Learning Korean
Since Japanese and Korean are very similar in many ways (vocab, grammar, identical syntax) I study Korean in Japanese. Although I often look up a word in both Japanese and English because some nuances can be explained better in one language than another, grammar doesn’t make sense to me if it’s explained in English.
At first I self-studied Korean using Japanese textbooks, but after clearing the Intermediate level, I gave up textbook study in order to improve my conversation ability. The grammar etc. that appears in Advanced textbooks is not useful for everyday life, so there’s no point in using them unless you just want to study for the TOPIK or have gotten your conversation down to a level where you can speak about a variety of topics without fault.
The thing that sucks about trying to improve your speech is that you have to speak. Not a problem if you live in a country that uses your target language of course, (which is why I picked up Japanese quickly) but you’re ultimately limited to finding someone else to converse with if you want to improve.
With the 韓流 (hallyu) boom, there are tons of Japanese people learning Korean now! But the majority of them are 아줌마 빠순이… (aunties obsessed with stars or drama). A very popular goal in Japan for learning a foreign language is “자막 없이 드라마 보고 싶어요~” 「字幕なしでドラマ観たい」”I want to watch dramas without subtitles!”.
There’s a decently popular Korean textbook series in Japan called 「できる韓国語」or what I would translate as “You can do it! Korean!”. The back of the first intermediate textbook says it’s perfect for ppl who want to b able to watch dramas without subtitles, but lemme tell ya, it takes a lot more study than just intermediate 1 to b able to understand a drama… grammar is pretty easy to learn, it’s just a matter of learning enough vocabulary. If you think about it, dictionaries are quite huge for a reason.
SO, on that note, I think that studying grammar up to the intermediate level and then switching to focus on improving vocabulary is the best course of action for an effective study time vs acquisition ratio.
When I was studying Japanese (I no longer study, but I still learn things), I learned all the important grammar in 2 years of college and then after that when I moved to Japan I spent 1 year studying kanji. Just kanji. But learning kanji means learning both vocabulary sets and roots, so I learned 2,000 kanji in a year and my Japanese level skyrocketed because I could recall the kanji in my head and then combine them to make new vocabulary words therefore improving my conversation ability radically.
Knowing kanji makes learning Korean 5 million times easier. Learning Korean to a Japanese person is like learning Spanish to an English speaker. While the grammar is different, the roots of words are very similar, so you can understand many words even if it’s your first time hearing/reading them. Knowing the Korean reading of hanja means you can attribute their reading to a Chinese root word that you already know. You can basically make up words instead of looking them up in a dictionary. Nice, huh?
In order to build vocabulary, I print bilingual news columns off the net (check links on side of this page) and then read them on the train. When I can get away it I write blogs in Korean on lang-8 and then can have native speakers correct my mistakes. Very useful and corrections usually come back within half an hour!
If you’re interested in improving your listening, besides watching dramas or movies, you can listen to podcasts like Talk to me in Korean OR upload something you want recorded to rhinospike.com and native speakers will make an mp3 file for you of whatever you uploaded. Maybe useful for practicing a speech too.
Although I’m embarrassed that I own an Apple product (cracked IPhone), the amount of available applications makes it bearable.
audioboo.fm has an app for recording mp3s – very useful for rhinospike.com on the go!
뉴스캐스트 News cast from Naver is a collection of current Korean newspapers (some bilingual or in English) that you can customize and browse through easily.
영어회화패턴 study card is really good for making your own vocab lists. (영어의 공부에는 안 되는데...) It's nice because you can edit the lists without having to connect to the computer. However, the pre-made vocab lists have "interesting" Engrish.
Talk to me in Korean also has their own app where you can download the podcasts and PDF files. It's a bit less than what I would expect for a paid app, but I think it contributes to a good cause.
Let me know if you have any favorites for studying!
Back as an undergrad I had a similar experience. I took a Japanese class primarily because I thought it would be interesting, but I also thought it would be an "easy A," since I could already speak (some) Korean.
ReplyDeleteWell, the "easy A" turned out to be a very difficult A-, largely because the most unfamiliar concepts were all being taught in English (of course, this being California). And while I could grasp some of the Korean-Japanese similarities right away (the particles, for example), some words didn't make much sense to me the way they were explained in English ("desu = is, imasu/arimasu = is, but what's the frickin' difference?!).
And then I got myself a Korean textbook for learning Japanese, and it all made sense. When I learned which "is" corresponded to 있다 and which corresponded to 이다, it all made sense.
Kushibo,
ReplyDeleteOoh, you found my niche blog ^^
Hah! I totally know what you're talking about ^^ trying to learn Korean or Japanese in English is so round-a-bout. Since I'm living in Japan, I studied from the beginning in Japanese and after 2 years of self study I'm at TOPIK lv.5.
Things are often so similar you can just look at word for the first time and already know what it means by inference. I compared a few Korean textbooks written in English and ones in Japanese and was amazed by the difference in material. The content of "intermediate college Korean" textbooks was all stuff I had learned in the beginners level... It makes me wonder if this has anything to do with the reason why so many English speakers fail to achieve fluency in Asiatic languages.
On the other hand, When I studied Japanese in America college for two years, I was so disappointed when I reached the 301 class (I skipped 101+102 b/c I self-studied in highschool) because it was “advanced intermediate” and not “advanced”. Other language courses were like a 3 step program. Beginning, intermediate and then advanced. I thought I knew SO much so I didn’t like the book title haha. Then I moved to Japan and realized how soft my American college language classes had been.
I roomed with a German girl who majored in Japanese and already knew 2,000 kanji and read Japanese literature etc, and I had studied the same amount of years and only knew 300 kanji and had read a children’s book… It took another year from there tho to pass the JLPT 1, whereas she never could. Which was really confusing to me seeing as she had such a head start.
Hrmm, I never gave any thought to 이다 and 있다. Or です・います・あります. That must have been so confusing to just be told that they mean “is”! I’m glad to hear that you got your hands on a textbook in Korean. If you’re in California there must be a pretty decent selection of things available in Korean. Did you continue on with your Japanese studies? And do you have lots of opportunities to use your language skills in California?