A while back now, I bought a book on learning Korean to impress my then girlfriend. We then broke up, before I read more than the prelude. Being stubborn, and now owning a book on Korean that would have no purpose otherwise, I decided to learn Korean. It turns out that the book wasn’t really useful for this. Fate hey. And the purpose of this blog post is to point out some things that have been been useful. I figure I may as well since I wrote most of this in an email to a friend so it’s mostly already written!! So, here goes. Wait, first, here’s
the only dictionary I’ve found that’s reasonably usable and good for a non-Korean speaker.
First things first. Learn the alphabet. There isn’t really any compromise here, especially since it’s so quick and simple. I find computer games are the fastest for this. Sadly they aren’t used often enough for knowledge acquisition. There isn’t a lot of choice in Korean,
this game is the only reasonable one I could find and it’s no
Slime Forest Adventure. Then, practice some pronunciation of these sounds using
this page from the
Korean Wiki Project. It also has a
nicely compiled list of language learning sites.
Now comes the real learning. There’s a few ways to go about this. My preference is to use
Anki and build up my own cards. I know the data will be there for as long as I want it and I can code a port to a better system if one comes along. It allows you to remember facts over time using less and less effort as you become more familiar with these facts. The only problem then is to find the resource to learn from before you memorise using Anki.
Ideally, lessons introduce well explained concepts quickly, without dumping too much on you. It would allow listening to plenty of audio, use natural language and use the Korean alphabet. It would throw in a bit of culture and explain common uses of some phrases. I had trouble finding something nice, but settled on
Talk to me in Korean. So far, I’ve liked it.
I use three different models for study. One for numbers(/counters), one for general questions and one for example sentences. Ideally, a few cards would be put in for each ‘grammar point’ with most of these cards using a sentence that only introduces one new word. Each of these sentences should have an explanation of the grammar point to ensure you knew it when you answered.
At some point you have to start being more natural with your language use. You hear people arguing for immersive language study ‘because it works with children’. I think that view’s overly simplistic. Children get dumbed down info and frequently corrected. We don’t easily have that luxury as adults. The other view I’ve seen that was interesting is never make a mistake. If you don’t know how to say something, don’t say it. The argument here is that if the other person understands you, it will reinforce that you were correct, even if you weren’t and then you’ll get into the habit of using incorrect language. I can’t find the website that is based around this idea though >< That is a scary, slow and tedious path though although I think there is some truth in it. I’ve seen too many people that were speaking some great English more into a house filled with people learning English whereby everyone starts reinforcing each others bad use of English. It’s part of why I really don’t like the view of only speaking the native language of a country you move to.
So then, how do you best go from book learning to something fluent, useful and fun? Who knows? :P From now though I’ve got a reasonable basis of knowledge with Korean and if I wait much longer I’ll probably start reinforcing bad grammar and pronunciation, so it’s time to work on it. My first step is to find some people who’s English is roughly equivalent to my Korean and enforce a half hour solely of one language, followed by a half hour of the other. The other step is to start making diary posts at
Lang-8 again. It’s a pretty cool site where you correct peoples diary posts that they’ve written in your language and other people correct yours. Multiple people make corrections and you get to see the result. I should probably start making some Japanese posts there again too. It’s been a while :P It might make up for me skipping the language exchange tonight :P
To finish up, I thought I’d leave with a pretty cool video I watched today that ends with him talking about a beta for a new language learning site. I think it’s a great idea and very positive, but I’m not so sure it’s that good for the learner. I can’t see how the progression, reinforcement and non-overwhelmingness required for language learning fits smoothly, but hopefully that will be introduced into the idea with time. Oh, a last point before I put on the video. I learn concepts easily and visuals / tasks (writing Chinese characters) but I’m not so good with audio.. or learning new vocabulary. I really just grind it out. Anki is good for making sure you don’t forget, but it’s not designed for learning. That’s not a problem for using Anki to learn Kanji or grammar points, but it’s not perfect for me
learning new vocabulary. Anyone got any pointers? I suppose that’s where immersion helps :P Anyway, here’s the video: