SRS

Not doing very well in my sentence count. Everything I put in helps a lot, but I wish I could put so so much more.

I have to type more sentences daily into my SRS. Mine other areas besides dictionary. I should finish the Adjectives tomorrow and Monday start working heavily on the Survival Vocabulary book putting in sentences for words I don’t know or I don’t feel as comfortable with. I should start adding sentences from books and comics and drama scripts as well. Big question these days, if I stay here another year, how can I dramatically increase my Korean during that time — where is the best place to live, etc. If I stay here another year I want to be really good by the time I leave. Also how can I practice speaking and listening to more Korean in real situations?

I should also keep using the Compound verb book and finish that as soon as possible as well. Other places to mine sentences from are 101 Korean class and definitely Using Korean. My grammar books can also prove to be a rich source. . . but it will be good and fun to start mining from authentic material.

Onward ho!

These days I’m disappointed because I can’t seem to get as much studying as I scheduled. I’m reading a lot of odds and ends which is important for maintaining an immersion environment, but not doing half as many reps or typing in half as many new sentences as I should. This typing in of sentences and doing reps is immensely important, specially because my vocabulary needs to dramatically improve, and there are lots of grammar forms that I need to learn or become more familiar with. I’m keeping a daily log of how much study I do per day. . . that will keep me motivated I think and help me to be more disciplined and reduce time wasters.

It’s useful, very useful to surf the web looking for more resources and information on language learning or other useful motivational material, but it takes time from processing Korean or doing Korean study, which is not good.

Onward ho!

I’ll start trying to put a lot monolingual definitions in my SRS.

Korean comics

I started reading comics in Korean. Quite useful I think for culture, common words and expressions and specially colloquial and conversational Korean. One cool thing is that a lot of the well known manhwa is available online in English. . . so I don’t even have to look up words individually. . . I can look up the whole sentence on the corresponding page in English.

I went to the library again. Going to the library is a wonderful way to stay motivated with wonderful new reading. I’m so inspired to read Korean when I get a new book, and it doesn’t really make a difference if it’s just a book I buy or pick up from the library.

Getting my bearings

I am feeling rather depressed about my language learning these days. I spend a lot of time on it and a lot of energy and I even see a lot of improvement for a while and then it seems I’m back at the same place again. I need to relax, take a step back, even maybe do something different and get my bearings again.

I don’t know what exactly to do. I obviously am outgunned on the words. Reading has helped a lot but I need to continue working hard on that and have a plan to conquer that side of things.

I also need to write in my diary every day starting from today for a month and then judge my improvement. It gives me a chance to practice self expression and switch the words from passive knowledge to productive knowledge. Because I have an electronic diary I’ll write the first draft on paper and then upload it to lang-8. When it’s corrected I’ll put it on Pimiriya. Every once in a while I’ll print out a nice copy at one of the copy places in school.

101 Korean Class is very good for getting very natural listening input and also lots of common words and phrases that are hard to find other places but are used often. Also very good for really drilling in grammar points. Ripping the audio of Korean dramas is also a very good way to get loads of listening content.

My goals for this month — get 2700 more sentences in Anki and write a journal entry every day. I should also review anki regularly and read regularly.

I typed in 200 more sentences today. Only 500 more to hit this week’s goal! 🙂