kangmi: learning korean

Language study update

Self-study is a lonely business. From time to time I’ll need to write about what I’m studying. Thank you for your patience, as well as your encouragement.

From the top…

let’s speak korean
I’m up to lesson 59 in Arirang’s Let’s Speak Korean. Today’s lesson, 제주도에 가 본 적이 있어?, reminded me of my trips up 한라산.

The first was in the spring of 1989 and I was younger. My youthful body, however, was no match for our group’s lack of planning. We brought no water or food with us, thinking it would be a quick trip up and down. Heh.

Korean mountains aren’t the Rockies or the Himalayas, but they’re nothing to sneeze at if you have only willpower to keep you going. I ate snow while every muscle in my body screamed back at me, all 1,950 meters up to the top.

It’s a testimony to the natural beauty of 한라산 that I still think of that climb as Tolkienesque (a word I use to describe the changing scenery of 한라산 as I climbed to the top. It also denotes the physical and mental difficulties of that climb in the company of friends). Sometimes the trail was swept, barren, and rocky; sometimes it was surrounded by thick stands of unfamiliar trees and other plants. Around each curve and over each rise, there was always more of that endless trail.

Only six of our thirteen group members made it to the top. Someone took pity on us and gave us some hard-boiled eggs. That helped, but it wasn’t protein we needed. It took every ounce of mental strength I possessed to put one foot in front of the other. While going up a mountain can be hard, going down is no picnic.

It was the little hut on the way down (now replaced by a large service area allowing the mountain-climbing hordes to picnic) that was our salvation. I’ve had better coffee since, and the crackers weren’t my first choice, but they did the trick. I could have climbed it all over again that day.

I watch one program 10-30 times in a day. If I’m ambitious, I do two. For handwriting and spelling practice, I copy the dialogues in each lesson three times by hand.

한국어로 말합시다
I like this program. I like the hosts. Listening to the students is entertaining. I watch the skits with keen interest. And I get the quiz answer right every day, even though I understand hardly anything anyone says.

That’s because all you have to do is pick the pattern introduced that day. It’s never the other answer.

It’s been a great stretch for me, because when I later study one of those patterns, it starts to make sense. For me, it’s the closest thing I have right now to hanging out with some Korean folks. And some days I actually learn something.

I watch one program two times in a day.

korean through english book 2
It took me a couple of days before I realized that there was no translation for the dialogues in book 2. And it took me a couple more days to discover that the dialogue translations were in the back of the book. I’m considering it too much trouble to look up the translations, because with a little study, they’re really not necessary.

My goal is to master one lesson a week. I copy the dialogue from each lesson once a day by hand.

korean studies at sogang novice korean I
What I am doing regularly is really all I can do right now. But I am setting myself the goal of mastering the ten lessons of the Novice Korean I level this year.

Posted by kangmi on April 7, 2004 at 6:12 PM8 comments