Different Ways of Reading in a Foreign Language

So, at least in my own personal experience, reading is a really good way to improve your foreign language abilities. At least I can’t remember a time that I felt like my English was improving faster than back when I started reading lots and lots of books in English. I really do feel that reading had a really big impact especially on my ability to construct longer and more complex sentences. And of course it also expanded my vocabulary a lot.

So, when you’re reading in a foreign language there are generally two different ways you can go about it: 1. Read while looking up more or less any new words, expressions or grammar points or 2. Reading while just trying to understand as much as possible without really looking anything up (or maybe just the odd word if it keeps popping up). So basically there’s the more intensive reading and the reading where you’re just doing it for fun. I think that there are different things you can gain from different ways of reading and that’s what I’d like to talk a bit about Today.

Let’s first take a look at just reading for fun and for your own enjoyment. With this kind of reading you obviously have to be able to understand most of what you’re reading or at least be able to understand enough that you’re able to get the general meaning. Otherwise you’re sort of just looking at a bunch of incomprehensible symbols and you’re probably not going to gain very much from that. When you’re reading this way you of course get to review things that you already know and it will further solidify that knowledge. But you’ll also be able to pick up new words from the context and learn new ways to express certain things. One advantage of this way of reading is definitely also that it really doesn’t require too much energy and it’s something you can just do to relax. Thus it’s something that easy to do a lot of.

Then there’s also reading more intensely while looking up anything that you’re not already familiar with. So obviously what you gain from this is that you’ll be able to learn a lot of new vocabulary, fixed expressions and grammar. In my opinion I think this is pretty much the best way to expand your vocabulary. Because you’re reading (vs. listening) you’re able to look everything up that you don’t understand and you also get to see all the new words that you learn in context. With this type of reading you also have a lot more choice of what to read since you’re less restricted by what you already know. You can pretty much just read about anything that interests you, even if there are lots of unknown words.

Personally I also think it’s nice to switch between reading easier and more difficult reading material in this way. It’s nice to have a balance between the two. Because when I’m reading stuff that (relative to the current level of my Korean) is easier then it feels like I’m sort of harvesting the fruits of my labor and I get to see my progress. Whereas if I’m reading materials that are more difficult to understand it motivates me to work harder because I become more aware of all the things that I still don’t know.

The Power of Music in Language Learning

I’ve already written a blog post about learning Korean with songs, in which I also talk about some of the advantages of using music to study Korean. But I just had a couple of experiences recently that made me notice how often I come across words that I’ve either learnt through songs or I’ve been able to remember more easily because I’ve heard them in a song before.

Recently I was studying with my Integrated Korean grammar book and at the beginning of each chapter there’s a list of new words that will show up in that chapter. So I was just going through to see if there were any new words that I didn’t know and just out of curiousity I started trying to recall where I had learnt the words on the list that I did know. And I noticed that for quite a lot of them I associated them with different songs. I would just look at surprisingly many of the words and immediately a specific song would pop up in my head.

Another time I was reading a book and came across the word 지독하다. It looked very, very familiar but at the same I couldn’t quite recall what it meant. But then after a few seconds suddenly my brain went “지독하게 너무 지독하게 너를 사랑했나 봐~”. Ah yes, obviously 지독하게 (Severely) by FTISLAND. A song I’ve listened to I don’t know how many times.

This has happened so, so many times. There’ll be some word that I’ve heard in a song many times, but without knowing what the word means. And that word will just randomly get stuck in my mind because I’ve listened to that particular song so many times. And then when I eventually look up the lyrics or when I come across the word in a text I’m reading it’ll usually just stick in my memory really easily. Because your brain already has that connection to the word. That’s been my experience at least.

Here’s the song I mentioned, so you guys can also appreciate the amazingness of Lee Hong-ki’s voice live. The lyrics are on screen as well so you guys can read along if you’d like 🙂

Watching Korean Shows with Double Subtitles + Update

So, it’s been a while since I’ve written any blog posts. To make a long story short I’ve been busy moving out of my parents’ house and adjusting to living on my own as well as being sick for a while. All the while taking some of the most difficult courses I’ve taken in uni so far. So there’s just been a whole lot of just trying to keep up with schoolwork these past few months. So my time and energy for Korean, let alone blogging, has been pretty limited. But now my much-needed summerbreak has started, so I’ve been back to studying Korean more again and now also blogging! 🙂

So I’d like to share some of the methods I’ve been using to study / maintain my Korean for these past few months. So basically things that aren’t too draining but that you can still learn from. Because that’s what I’ve been doing a lot of. It’s not all I’ve done though. I did also do some more “deliberate” studying. Like I went through my Integrated Korean Intermediate 1 and started intermediate 2 while reviewing grammar points and vocabulary. I also managed to read a good 70 or so pages in my first ‘real’ Korean book (Big Bang’s 세상에 너를 소리쳐). But other than that I’ve mostly just been watching Tv-shows and YouTube videos, just looking up the occasional word if it would keep popping up again and again. Basically I’ve just been spending most of my “study” time enjoying the Korean that I’ve already learnt so far. And one thing in particular I’ve enjoyed doing is watching shows while having both Korean and English subtitles simultaneously.

There’s this site called Viki. If you haven’t heard of it before it’s basically just a website that has different Asian Tv-shows, dramas and movies with subtitles in various languages. On this site you can turn something on called ‘Learn Mode’ where when you’re watching something it’ll have first the Korean subtitles and then underneath it’ll have the English subtitles. So then you can immediately see the meaning of words and/or expressions that you don’t know without having to look everything up in the dictionary. There are also a decent amount of Korean YouTubers that have subtitles in both Korean and English at the same time. So that’s another option as well.

I think this is just a really fun way to learn and a way to ‘study’ without really studying. Especially if you’re sort of at a level in Korean where you understand most words and in general there aren’t any more than maybe 1-2 words in a sentence that you don’t know, then it’s pretty easy to pick out what it translates to from the English translation below. I think it can also be quite good to see how a whole sentence would be translated. Because sometimes when you’re reading or listening to something in a foreign language, even if you know every word and all the grammar points of a particular sentence, it can sometimes be difficult to make out the meaning. So you can learn new expressions and ways of phrasing things as well. So I think this is also pretty good for that.

Anyway, I hope you’re all having fun studying Korean and, for those of you who live in a place where it’s currently summer, that you’re enjoying the summer 😀

Different Languages, Different Personalities?

I was talking to another language learning friend of mine recently and this topic came up. We were talking about some of those subtle changes that happen to your personality when you’re speaking in different languages. It’s something I’ve thought about myself before and I’ve heard various language learners around the internet talk about the same thing before as well.

These changes can of course be due to different factors. One thing is how closely languages are intertwined with their respective cultures and how you generally express yourself about things in a particular culture. Languages are all tied to certain ways of thinking about things and seeing the world.

For example when I speak English I sort of feel like I have to be a bit more expressive in order to actually accurately portray how I’m feeling. In Danish I feel like I can be a bit more subtle about things like that without me seeming like I’m being too serious. Another example is for example with Korean and hierarchy. In Korean you’ve obviously got the different levels of formality that’s very distinctly expressed through different verb endings. I also feel like there are certain topics that I’m more comfortable talking about or discussing in English than I am in Danish (and vice versa). And it’s the same for Korean as well.

Another obvious way in which the language you’re speaking can affect how your personality comes across, is your proficiency in that particular language. If you’re speaking in a language that you aren’t completely fluent in you probably won’t be able to speak with the same confidence and comfort as if you were speaking a language that you are very comfortably fluent in.

Different languages also have different words and expressions that can make it more or less difficult to express certain feelings, ideas or arguments. No matter which language I’m speaking in, including my native Danish, it happens quite often that there are certain expressions I want to use but can’t because they’re in a different language. I can kind of get around this problem for the most part when I’m speaking in Danish because a lot of people here speak English and (to some extent) German. So I often find myself randomly throwing English and German words into my Danish sentences. But I can’t really do that with Korean as much and more generally I can’t do it if I’m not talking to someone else who’s bilingual.

So those are just some of my experiences with this. I’d be really interested to hear about other peoples’ experiences with this as well, so feel free to leave a comment 🙂

Using the Korean you already know

Back when I had English classes in primary school I remember we would sometimes do this exercise where we had to describe some English word using only English. So we were all given cards with some English word on it and had to explain which word it was in English without using the word itself. So for example if you got ‘nightmare’ you could say ‘bad dream’ or ‘scary dream’. Something like that. By doing this we learned how to better have a conversation using only English even if our vocabulary was sometimes lacking a bit in some areas.

Because of course when you’re having a conversation in a foreign language you’ll sometimes have words that you don’t know. And if you have to look up words too often it can sort of feel like the conversation loses its ‘flow’. And you might also not always have a dictionary on hand either. So I really think this technique of expressing a word you want to say, but don’t know, through other words you already know can be really helpful.

Of course this means that you’ll probably sound a bit less eloquent than if you actually knew the word you wanted to use. And it can feel kind of frustrating that you aren’t able to express yourself properly. Like with the nightmare example, saying ‘bad dream’ sounds more like something a kid would say. I guess that’s just one one those frustrating but unavoidable parts of the language learning process.

But anyway, I just wanted to share this little tip with you guys since it’s definitely helped me on my language learning journey. And you’d actually be surprised at how advanced concepts you can actually describe using quite limited vocabulary 🙂

The Joy of Korean TV Programs

When I first embarked on learning Korean, of course one of the first things I did was to try and find some entertainment in Korean that I’d enjoy. Since then there are different comedy and variety shows that I’ve come to really enjoy. To be honest in the beginning I found all the sound effects and the text on the screen that sort of dramatizes people’s reactions and things like that to be a bit odd. But it’s kind of grown on me quite a lot by now and I’ve come to appreciate a lot of the humor in them and things like that.

But other than being just some good entertainment, I wanted to talk about them i regard to language learning too. Because I think there are a lot of TV programs that are really awesome to use for learning Korean. And here’s why:

1. (Partial) subtitles

   Out of the shows I’ve watched so far only a couple didn’t have subtitles. Some have almost full subtitles and others just have subtitles that shortly summarize what’s being said. So you can read along while listening so you can connect the written words with what’s being said. It also makes it much, much easier to look up words that you don’t know because you can see the spelling. So it’s also really good for learning new vocabulary.
   There is usually also often a lot of words of the screen of whatever emotion the person on the screen seems to be feeling. So you can also see how the feeling of being in a particular situation, would be described in Korean.

2. Natural language

   These sorts of shows are mostly unscripted and it’s just people speaking together more or less how they normally would. As opposed to for example movies and dramas. In those it’s really just written Korean being said aloud. And from what I’ve read there’s a big-ish gap between written and spoken Korean (compared to certain other languages at least).
   And I don’t mean by this that people shouldn’t watch dramas and movies. Of course not. I’m totally an advocate of exposing yourself to various ‘types’ of languages within a given language (i.e. also learning older Korean, more academic Korean etc.) But if you want to learn things that you can use right away, these sorts of shows are really good for that.

3. Current expressions and slang

   I guess this point ties into the former somewhat, but I just want to elaborate a bit on a couple of things. The expressions, words and slang that are being used in these shows are going to be things that generally people use right now. These are the sorts of things that perhaps you can’t always learn as easily if you aren’t living in Korea (which I’m not). So I think variety shows and the like are also really awesome for that.

Staying Motivated in Language Learning

I’ve met a number of people who have attempted to learn a foreign language, only to give up on it fairly quickly. Of course it might just be that people lose interest in whatever language they were trying to learn which is fair enough. But I also think there are a good number of people who quit language learning due to lack of motivation or feeling like it’ll be impossible.

Personally I feel like the biggest reason why people might feel unmotivated in language learning is unrealistic expectations. For example if you think you’re going to be fluent in just a year (or a few months even) only spending a couple of hours a week, then you might find yourself being quite disappointed and thus not feel very motivated to continue learning (note that I’m here talking specifically about learning languages that aren’t closely related to other languages you already know).

So that’d probably be my no. 1 tip: Don’t have too high expectations of yourself. Sure, have high expectations about how much time you spend, but maybe not too much about how much of the language you actually know. Because learning a foreign language just does take a long time. I honestly don’t think learning a new language is particularly difficult. At least not in terms of level of the difficulty of the individual actions that you need to take.

It’s not that difficult, but it just takes a long time. Which is also why I think it’s really important to work with materials that you personally find interesting. If you have something to read and listen to that you find really interesting, of course you’ll want to spend the time to try and understand it. Especially in the beginning that might be quite difficult to find, since you won’t be able to understand content meant for native speakers. But as soon as you can, as soon as you’re able to, find something to study with that you find interesting.

The third thing I want to touch on is the notion that it’s impossible (or nearly impossible) to learn a new language. Because it really isn’t. If you’ve never personally had the experience of getting to a high level in a foreign language, then it might be a bit difficult to have the confidence that you’ll one day be able to speak your target language really well. But you will and it totally is possible.

Anyway, that’s just my 2 cents on the matter. Some people might think differently, but I think this sort of mindset has helped me a lot to be excited about studying and continuing to study Korean ^_^ Happy learning everyone!

Venturing into Dramaland and Korean Update

So, I know that watching K-Dramas is quite popular in general, not just for people studying Korean. But for whatever reason I just never really got that into them. I guess I don’t tend to watch a whole lot of TV-shows in general. But! I actually started watching a drama just now recently. As I’ve mentioned before on the blog I really like to read online 만화 (or 웹툰 as they’re usually called), so when I found out that there was this 만화 that had been made into a drama, I thought it might be fun to try and read/watch them alongside each other.

So for the last while I’ve been reading and watching Cheese in the Trap (치즈인더트랩 in Korean). I’m quite liking it so far. I think there’s a decent amount of overlap in the vocabulary used in both the 만화 and the drama which is quite nice. The 만화 is a bit more slow-paced though, so I’m a bit farther into the drama.

As I’ve been talking about before, when I listen to podcasts I often listen to the same episode over and over again. So that all the new vocabulary and expressions get better stuck in my head. I’ve actually been doing a similar thing with this drama. Since I don’t necessarily always have the time to sit and watch the same drama episode over and over again, and since I also like to just listen to things passively as well (not something I count as study time, but still something I like to do), I’ve actually been listening to just the sound of the episodes. So I’ve got mp3’s of the episodes on my phone so I can just listen to them whenever I have some time.

So using this 만화, drama and drama sound files has been my main studying recently. That alongside learning and reviewing grammar. I posted my study plans in a blog post a few weeks back, talking about how much I wanted to get done etc. But actually compared to what I had initially planned, I’ve been doing quite a bit more.  Since I started school I’ve been doing at least 3 hours of Korean a day on average, which I’m quite happy with! One of the courses I’m taking this semester is pretty easy, so I have a bit more breathing space in my schedule than I usually have. So of course I have to take advantage of that to get some language learning done 😉

Talk to Me in Korean Iyagi podcasts

I’ve mentioned this Iyagi podcast in a few blog posts already, but I really like them so much that I feel like they deserve their own blog post. They’ve been one of my main study materials for the last three months or so. Before I started using these I really struggled to find anything that I both 1. found interesting and 2. was mostly comprehensible.

Basically they’re 5-15 minute (usually about 10 minutes) podcasts about various topics. So you can just sort of pick and choose which episodes you want to listen to depending on what topics interest you. But in general it’s just topics that could come up in daily conversation. Sometimes when using reading or listening materials that are specifically targeted at Korean learners, the language will be adjusted in a way that it would be easier to understand for a non-Korean speaker, but they will sound a bit unnatural. But from what I’ve heard about this particular resource, that isn’t the case. It is actually natural-sounding sentences being used. The speech is, however, somewhat slowed down, compared to how a native speaker would speak to other native speakers.

So, here’s the way I study using these podcasts. First I read the transcript and look up any words and/or expressions that I don’t already know (and add them to Memrise). Then I’ll listen to it a few times. Usually I’ll listen to it 5-7 times right after reading it. I like to listen to podcasts while doing other things that don’t really require any particular brain power. Like doing dishes, drawing, cleaning or working out. After that, whenever I have time I’ll go back and just listen to episodes. Both ones that I’ve read recently and ones that I’ve read a long time ago.

Since I choose to just listen to episodes about topics that I’m interested in, I really don’t mind listening to the same episode over and over again. I just thought I’d talk about this podcast since it has really motivated me to get a lot more listening practice done. So if you’re sort of high beginner/low intermediate or above I’d definitely recommend checking it out (although if you’re very advanced they might not be that interesting/challenging enough).

Just a little side note – when I had to write ‘iyagi’ or when I have to write another Korean word romanized, I always have to really focus to not just hit the keys that I would when writing the word in 한글. Because I’m so used to writing these words in Korean and it’s become such a habit that it feels unnatural to not write them in 한글. Such a creature of habit, haha.

My favourite free, online resources for learning Korean

I’ve compiled a small list of some of my favourite online, free resources for learning Korean. I haven’t included any grammar sites as I find using a variety of different sources for studying grammar to be the best. Anyway, here’s the list:

Naver 사전
This is probably quite commonly known among learners of Korean, but I know that I went a couple of months of learning Korean before I discovered Naver and thus also Naver dictionary. The example sentences on there are really helpful to get a better understanding of a new word. On a sidenote: just be a bit vary of the user-submitted examples and their thumbs up/down ratio. Some of those don’t really make much sense. Personally I actually almost exclusively use the non-usersubmitted examples. ¨
Also, when you look up a particular word sometimes you’ll also be given sentences structures or fixed expressions in which that word is used.

Hanja dictionary
This site is absolutely brilliant for helping you remember words as well as learning new ones. As you might know most words in Korean are based on Chinese characters. On this site you can find which Chinese roots a particular Korean word is made up of and find other words that contain those particular roots. You can’t find every word on there of course as some Korean words are native Korean words and some are foreign words from e.g. English or Japanese. I found out about this site from Motivate Korean on YouTube. They’ve got some good videos on their channel on how to use this site (it’s not the most intuitive site in the world), so I’d definitely recommend checking out those videos 🙂

Forvo pronunciation dictionary
This particular site can really be used for almost any language, Korean too. It’s basically a site where you can look up almost any word and hear how native speakers would prounce it. As Korean sometimes have some not-so-obvious pronounciation patterns, I’ve found this site quite helpful whenever I forget a particular pronounciation pattern.

Memrise / Anki
I know that there are different sites like this where you can make your own set of flashcards to review particular words and/or expressions that you want to rememeber. This is just my SRS-tool of choice. I know some people also really enjoy using Anki as it’s a bit more customizable than Memrise is. So that could be worth checking out as well.

Talk To Me In Korean ‘Iyagi’ podcasts
These podcasts have helped my listening comprehension so, so much. They’re basically relatively short 10 minute or so podcasts on a variety of subjects. Until I came across these I honestly struggled to get much listening practice done. I couldn’t find anything where I knew enough of the vocabulary used that I could actually follow what was going on where the content was also interesting. So generally most of the vocabulary is not too advanced and if there are some more advanced words in there they’ll sometimes explain those words (in Korean). The topics covered are generally also quite interesting so I usually really enjoy listening to them. You can also find transcripts of the podcasts on their website so you can look up any words or grammar that you might not know already.