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Advancing Korean, Year 5/6: TAC15 東亞 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4633 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes  Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 337 of 344 26 June 2015 at 2:06pm | IP Logged |
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おめでとうございます (congratulations) from a fellow team mate!
I haven't been very active on Team 東亜 this year, but it's always good to see a team mate reach Basic Fluency in their TL. Especially if it's such an exotic (I don't dare to say "difficult") language as Korean! Well done! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 6945 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 338 of 344 02 July 2015 at 2:27pm | IP Logged |
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레나테 씨, 축하합니디!
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| druckfehler Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4657 days ago 1181 posts - 1912 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean Studies: Persian | Message 339 of 344 15 July 2015 at 8:06am | IP Logged |
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Thanks a lot for your comments and congratulations!
2015년 7월 15일 Week 29 Textbook Lessons: 3 GLOSS Lessons: 1 1/2 TV News Items: 10 Written Bits and Pieces: 4 TOPIK (practice) tests: 3 Current Super Challenge Count Books: 51 Movies: 81 At the moment it seems the only thing that keeps me 'working' on Korean is the Super Challenge. Or maybe all the time I have for Korean goes into that. I'm almost done with "Inside Korean". I can say I have learned a lot about 20th century Korean history. Most parts were a bit dry, but still interesting. They managed to put a lot of facts into fairly short texts. I'm in the last chapter "Science, Technology and Industry" now and have read short histories of the construction, shipbuilding and car industries. Sometimes it's quite enlightening. One of my Korean friends told me her dad had worked in the Middle East as a builder and I had had no idea about the context. Turns out Korean companies did a lot of construction projects there in the 70s and 80s, building some of Dubai's famous landmarks, for example. The one section that disappointed me was "Comparison of Eastern and Western Culture". Most of it was just weird. Basic premise: Eastern Culture is vertical (hierarchical), Western culture is horizontal (individual). The author goes on to write that now Korean culture has become diagonal, because of Western influence, but never even says what that might mean in practical terms. Instead he waffles on about string Orchestras, were some bows are held vertically and some horizontally and thus they make harmonious music... Frustrating. I still have a lot of reading to do for the Super Challenge. I have already read most of the Korean books I have, but one long novel, two half-read psychology/buddhist books and one translation of Hermann Hesse's travel diary (Journey to India) are still waiting. Not that those are particularly enticing, to be honest... The film part is going well, though. I'm already at 81... Of course, this part is easier. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| druckfehler Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4657 days ago 1181 posts - 1912 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean Studies: Persian | Message 340 of 344 03 August 2015 at 1:17pm | IP Logged |
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2015년 8월 3일 Week 32
Textbook Lessons: 3 GLOSS Lessons: 1 1/2 TV News Items: 10 Written Bits and Pieces: 4 TOPIK (practice) tests: 3 Current Super Challenge Count Books: 56 Movies: 81 Only 5 months left to complete the Super Challenge. I'll probably have 1 or 2 more drama marathons and watch a few Korean movies and I'm done with that part. Reading is more of a problem. I am consistently reading in Korean, but it doesn't add up to all that much. I'm still reading everything intensively, but nowadays that has become a lot less work. Still, reading about 400 pages per month is a lot for me. I wonder if I can finish the reading part at this pace... I would certainly like to, but I'm noticing that Korean has become less of a priority in my life pretty much since the beginning of the year. I have started reading a collection of short stories by Park Min-Gyu titled 'Castella'. They are pretty surreal - sometimes funny, sometimes shockingly dystopian. All in all it's a good read and quite a challenge because context doesn't always help much... So many details and turning points are completely unexpected. Here's one of his stories translated into English: Castella Edited by druckfehler on 03 August 2015 at 1:21pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| druckfehler Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4657 days ago 1181 posts - 1912 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean Studies: Persian | Message 341 of 344 27 August 2015 at 1:20pm | IP Logged |
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2015년 8월 27일 Week 35
Textbook Lessons: 3 GLOSS Lessons: 1 1/2 TV News Items: 10 Written Bits and Pieces: 4 TOPIK (practice) tests: 3 Current Super Challenge Count Books: 62 Movies: 81 Okay... I finished the psychology book. Now I'm at 62 with the SC book count. I haven't had much listening practice lately and I haven't spoken Korean (except with myself ;)) for almost 10 months, I think. I would love to visit Korea again, I miss it. I even made cucumber Kimchi recently. Making Kimchi is a lot of work, but it helps a bit against "Fernweh" - the longing for far-away places. Edited by druckfehler on 27 August 2015 at 1:21pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| druckfehler Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4657 days ago 1181 posts - 1912 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean Studies: Persian | Message 342 of 344 16 October 2015 at 9:28am | IP Logged |
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2015년 10월 16일 Week 42
Textbook Lessons: 3 GLOSS Lessons: 1 1/2 TV News Items: 10 Written Bits and Pieces: 7 TOPIK (practice) tests: 3 Current Super Challenge Count Books: 81 Movies: 84 I haven't updated for a long time... The forum problems and thoughts whether to move to the new forum have deterred me, but I was also simply busy. I had 2 weeks of holidays in September - my first 2 week holiday since starting to work! It was an amazing feeling, so much better than school or university holidays. Knowing that you don't have any obligations to study and that you are still being paid regularly is great. I got a lot of things done - most of it organizational stuff and continuing to decorate my flat. But the biggest achievement was probably reading a 555 pages thick Korean novel! I usually read intensively, but decided to read this one extensively. Of course I would never have finished it otherwise. Maybe some of the fine points or philosophical passages eluded me, but it felt amazing. I felt that I had almost no problems with understanding and could even appreciate the writing style. So... getting there. I think this is what I felt about English during/after my stay in New Zealand. Of course I can't speak Korean as well as I could speak English then. I started meeting my tandem again. I'm happy to report that we were somehow able to talk about refugees and social welfare and homeless people in Korean without too much problems. But I think what I speak can grammatically hardly be called Korean :D In any case, there have been some positive changes in numbers. I'm now confident that I can finish the reading challenge. I just need to read three more books (I recently ordered new ones) to get to 5000 pages. I have also started to write random diary ramblings in Korean - three times so far. It's a good exercise and makes me think about grammar. Writing is more useful than speaking in that respect. I think I'll move to the new forum starting next year and just continue to post here in the meantime. Edited by druckfehler on 16 October 2015 at 9:29am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| druckfehler Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4657 days ago 1181 posts - 1912 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean Studies: Persian | Message 343 of 344 19 November 2015 at 10:39am | IP Logged |
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2015년 11월 19일 Week 47
Textbook Lessons: 3 GLOSS Lessons: 1 1/2 TV News Items: 10 Written Bits and Pieces: 9 TOPIK (practice) tests: 3 Current Super Challenge Count Books: 86 Movies: 84 We're nearing the end of the year and the end of the Super Language Challenge. To my surprise my book count is now higher than my movie count. I'm in the middle of my second to last book for the year - 엄마를 부탁해. Once I finish this one and the one waiting - 김약국의 딸들 - I will be done with the reading part of the Super Challenge. Nowadays I find reading in Korean absolutely enjoyable. I do use a dictionary again, but intensive reading doesn't feel tedious anymore as I don't need to look up more than 2-3 words per page. I'm also sometimes writing Korean diary entries and meeting my tandem for speaking practice. Even now, speaking regularly feels painful. I may know a lot of words passively, but a lot of them don't come to mind when I need them. I have no idea how to remedy this, though. Really immersing (as in living in Korea) would probably remedy the problem in about half a year to a year, but that is not an option. So in the end I just accept that I can't speak that well... Edited by druckfehler on 19 November 2015 at 10:39am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| druckfehler Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4657 days ago 1181 posts - 1912 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean Studies: Persian | Message 344 of 344 05 January 2016 at 1:44pm | IP Logged |
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2015 TAC-End Reflections
Time for a short overview what I achieved this year: Goal 1: pass TOPIK level 5 or 6 I took TOPIK II (Intermediate/Advanced) in April and passed level 5. I missed level 6 by a few points only. My score was in the 80-90s for reading and listening, only my writing score at around 40 was pretty dysmal. I guess if I had practiced essay writing before the test it may have been a lottle better. The time was too short for me to finish the 2nd, more advanced essay. But also my writing grammar is just not up to par with what they expect from an advanced student. Nevertheless, I'm quite satisfied. Goal 2: Complete the Language Super Challenge I finished the movie requirement (100 x 90 minutes of watching/listening) and almost finished the reading part (missing my goal of 5000 pages in 20 months by about 200 pages). I'm quite satisfied with this was well. It was a big challenge and helped to push my passive Korean skills into advanced territory. I read a lot of different types of books - some young adult literature, some translated novels, some non-fiction, some Korean literature (novels and short-stories). A very varied and interesting reading experience. Some of the highlights were: - Finishing the "Inside Korean" book with essays about history, politics, economics, technology and other aspects of Korean culture. Lots of specialised/academic vocabulary. It got easier while reading and felt like a huge achievement. It's also one of the reasons I'm not confident in calling myself 'fluent'. - Reading varied Korean 'high' literature. From short stories written in a more informal fashion, to a 450 pages novel I finished in a little over a week, to my last book which is full of speech in heavy dialect. Each was a challenge and each added a different facet to my knowledge about Korean and Korea. For a list of books I read see here. I read about 70% while looking up most to all unknown words, so the 4800 pages I read helped immensely and I'm pretty stoked that I read this much despite the dictionary lookups. Conclusion This year I finally added Korean to the languages I 'speak'. I'm also listing it as fluent on my CV (the second highest language designation in German). There is definitely room for improvement as my written grammar and speaking are still shaky, but I feel confident I can use Korean in a professional evironment. Edited by druckfehler on 05 January 2016 at 1:47pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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