I started 초등학생 태오의 영국 생활기 a couple of weeks ago, just dipping into it occasionally. It’s the diary of a 12-year-old Korean boy from the year he lived in the UK back in 2012 - he had the foresight to realise the year would fly by, so he decided to keep a record of it.
It’s been a simple read so far, and his observations about cultural differences are interesting. For example, he is amazed to see that whenever the sun comes out, people are suddenly really happy, wandering around with smiles on their faces (is it because British people so seldom see the sun? he wonders).
I realised that since the diary spans from one summer to the next, I could just read the corresponding day’s diary entry. Let’s see if I can keep it up the whole year.
It’s been about a month since Natively Korean launched and I got back into the language, so I thought I’d do a little progress review. Here’s what I finished in July:
5 textbooks (rereads)
7 graded readers
11 books (mostly children’s)
2 manhwa
1 TV series
2 movies
…and 15 written reviews
I’m pretty happy with that!
I think I might make a tentative weekly reading goal of one book in each category (textbook, graded reader, book, manhwa) and a watching goal of one movie and a few TV episodes. Although I do have some specific goals in mind (such as rereading all my textbooks), I’m more focused on increasing my time spent reading and watching Korean content.
An interesting section regarding 띄어쓰기 from the TTMIK textbook:
빌려 주다 vs. 빌려주다
빌리다 = to borrow
빌려 주다 = to borrow something (from someone else) for someone
빌려주다 = to lend something to someone
Which reminded me that there’s this section in Naver’s dictionary, which is pretty useful. It also includes a link to the 한글 맞춤법 (Rules of Korean Orthography), and wow did I have fun perusing the 국립국어원 (National Institute of Korean Language) website. There’s an English version of the site (toggle top right), but there’s nowhere near as much information as the Korean one.
There’s an interactive 지역어 지도 (dialect map) which shows the different pronunciations of common words by region. Wanna learn about 점자 (braille)? There’s even a 한국수어사전 (Korean Sign Language Dictionary) with videos, and if you hover over links there are gifs of someone SIGNING THE LINK TITLES!
I’ve been reading and watching a lot of children’s content recently. I guess as I’ve been trying to increase my time spent with Korean, my brain is rebelling. Fine, you can enjoy more Korean, but it has to be easy!
I’ve started the first Semantic Error book now that I’ve watched the TV series, and I’m really enjoying it. I’ve read the webtoon adaptation in English, and no doubt will get around to the Korean version at some point. Apparently I can’t get enough of the story!
Something I’d wanted to know for ages is how to type 한자. I finally googled to find an answer, which took all of a couple of seconds to accomplish (don’t know why I didn’t do it before tbh). After typing a syllable, while it is still selected/unfinished, press the right-hand Ctrl key to bring up the relevant choices. Apparently Korean keyboards have the key labelled 한자.
I’ve been using the 인명용 한자사전 (hanja name dictionary) to look up character names (when 한자 is provided) as I come across them. If the writer has gone to the trouble of picking 한자, the name usually has meaning relating to the character’s personality.
Since I’ve been more interested in 한자 recently, I’ve been keeping an eye out for them in the media I’m consuming. The manga I’m currently reading includes the the 한자 in the cover:
The ’전’(展) is short for ‘전람회’ (展覽會). I guess in this situation, the 한자 is used because:
it’s a formal event
it’s briefer than the 한글 word while conveying the same information which wouldn’t be apparent from ‘전’ alone
it fits the design layout better to use one character
I read a chapter of 비천무 (飛天舞), which had 한자 on almost every page. It’s set in 14th century 원나라, presumably 고려 (present-day Korea); the historical setting makes it unsurprising that there’s a lot of 한자 used.
飛 날 비 (flying) - 天 하늘 천 (sky/heaven) - 舞 춤출 무 (dance)
According to Naver dictionary, 비천(飛天) can also mean “heavenly maid”, and 비천(卑賤) means “humble, lowly”. I suppose it’s a good example of how 한자 can help distinguish the meaning of Sino-Korean words that would be differentiated by tone in Chinese, and also from native Korean words, such as 무, “radish”. Which leads me to this ancient meme of the film poster:
비싼무 = “expensive radish”. The original title could also be translated as “humble radish” (if you forgive the missing “한” to make the adjective). Without the 한자, you might mistake this for a story about a modest vegetable rather than a martial arts epic.
Isn’t language fun?
I’ve made myself a little cheat sheet to remember the 가나다 순서. Useful to know, I just never really bothered about it before.
Also came across the 받침 order, but it follows the consonant order above, so it’s kind of redundant. Guess it’s useful to see the possible combinations, though?
Next up on the “things I should have learned by now” list: when Sino-Korean / native Korean numbers are used… It gets a bit annoying when I’m reading and don’t know how a number should be pronounced in the given context.
I’m giving the https://kimchi-reader.app/ a try with their free trial. I’ve been using it for a few days, and I’m a little conflicted… On one hand, it’s nice being able to see at a glance how much of a text you’d understand, so you can gauge how much effort it might take to read. On the other, the colourful underlines are distracting, and grading words is a bit of a chore.
I’m still trying to work out whether I actually find it useful or if I just like the idea of it.
I’ve started using the Storytel app to listen to audiobooks, which I go into more detail here:
I’ve made a custom audiobooks list for titles that are available to me in book (physical/digital) AND audiobook format, so I can listen and read concurrently.
There are regional restrictions for a lot of Korean sites, as well as other limitations such as lack of payment options, so I have a limited selection of retailers I can purchase from. But since the (e)books and audiobooks aren’t usually available from the same retailer (or if they are, they’re difficult to find google play), I’ve found it useful to keep a list of the titles I’ve come across that have both.
Exploring and curating books seems to be as appealing to me as actually reading them.
A lot of children’s books again this week! I got a bit bored reviewing them since they had a lot of similarities, so the written reviews dwindled as the week progressed. Now there’s at least one (non-textbook/reader) book at every level from 1-16 that has been read, rated, and graded (and some reviewed).
Most of the children’s books I read are in the TOPIK 1-2 range, a handful are at TOPIK 3 level, and I finished the last few volumes of https://learnnatively.com/series/9d731cd4f2/, which is about TOPIK 4. Learned a lot of new vocabulary from the volumes!
I listened to the audiobook of https://learnnatively.com/book/00b0d0466f/ - there isn’t an ebook available, so my listening skills have been put to the test. After a bit of experimenting, I discovered that slowing the audio didn’t improve my understanding at all, but relistening (at a normal speed) did. I found that on the first listen of each chapter, I only got a vague idea of what was happening, and during subsequent listens I was able to pick up more of the details. Even after listening to each chapter 3 times, I still don’t feel I picked up enough to really feel like I’ve “read” it. I might come back to it in a few months to see if I can understand it more easily.
I’ve started reading https://learnnatively.com/book/07fcda2e99/ along with the audiobook, which has been surprisingly enjoyable. I’m not having any problem following the story, but it’s a bit difficult maintaining concentration, so I have to take breaks every 10-15 minutes. It’s not a problem really, I’m just impatient. I’m sure with practice I’ll be able to increase the time I can spend reading in Korean.
Plans
Since I’ve burned through most of my picture books, I’d like to read more advanced children’s books. There are a few series I have my eye on as I have access to both the ebooks and audiobooks:
I’ve ordered a couple of volumes of https://learnnatively.com/series/30b845ffbc/ from https://www.booksonkorea.com/ (haven’t used this site before, so hoping everything goes well ). I read the first 4 volumes when they were published by Tokyopop way back in 2008(!!) and loved them, and I’ve been planning on reading the series in Japanese at some point, so when I saw it has been translated into Korean, I couldn’t resist. Depending on how it goes with the LNBC, I might end up reading them concurrently.
I can’t be the only one who hears his voice when reading 국기, right?
Holy crap bibliothecary; that’s so many books! You know you’ve made it when the links stop auto-formatting…
Out of curiosity, did you have all these children’s books already lined up, waiting to go? Or have you been mostly picking them up since Korean was added to Natively?
Well, seeing as how you’re #2 in contributed books on the Japanese side (just behind drinos) and @bibliothecary easily leads the Korean side, nearly matching your count… I think there’s some facts on this statment! . You both are amazing!
I will note, if you combine @bibliothecary’s Japanese contributions with Korean, they take the lead…
No ridiculously long list this week because I’ve (mostly) been reading my big girl books (and I didn’t want to list every 두루책방 - Free (series) | L0-20 volume ): I’ve made progress with 해리 포터와 마법사의 돌 and 시맨틱 에러 1 , and I’m hoping to finish them this week, which should be manageable at my current pace.
Plans
My only real goal this week is to finish 해리 포터와 마법사의 돌 and 시맨틱 에러 1 before the LN book club starts 책벌레, but I’m sure I’ll squeeze in other reading, too!
I’m curious; you talked about it a bit in your home post, but did you have a similar content-inhalation experience when you were working your way up in Japanese?
Also, I wanted to say I really enjoy reading your reviews. Thank you for writing so many of them! I can experience all this stuff vicariously through my Korean friends.
Yeah, I binge-read most of the tadoku free books along with other graded readers I bought, some manga and a handful of children’s books, although I haven’t spent much time watching tv shows.
Stop, stop. I was at local bookstore the other day and was browsing the language-learning section and saw a Korean graded reader. I picked it up just to flip through it and saw it even included mini-lessons on Hangul and vocab, and though, “wow, this could be a good resource for starting to learn Korean!”, then realized the danger I was in and had to put the book down and back away slowly.
It’s a designed language
Hangul is often touted as one of the world’s most logical writing systems, and with good reason — it was developed with the sole purpose of being easy to learn. Hangul was created in the mid-fifteenth century by King Sejong to combat the problem of illiteracy amongst common people. It’s therefore simple, elegant, and each aspect of it is carefully thought through for maximum efficiency.
It was designed to be easy for everyone
This goes back to the fact that Hangul was made so that less educated people could easily read and write. The writing system therefore has ease of use built into its design. Today, it’s one of the most logical and efficient writing systems in the world.
It’s simple enough for small children
By the time they reach school age, most children can use Hangul fluently. This means that illiteracy is virtually nonexistent in Korea — the government claims that the country has a 99% literacy rate.
The symbols correspond to mouth shapes
The shapes of the symbols in Hangul are based on the physical actions you need to make to produce that sound. This makes them easy to remember! For example, the symbol ㄱ (romanised as ‘g’ or ‘k’) represents the back of the tongue pressed up against the speaker’s soft palate. The symbol ㅁ (‘m’) represents the speaker’s lips pressed together.
The corruption begins, I see… Ah well, I was planning on moving later this year. More space = more room for books and more reason to stray from the JP path of righteousness, perhaps?
Reviewed but not finished (yet)
adult content; not currently on Natively
read along with audiobook
audiobook only
After a bit of experimenting, I discovered that slowing the audio didn’t improve my understanding at all, but relistening (at a normal speed) did. I found that on the first listen of each chapter, I only got a vague idea of what was happening, and during subsequent listens I was able to pick up more of the details. Even after listening to each chapter 3 times, I still don’t feel I picked up enough to really feel like I’ve “read” it. I might come back to it in a few months to see if I can understand it more easily.
). I read the first 4 volumes when they were published by Tokyopop way back in 2008(
!!) and loved them, and I’ve been planning on reading the series in Japanese at some point, so when I saw it has been translated into Korean, I couldn’t resist. Depending on how it goes with the LNBC, I might end up reading them concurrently.
Not even having a Kindle is enough to stop me.
Let me know how the 시맨틱 에러 book is as I’ve been curious about the book version too!
): I’ve made progress with 해리 포터와 마법사의 돌 and 시맨틱 에러 1 
I can experience all this stuff vicariously through my Korean friends.
