Day 26

The last week I have been unable to study much Korean (basically no SRS or new sentences) because I was preparing to take a trip. However, I was able to practice lots of Korean at work, and hang out with Korean friends Sunday. Monday night and Tuesday night I slept at my homestay house, and that also gave me practice listening and speaking. In the last few days of this week I watched the first part of the recent drama 찬란한 유산.

During my trip to other parts of Asia I’ll not have as much time to study. . . so I’m somewhat modifying my goals for this month and then start regular language learning when I get back in late August.

Goals for this Month (July 17 – August 18)

Memorize 1000 Hanja with Remembering The Traditional Hanzi

Read 가시고기 & 아홉살 인생.

I have loads of Korean audio on my mp3 player and there should be lots of time waiting or on buses and trains. . . I plan to make the most of all that time and get loads of listening by having my earphones plugged in whenever I can.

The Hanja goal is basically 900 new Hanja as I know the first hundred already. As I won’t have access to computers too often (so hence will not be logging every day of this trip) I’ll use flashcards. . . I brought five hundred and will be cutting each into four squares to make small cards that hopefully I can use easily for review.

Progress So Far

till pg. 32 of 아홉살 인생

Day 17

Inputted Sentences: 118 (including example sentences from 101 Korean Audio Blog S3 — Episodes 9-13)

Day 16

Victory calendar for today — each square represents 100 sentences inputted.

Anki: 505 reps, 1 hr (included 100 new reps).

Inputted Sentences: 54 (mainly from 외국인을 위한 한국어 복합동사 (Korean Compound Verbs for Foreign Speakers))

I also read a news article about the situation in China and highlighted unknown words so I can look them up and put them in my SRS.

Day 15

Inputted in 41 sentences connected to words found in the Seoul bookstore article I read yesterday.

In an effort to have as much as possible 24hr Korean input, I bought a small radio yesterday and had it playing all night. . . the result I had people speaking a tremendous amount of Korean in my dreams.

Favorite phrase of today: 말귀 꽤 못알아듣네? Why don’t you get it?

Day 14

I read two articles today (an article on 난 너하고는 달라 and one over at Korean {as it is} on Seoul Selection), reading to understanding the meaning, but marking the words I didn’t know with a highlighter. I mistakenly highlighted a few words I realized on a second reading I had learned, but nevertheless I got 47 words from the Korean {as it is} article and 109 from the book review/article.

I found it interesting that although the articles were both around the same length, the book review generated twice as many words. It’s similar situation to what I’ve found often recently. . . sometimes I can understand things very well, other genres there are loads of words I have no idea about. I need to read a lot more from a variety of sources, and really increase my vocabulary.

Day 13

I finished 난 너하고는 달라 by 김자환, reading pg. 128-223 today. It’s about a 4학년 4반 (fourth grade, fourth class) girl and the adventures she has at home and school. . . and particularly her relationships with her father, mother and homeroom teacher. I really enjoyed the book although altogether its very sad. There are tons of words in the book that I don’t know, so I think I’ll mine the book for the next few days, and perhaps look in the library if there are any other books by the same author.

I inputted a 100 words today, partly from Survival Korean Vocabulary and partly using words from 난 너하고는 달라 (and finding the sentences in the dictionary).

Day 12

July 1st (Day 9) I input 55 sentences, but on days 10-11 I didn’t input any sentences. I need to work on consistency. Also these days even when I put in sentences I don’t do any reps.

Today I had four hours of language sessions with two different conversation partners. Lots of practice speaking and listening but I want to learn at least 7 new words per hour (so 28 words in the two sessions together), and I don’t think I quite made it. In my last session we watched Mr. Bean at the hospital and recorded my helper retelling the story for four minutes. I’m finding this way very helpful way to get more natural speech to listen too.

I inputted 41 sentences, mainly getting words from a book I’m reading and a newspaper article about North Korea’s missile test.

Journal Entries for July: 1
Total Sentences for July: 96