posts. I'm bringing up this example, because at some point (when I was 14), I could very well already understand and produce advanced texts in the literal aspect, but my listening was just so bad I couldn't understand English movies without English subtitles nearly as much. My talking was equally as poor, but both my listening and talking caught up almost instantly when I went to travel abroad first time for a long while, where I had to use English.
I believe the same could be with Korean, so that is the reason I'm not really stressing out even if I cannot understand the spoken language right now. I'm sure it will catch up should I ever pay a visit to Korea again.
Cheers
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Update 6.9.2011
안녕하세요. 이번은 지난번보다 상당히 오랫동안이라서 다시 새 댓글을 남고 싶어졌는데요. 시간이 진짜 없기 때문에 전에 쓸 수 없었어서 좀 미안해요. 시키던 교과서를 다 드디어 받았어서 기분이 정말로 좋고, 진행도 빨라졌어서 요즘 한국어를 아무리 공무해도 계속만 하고 싶어요. 그걸 받음 전에 단어만 주로 외우고 있으니까, 지금은 이편이 훨씬 좋죠. 아프로 얼마 빠르게 낫고 계속할 걸까요.. 아무도 모르지만 아프로는 전에보다 부지런히 공부하기로 혼자에게 약속했는데, 난 아직 안 끝났거든요. 지금이라도 아직 잘 못 해도 오늘까지 공부를 2달밖에 하지 않았죠, 그래서 앞으로는 언제 한번 당신들에게 보일께요.
보시다시피 내 한국어를 할 수 있는 거가 아직 짧아서 길은 메시지를 아직 쓸 수 없지만, 공부를 열심히 계속만 할께면 나중에 더 좋게 아마 할 수 있을 거에요.
Translation:
+ Show Spoiler +Hello. It's been a quite longer while since the last time, so I was tempted to leave a comment again. I'm a bit sorry because I've had very little time. The textbooks I ordered have finally all arrived so I'm really glad, and since my progress too has gotten faster, nowadays no matter how much I study Korean I only want to continue. Since before receiving the books I was only memorizing vocabulary for the most part, you see right now is much better. I wonder how quickly I'm going to keep improving.. No one nows that, but I have promised myself to work even harder than before in the future, so you see I'm not finished yet. Even if just right now I can't still speak well, until today I have only studied for 2 months, so in the future some time or another I will show you.
As you can see, I still can't write long messages due to my low ability, but I will probably be able to do better in the future if I just keep studying hard.
I'm sure the last piece of writing contained at least a dozen of incorrect sentences, but I'm not worrying about that very much yet, because I feel that the most integral priority in learning a language (and the most natural one), is understanding.
If you compare my Korean writings to their previous counterparts, I'm somewhat overusing the same vocabulary and theme (working hard, et cetera) but that is all what I can think about right now if I want to keep the content relevant to my blog. Maybe later if I get better will I try to add more depth to the text, or I could describe my past activities in more precise detail, but my ability to produce Korean right now is probably only 50% of what I can understand, but I don't worry about it, since it was the same when I was learning English as a kid.
I have now taken a more multipronged approach to my language learning, and I really see it wielding good results. I used to go through the basics only by a textbook, but at the same time that came off as a good springboard to proceed to different ways of learning the language. I still use textbooks as a backbone in my learning (and everyone should), but I've been adapting a few supplementary methods to my learning as well, most importantly:
Listening - Not just listening to dialogues in a book that you can understand, actually that's only about 10% of my listening. By listening I mean listening to anything, even if you cannot understand it. For example, yesterday I watched my first Korean movie without subtitles, and although I didn't understand the key points, I still felt that without subtitles I grew just a little bit more familiar to the language, although most of the time I had no idea what was being talked about. I also watch a piece of Korean news every day, ranging from 15 minutes to an hour depending on my mood. I've even started listening to K-Pop every day for at least a while. While most of the songs are terrible, there are a few beautiful tunes every now and then, and I can sometimes understand a lot what is being sung, so that is also very motivating. But the general goal of listening like that is not 'learning', I just feel that when you listen to a language at a native level long enough, the structure will slowly start to become ingrained in your subconscious. You don't realize it yet, but when you reach the advanced level by traditional methods of studying, I bet it will be easier to adapt to the long and obscure structures when your subconscious is already somewhat familiar with them from hearing them continuously in the past.
Sentences - For the last 3 weeks I've been not adding just new vocabulary, but also new sentences to Anki. While with the vocabulary I usually have the English meaning on the front side of the card and having to remember the Korean meaning, with the sentences it's the opposite. I usually copy the sentences from my textbook or Naver dictionary when I look up a new word and see a handy sentence included with it. I must say, the sentences are so good to learn. You can't necessarily produce the sentence yourself yet, but you can understand them and get the feel for them. So when I'm reviewing the sentences, after some intervals I just get the meaning right away without even thinking in English, and if I don't get it, I will just put that on due for the next day and eventually the meanings and nuances will become ingrained to your thinking. An example would be a sentence I found yesterday in a reading passage in my textbook, that was the longest I had ever understood before.
Here it is "한국사람은 한국어 문법을 따로 공부하지 않아도 문법을 자연스럽게 이해하며 자연스럽게 얘기할 수 있지만 외국사람은 문법을 제대로 알아야 한국말을 잘 배울 수 있습니다."
Translation: "Even though Koreans do not study their grammar separately, they understand the grammar naturally and can speak freely, but foreigners have to know grammar properly if they are to learn Korean well."
At first it took me about 10 seconds to comprehend the sentence in its entirety, but after adding it to Anki and having it reviewed a few times, the meaning pops up into my head much more smoothly and quicker already after just 1 day.
Hanja - I already wrote about these in my last post. I'm now progressing with about 6-12 Hanja a day, depending on how many new ones I find per lesson in my new book. Although the Hanja book I have includes readings aimed for high intermediate/low advanced readers, right now I'm using it only to learn the Hanja. I realized that I'm still at a very early stage to learn Hanja, but since I love learning them, plus it's better to learn them too early than too late. On top of that, if I already know most of the necessary Hanja, the dreaded transition between the high intermediate and advanced level in Korean should be much smoother. As I mentioned in my previous posts, Hanja are also great for learning new vocabulary, although at my level grammar is still more important to learn, but I'm sure they will come off as handy in the later stages.
Right now after a month of studying I know about 180 Hanja, and I'm planning to learn at least 320 more in the upcoming 2 months, totaling at 500 Hanja, after which I will probably take a break from them for a while.
Two crazy Hanjas I already know (the more complicated the more fun): 驛, 體
Note that the three points I mentioned above are only supplementary - You can't rely on them. Instead I would recommend everyone to rely on a good textbook, as that will 1) help you build a solid foundation, and 2) enhance your overall learning progress.
A comment about my new textbooks:
Continuing Korean: This is just as complete in every way as Elementary Korean was. Detailed explanations, solid pace of progressing and relevant drill exercises. The only downside is that the example sentences don't have audio examples, and that some of the vocabulary introduced is irrelevant and not reinforced in the later chapters, so sometimes it can feel like you are learning words from a dictionary. However, these small cons don't really change the fact that in every other way this book shines. If you don't like extremely detailed grammatical descriptions and prefer a more simplified approach, then maybe you should consider another book, but if you don't live in Korea and you don't like the grammar, then that mindset is pretty much flawed from the beginning when learning Korean, in my opinion.
Integrated Korean (Intermediate 1): This seems more user-friendly than Elementary Korean and Continuing Korean, in that the grammar sections aren't as "excessively" deep. But it's a matter of opinion whether or not it's a good thing. What this book has that Continuing Korean doesn't is the culture sections, often 1-page longs descriptions about a certain aspect of a Korean culture such as Korean fashion, work ethic et cetera. The introduced vocabulary is also more relevant than in Continuing Korean, but there are two big downsides for a self-learner that I wasn't aware of before I received the book:
1) Many exercises are directed towards a classroom situation where you would have a learning partner, so you have to skip some of the content (unless you want to talk in front of a mirror).
2) No answers to exercises. This is what really disappointed me. I ordered the Intermediate 1 workbook for the textbook, assuming there would be correct answers listed somewhere to check whether you had done something wrong, but for no avail. This is a big no-no for a self learner, so I'm considering whether to continue with this series or not.
Apart from these 2 aspects the book is very solid. I should also mention that one big advantage of Integrated Korean is that there are a lot of audio files for every lessons downloadable from their website. You can learn a lot from Integrated Korean, but I feel it's not as complete for a self learner like Elementary Korean and Continuing Korean are.
A comment about my speaking abilities - The previous week a Korean lady called me on Skype and at first we talked a bit in English. We made an agreement to try to have a basic conversation in Korean - in which I was utterly destroyed. First, because I'm not used to the fast speech yet. She asked me "학교에서는 어떤 과목을 공부해요?" which means "What subjects do you study in school?" I understood the the first word but the "어떤 과목을 (what subjects)" just passed through my head in a whim, I thought I heard something more like "어꺼가모", and so I had to ask her to speak slowly after almost every phrase. The fact that the sound quality was terrible didn't help either, but at the same time it relieves me to know that without the sound quality I would have at least understood a bit more.
So it was awkward to talk; In speech you don't have time to think about the verb endings or the syntax, it just comes out naturally. Instead, I was stumbling and mumbling and pausing all the time, which often led to an awkward laugh or silence. She was patient, however, and she could understand why I couldn't give my best in my first ever live Korean conversation.
One thing I was glad about that she commended me on my pronunciation. She gave me some example sentences for me to read aloud, and she was surprised that my pronunciation almost sounded like a native. That's at least someting I can be happy about in case I end up trashed again in a conversational situation. I'm not really worrying about my speech yet, because while it lacks behind the other aspects of the target language, it will catch up later in case I would ever go to Korea and stay there for a while.
Looking back at where I started, this is my first drill sentence I had written in my notebook a day after I started Korean: "저 사람은 일본사람이에요" ("That person is Japanese"). At the time this was still pretty new to me, but now I laugh everytime I see it because it is so simple. It feels incredible to feel how much my Korean has compounded during the last 2 months after that day. Sometimes I even feel a bit dizzy because there is so much information, but somehow I manage to suck it all in and go forward, and this has allowed me to start to already 'feel' this new dimension that is the Korean language. As I wrote in my very first post in this blog, "So far I'm just touching the surface of this mysteriously huge complex of infinite variables, and entering waters with depth I have no idea about, but I believe I can at least dive in a little bit in with some hard work." I think this is what I'm experiencing right now, I'm 'diving in' into the language. Not anywhere deep yet, but I'm already feeling the surface and it's actually much easier than I had thought, at least for now.
Initially the reason I started Korean was just to experiment — I had quit SC2 about a month earlier. In Starcraft 2, it took me about 6 months to climb the way from bronze up to diamond, and I didn't even play much, only 2-4 games a day. I spend so much time stressing over this game, and in the end thought to myself, "Why am I playing this?". What I was left over with was the knowledge of myself, that I could improve in something if I really wanted to. I thought to myself, "If I was able to improve in SC2 during that long period, why not a language? Perhaps Korean?", so I decided to apply the same mindset into learning a language, in this case Korean (after deciding between Mandarin and Korean a month earlier before starting this blog).
During my learning period I have 'found' more reasons to learn the language, which keep me motivated:
- Korean movies; There are so many good Korean movies around, especially action and thriller ones, which means that understanding them would be a huge plus if you love these hidden gems.
- The language itself; All the rich idioms and vocabulary are there. Even now when I listen to Korean, I feel like thinking in a different dimension, which keeps pulling me towards it even more. Plus, Korean language is probably the most sonorous language ever. The syntax is shaped so that the most important information is always expressed in the end, so it adds to this 'verbal climax' in public speeches.
- Overall Korea is a very unique country, and understanding the language is essential.
- Not so much of a reason, but if North Korea would ever collapse, it would be intriguing to get a firsthand access to all the information contained there.
- Kimchi (Although this is fine even without knowing the language. But it would be blasphemy to not include kimchi in the list for the reasons to like Korea.)
Some Koreaboo contacted me in another website and asked me what is my favourite K-Pop band, told her "None.". She was like "Why are you learning Korean then?", I put her on mute.
Next time I would like to talk about some funny coincidental similarities between my native tongues and Korean that have helped me to adapt to some aspects in it. This post was already long enough that you are probably half-asleep at this point.
'Till next time ->
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Good luck! =]
I wish I had as much resolve as you to learn a language on my own, especially one as hard as Korean. Congratulations on getting this far, it's quite impressive!
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On September 07 2011 00:28 unichan wrote:
Good luck! =]
I wish I had as much resolve as you to learn a language on my own, especially one as hard as Korean. Congratulations on getting this far, it's quite impressive!
Thank you.
The hardest part is doing something every day in the long term, but if you learn efficiently, you get quicker results and quicker results lead to better motivation.
But you can't force yourself to learn a language on your own, you really have to like it or it will become dull after a while.
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On July 13 2011 07:30 DNB wrote:
Some Koreaboo contacted me in another website and asked me what is my favourite K-Pop band, told her "None.". She was like "Why are you learning Korean then?", I put her on mute.
I do want to point out though, you'll be hard pressed to find more zealous foreign korean learners than kpop fans.
oh and I just watched 엽기적인 그녀.
![[image loading]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/88/My_Sassy_Girl_Movie_Poster.jpg)
I really recommend it if you haven't seen it before. Although I have weird taste in movies. But you will notice it comes up in this thread multiple times
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=55522
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On September 07 2011 01:54 Xenocide_Knight wrote:Show nested quote +On July 13 2011 07:30 DNB wrote:
Some Koreaboo contacted me in another website and asked me what is my favourite K-Pop band, told her "None.". She was like "Why are you learning Korean then?", I put her on mute. I do want to point out though, you'll be hard pressed to find more zealous foreign korean learners than kpop fans. oh and I just watched 엽기적인 그녀. I really recommend it if you haven't seen it before. Although I have weird taste in movies. But you will notice it comes up in this thread multiple times http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=55522
Is that My Sassy Girl? I have seen the title and description but never watched it because I was afraid it would be just another cheesy soapie. But if you recommend it then why not check it out.
you'll be hard pressed to find more zealous foreign korean learners than kpop fans.
Funny and true
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Hello
It's been a really long time since I gave any concrete information about my current progress in Korean grammar and such, so I came to the realization that I should at least write here weekly about the verb endings, particles, amount of vocab, hanja and possible idioms I might have learned. Not necessarily for others, also for myself to better see how much I have learned during a certain time period. So, I want to make this post a big status update of my current progress since the day I began my journey, 7. August.
I finished lesson 21 in my Continuing Korean book today, and it was easy overall.
Current status (13.9.2011) :
Vocabulary:
I have about 850 words in my misc vocabulary deck in Anki, most of which I can recall comfortably in both ways from English to Korean and vice versa. I've actually now switched the layouts so that I see the Korean word every time, because there are sometimes too many synonyms to list for the same word, for example 매우, 굉장히, 아주, 너무, 몹시, 무척 and a few more. All these adverbs mean 'very much/extremely/excessively', so whenever I started with the English side first, I got tired from listing all the possibilities for one word/expression. There are many more.
In my verb deck I have about 400 verbs, although I would say that about 75 of them are just the action forms of some nouns I have in my misc deck.
On top of that, I have a Hanja vocabulary deck where I add words for every hanja I have learned. There are many random and really irrelevant words but they are just there for the sake of practicing the hanja. Even so the are still in my passive memory.
Putting all these together, I would say I know about 1000 words familiarly and about 250 more in a more passive way. I have to wait till I can learn some more grammar in order to be able to start reading some basic stuff and getting myself familiar with any possible idioms and contexts.
Here is a list of all the 228 hanja I know right now:
一二三四五六七八九十山父母兄弟東西南北大江高敎科校
區口國男女年道同動洞力毛文門問美本副富不上生洗世水
市新信身室心語驛王外雨園日入子字者自中紙小月火木金
土靑白先韓軍民萬長寸車天退出品下學休家歌間工空氣記
冬來老林立面物方色植食安育邑足左直村秋春平夏活答百
川千正手數地時每半分週曜英今光化授堂圖書館店業銀行
右前後多線少午族祖親姉妹姓名氏李孫朴全耳目鼻相之體
宗訓音洋表意季節花草風寒溫雪然錄赤黃黑電場所發昨見
內農原里都夫郡放送局社聞言論界近死幸福現反對短低感
漢情算
The particles and verb endings I have learned to far:
Particles/Suffixes:
-까지
-께
-께서(는)
-도
-들
-마다
-만
-부터
-씩
-밖에
-에
-에 중에서
-에게(서)
-한테(서)
-와/과
-(으)로
-를/을
-는/은
-의
-이/가
-(이)나
-(이)랑
-쯤
-처럼
-하고
-에 대해(서) / -에 관해서
-(을) 통해(서)
-보다
-보다도
-보다는
-에 따라
I feel I might know a few more particles passively.
Verb endings with some having further structures:
One-shape endings:
-ㅆ-
-지
-지 않다
-지요
-지만
-겠-
-잖아요
-고
-고 있-
-고 싶
-다
-자 마자
-네요
-는데(요), -은데(요), -ㄴ데(요)
-기
-기 좋다
-기 싫다
-기 전에
-기 시작하다
-기 때문에
-기로 하다
-자
-거든요
-게
-어/-아
-어도/-아도
-어야/-아야
-아야/-아야 되다/하다
-어서/-아서
-어서/-아서 좋다
-어서/-아서 죽겠다
-어지다
-어 하다
-어 가다 , -어 오다
-어 있다
-어 보다
-어 주다
Two-shape endings:
-(으)시-
-(으)세요
-(으)니까
-(으)러
-(스)ㅂ니다
-(으)십시오
-(으)ㅂ시다
-(스)ㅂ니까
-(으)ㄹ까요
-(으)ㄹ까 하다
-(으)ㄹ래요
-(으)ㄹ 거에요
-(으)ㄹ게요
-(는)군요
-(으)ㄹ, -(으)ㄴ, -는, -던
-(으)ㄹ 수 있다/없다
-는 일이/적이 있다/없다
-(으)ㄴ 일이/적이 있다/없다
-는/은 것
-(으)며
-(으)면
-(었)으면
-(었)으면 언마나 좋겠다
-(으)면 좋겠다
-(으)면 고맙겠다
-(으)면 안 되다
-(으)려(고)
This might not seem much, but there are several usages for many of these endings and getting used to them has taken a while. Especially with the Korean infinitive form (-어/-아) you can construct tons of different verb forms. You can do similar stuff with the modifier endings (으)ㄹ, -(으)ㄴ, -는, -던), but I only know a few of them so far. Same with -고. I know a few more endings passively but I'm not going to include them until I know them thoroughly. You can also combine quite a lot of these endings and particles to create new structures, such as -지 않다 plus -(으)면 안 되다 which leads into -지 않으면 않 되다 meaning a certain type of obligation dedicated to an action. This is just one example. One thing I'm glad about in Korean is how the conjugation is very logical. Even the so called 'irregular verbs' follow certain rules that are easy to learn, and there are only very few truly irregular verbs, of which I know at most 3 at the moment.I still can't keep myself from praising the book I'm learning Korean from. It explains things in a seemingly complicated way, yet progressing is really smooth and relatively quick. It truly gives a good foundation for someone who likes to know the basics in and out, and that is essential in the long term..
There are still 9 lessons left in this book, and I'm looking forward to learn them as best as I can.
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Holy shit!
You're so great. I am impressed by your enormous effort!
I feel I have to revive my passion to learn English and Japanese as soon as your post.(I can speak, read and write them but make tons of grammetical mistakes.)
How lazy I've been so far.... I hope I wouldn't be so late.
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On September 21 2011 03:18 Manatea wrote:
Holy shit!
You're so great. I am impressed by your enormous effort!
I feel I have to revive my passion to learn English and Japanese as soon as your post.(I can speak, read and write them but make tons of grammetical mistakes.)
How lazy I've been so far.... I hope I wouldn't be so late.
Thank you for your reply, although my effort has not been that enormous. Mainly just systematic studying everyday. 
Assuming you are Korean, Japanese shouldn't be that much of a challenge to you since the structures of the two languages are comparatively similar. Plus, there is no use to fluster over the fact that you might not have been studying actively until now, because we can't go back in time either. Better think "A year after I start, I will look back to this point and feel proud of myself for not letting the inactivity drag any further", as it's technically never too late to start to improve on something. It is just a troublesome attribute of our human mentality to focus on our past shortcomings and overemphasize their actual gravity on the situation.
As to myself, I have been just a tad phlegmatic during the last week in my Korean learning, although partially due to prepping for an important English test that I took last Wednesday. I will write a new status update next week when I have finished lesson 23 in my textbook.
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Hmm, I wanted to learn Japanese too but I was utterly discouraged after learning about Kanji; unfortunately I've been rather spoiled by Hangul and Alphabet that the prospect of learning Hanja terrifies me. I guess I won't go anywhere with such thinking though, with most of languages having their quirky complexities (for example, why in the world would German give genders to words?)
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On September 24 2011 00:17 Hesmyrr wrote:
Hmm, I wanted to learn Japanese too but I was utterly discouraged after learning about Kanji; unfortunately I've been rather spoiled by Hangul and Alphabet that the prospect of learning Hanja terrifies me. I guess I won't go anywhere with such thinking though, with most of languages having their quirky complexities (for example, why in the world would German give genders to words?)
Contrary to the general impression of kanji being a hindrance or a 'quirk' as you said, I would actually consider them to be even more essential than hanja in the advanced level due to an even larger amount of homonyms occurring because of the more limited phoneme inventory in Japanese. In other words, the homonym problem in Japanese is even more inflated than in Korean and that is why kanji are, therefore, even more necessary (while in Korean you can just barely get away with hangeul-only in reading).
Moreover, due having more ways of pronunciations, kanji are somewhat more difficult to learn than hanzi or hanja, but learning them still grants the learner an invaluable access to forming new vocabulary on the fly when reading advanced materials (This is what I've gathered by reading some of the advanced Japanese learners' opinions about kanji).
Another notion I strongly encourage is to not think of kanji (or whatever set of characters you are learning) as difficult, rather, they are simply time-consuming. People seem to throw around the word 'difficult' too much nowadays as if it was some sort of an acceptable excuse to not even try something, but this doesn't even apply to Chinese characters because it's is not difficult to learn them, it only requires methodical dedication for a certain amount of time every day. Daily dedication in long term, however, is challenging for some people, translating into a disguised impression of learning kanji being some kind of an arduous ordeal of a journey. Nonetheless, the learning process of kanji is relatively easy and should not be mixed up with the presumed difficulty of long-term dedication itself.
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How's yo korean goin foo?
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EPT
