What I am going to do is wrap up kangmi with some parting words on the best way I know how to learn a language--any language. Back a ways, I started studying Korean with a local friend--this was during a period when I focused on my Korean learning and didn’t blog about it at all. At the same time, I’d been reading Steve Kaufmann’s The Linguist on Language blog. He also has a language-learning site called Lingq. At the time, Korean was not one of the languages offered, so in conjunction with my tutor we came up with a plan. Namseok recorded books. I took the recordings and broke them up into smaller bites, maybe 30-60 seconds each. I studied the vocabulary on my own, repeatedly listened to the clips, and worked out my questions with Namseok.

It was work, and most of the work was mine. At the time I had a 60-minute round-trip commute, so I had plenty of time to listen to the audio. I found that within a short time my comprehension went way up, far beyond anything I’d achieved before. Had I continued, I expect that I would have continued to make progress.

But then life got in the way, and I haven’t picked it up since. And it seems likely I won’t pick it up again in the forseeable future. It was time to say good-bye a long time ago.

Still, I felt a pang when Lingq added Korean to its lineup earlier this year, but it passed quickly. However, I highly recommend Lingq and its methods. Listen a lot, read a lot. Repeat.

You’ve been a great audience, and I’ve made some life-changing friendships because of this blog.

The blog itself won’t immediately disappear, but eventually it will. Unless I have something else to say, this is the last thing you’ll see from me in your feed reader. You may, however, find more me here.

Memo to any student making a raid on the culture of another language: essays are always the easiest way in.

Clive James, Cultural Amnesia: Necessary Memories from History and the Arts, page 13

Whew. Nothing blew up, nothing fell apart.

I’ve reconnected with Namseok, my tutor, and I’ve got a plan.

More details shortly.

Got a new resource to add? Go right ahead. Want to annotate resources already listed? We’d love to have your comments. (Register if you’d like to join the party.) What are wikis for? 

Will have more shortly.

New Korean language learning blogs

Two new blogs have joined the learning Korean circuit. Let’s Learn and Practice Korean is written by Hye-Young. While it’s questionable that learners need yet another site on which to learn how to read hanguel, her site tipped me off to The National Association of the Korean Language’s 바른소리 (not Firefox friendly, and full of ActiveX badness). Except for the IE part, it’s a step above the others, with videos of Korean speakers so that you can see as well as hear the sounds of the alphabet.

Hye-Young’s also recorded some content on YouTube. She’s just getting started, and I’m looking forward to what she’ll offer next.

It’s not just Korea that’s sparkling these days. Korean is, too, at Sparkling Korean. Geeone’s got six episodes up already, the last two on drinking in Korea, which means he’s gotten further than the usual beginner fare. The English accent gives his recordings a different (at least for me) flavor.

Here’s hoping that both Hye-Young and Geeone can keep up the pace.

On the technical front

This is a bit old, but I’m indebted to Daehee for tipping me off to Wonseok Chae’s Javascript program that converts English characters to Korean. If you’re stuck somewhere without a way to type Korean, this is a good alternative (as long as you cam remember the keyboard layout).

Antti highlighted links to fonts released by Hankyoreh and Chosun Ilbo.

Lifehacker recently featured ProVoc, a Mac-only vocabulary learning program. ProVoc supports Korean, and there are user-contributed downloads available (where I was pleasantly surprised to see the name of an old Korea friend).

You, the student

Learning Korean has been called “the long journey. Equinox traveled from Singapore recently spent three weeks in Korea at Kyunghee University’s spring intensive Korean language program. Not as far as I would have to travel, but nothing to sneeze at.

Amanda’s posted quite a bit about her Korean language learning. She hasn’t let the recent loss of her job or her apartment hold her back, either. And she’s not shy about sharing her mistakes:

YJ: I understand every part of this letter. There are not too many mistakes.

Me: Good.

YJ: But you just called your brother gay.

Presumably he’s not.

I’ve waited until now to read the comments at Suddenly Susan’s Queer as Pork, as I wanted to see if I could guess all the hangulizations on my own (I couldn’t). It’s a reminder that learning Korean sometimes means learning English, in a different way.

And that’s it for this first edition of the Festival of Learning Korean. I’d be thrilled if one of my readers would like to host next month’s edition. if you’re interested. You don’t have to be a Korean language learning blogger, but you should have an interest in the Korean language.

The first Festival of Learning Korean will be posted here on May 1. While I’ve been collecting posts of interest, click here to submit something of your own.

I’d love to see someone else host the next festival. if you’re interested.

If you’re already a member, you should be able to jump right in and work with the wiki. if you can’t.

If you’re not a member and want to participate in the wiki, sign up now.

The categorization (there’s a better word, but I can’t think of it right now) will remain the same, but I’m open to a better way.

And if you’ve got usability suggestions for the new site, send me a note. The good news is that I won’t be doing any of the work, so it won’t interfere with any of the Korean study time I will soon have.