Comprehension, challenges, misc notes:
I’ve now covered all of the vocabulary in my できる韓国語 resource! It was a massive undertaking that required about 5 months of consistent review and memorization, but I feel very accomplished and all the new vocab I have under my belt has increased my comprehension drastically over the last weeks.
As I will theoretically be taking the TOPIK 7 weeks from now, I will be deprioritizing active vocabulary study and pivot to doing more reading immersion to hopefully move a lot of the words I’ve learned to my long-term memory. Listening remains high priority and I am well overdue to start taking writing practice more seriously, so I will be focused on both of those while working through previous TOPIK exam questions.
Sharing the goals from when I started this log just to take stock of my progress:
Take the TOPIK in October (and hopefully get 6급 )
Finish the vocabulary textbook できる韓国語韓国語能力試験 必須単語集 (DONE 2400/2400)
Get to 300 hours of listening (272/300 done)
Read 30 newspaper articles (3/30 done)
Finish the textbook TOPIK 합격 레시피 (19/26 sections done)
Write 30 practice essays for the TOPIK (6/30 done)
Discovery of the day:
간을 보다 - to taste something while cooking to see if it needs further seasoning (seems to refer to the level of salt in a lot of cases - I notice Koreans are paying more attention to if food is 짜다/싱겁다 than I would, and have encountered people asking others if they prefer their food on the salty side or not in media )
Comprehension, challenges, misc notes:
I hit a major breakthrough today with listening comprehension! I previously struggled with the listening questions in 토픽 합격 레시피 but today I got all(!) of them correct and it even felt like they were speaking slowly. My listening push from the last weeks is working!
In other news I’m finally done with 신성한, 이혼 S1 | L30! I found it a little bit boring so I’m looking forward to moving onto something else.
Discovery of the day:
Not related to Korean at all but I read this news article today about giant panda conservation and found out that pandas in zoos around the world are “rented” out. A panda “costs” 1 million USD and if it dies while under the care of the zoo, they need to pay a fine as compensation, with all the money going to a panda conservation fund. Any pandas born abroad also need to be sent back to China when they reach sexual maturity at age 4. Pandas form groups to look for mates and reproduce, which is difficult for them to do at a zoo, hence why they are sent back to have the highest chance of having offspring and growing their population.
멸종위기종 보전 → endangered species conservation
It’s funny you mention this, I just found out about it a few weeks ago when I was reading https://learnnatively.com/book/8dfe6b5f74/… The thought of these poor pandas being shipped around the world for selfish human reasons is so sad.
푸바오! This article was actually about 푸바오 since he/she will turn 4 and need to be sent back to China soon. It is nice that such efforts are made to conserve the species and that pandas like 푸바오 have the chance to mate naturally in the wild but I also have mixed feelings upon learning how that all works.
I must say that 푸바오 is exceptionally good looking for a panda, though.
Comprehension, challenges, misc notes:
A chill study day with just a bit of reading + a short article. I think I may be coming down with a cold or something so I didn’t have the energy to really do a lot today.
Discovery of the day:
디디다 → tread
디딤돌 → stepping stone!
헛발을 디디다 → to make a false step
It’s interesting how many different words 헛 shows up in!
Comprehension, challenges, misc notes:
I’m suffering with a slight summer cold but I weirdly got a lot of Korean time in throughout the day. I keep encountering a lot of the vocabulary I memorized from my vocab book while immersion and doing TOPIK practice which is so satisfying! There’s nothing better than the dopamine hit you get when you feel vocab slide into your long-term memory. It’s like a drug for language learners.
I haven’t had many challenges to report lately since it feels like things are really starting to come together for me on the reading/listening side but I’m planning to start writing practice soon and that will bring some difficulties for sure…
Discovery of the day:
I encountered the world 배설물 (excrement ) independently in three different places today so I think I’ve definitely learned it now.
Comprehension, challenges, misc notes:
The article I read today had a lot of population statistics, percentages and large numbers so I read it out loud to practice numbers. I’ve never bothered to formally learn numbers since I started studying Korean and have relied on picking them up through exposure, which has been kind of hit or miss (like… I kiiiiind of know them but…). If I hear a number my brain freezes up and doesn’t process what I heard or if I read it my brain wants to default to English. Taking a moment to actively practice them like I did today ended up being a great exercise, especially for tricky things like:
33~34만 - how do you pronounce the ~? It’s 에서
0.6 - how do you pronounce this? With sound changes it’s 영쩜육
I discovered if you put large numbers into Papago, not only can you hear the TTS read it out loud but it also shows the word with sound changes in romanization, which, while romanization is kinda yucky, is a helpful little aid.
Will keep 열심히 practicing numbers when I come across them! I don’t know about the rest of you but numbers are one of the most difficult things to learn imo.
Discovery of the day:
The article I read today had many fabulous phrases for describing statistics, so I saved all of them for use later! There is one TOPIK question where you need to describe a graph or chart and they’ll be perfect + aren’t ones I’ve come across in standard study materials for writing.
Some of the good ones:
하락세를 보이다 - show a decline
웃돌다 - to exceed
감소세 - be on the decline
하락 추세가 이어지고 있다 - declining trend continues
Comprehension, challenges, misc notes:
I felt really under the weather today so it was a good chance to get some chill immersion in while resting.
I’m really enjoying both 나의 아저씨 and 마당이 있는 집 and am finding them to be at a great level for me. I can understand most of what’s going on but there are a few words here and there I need to look up and understand so there’s still some learning going on.
Discovery of the day:
감기몸살 약 - cold medicine
One fitting for today
Comprehension, challenges, misc notes:
Illness got the better of me and I ended up taking a few days off to rest. I’m luckily starting to feel a lot better now (finally) but still wanted to take things a bit easy so I just watched some drama episodes today to at least make some contact with Korean again. After periods when I get sick or am just too busy to do anything language related, I always feel tempted to take a longer break from Korean since it’s technically not my main target language (this statement is kind of funny considering the amount of time I put into it but Japanese will always be number one in my heart lol), but I know I’d regret that later with the TOPIK being so close so I’ll take it easy and just do what I can. Anyone else ever have that with their languages?
That’s all for today, I did not make any discoveries while watching 나의 아저씨 since I was just passively listening.
Comprehension, challenges, misc notes:
Today there was less input than usual but there was output! I started out nice and easy with practicing the short essay that shows up as the second type of writing question on the TOPIK. It describes an issue and then gives you reasons for it, and then you can essentially write those reasons verbatim from the prompt. The key part being tested is summarizing info and using logical connection words well.
My approach is to try and create my own formula for this question that can be reused with many different prompts. So far I’ve put this wrote outline together:
Intro:
First sentence: restate prompt
Second sentence: concise summary + ~는 이유는 다음과 같다 → lead into listing of reasons
Second paragraph:
Reason 1: introduce with 우선
Reason 2: noun/verb + 도, verb explaining that point with 고 있다 (이어지고 있다, 부추기고 있다, 불러일으키고 있다)
Reason 3: introduce with 게다가
Outro:
이 결과 ~ + results from prompt
Maybe you’re thinking, “So that’s just a bunch of memorizing, that doesn’t really improve your Korean?!”
Well, I would say yes and no. Creating my own formula to gain points on a test goes against the intuitive type of language mastery that a lot of immersion learners are interested in. But, I think shining a spotlight on and doing some conscious learning of vocab + sentence structures to help me express ideas logically absolutely can’t hurt at all. The more advanced you get, it’s often the small topics like this where gaps in your knowledge can appear. And, from my experience with my other advanced languages, those gaps don’t always fill themselves in on their own just through immersion. So, I’m welcoming the chance to mindfully study connectors and how to write a logical essay right now.
Discovery of the day:
부추기다 - to stoke, to encourage
Example:
경쟁의식을 부추기다 - to stoke [someone’s] sense of competition
Comprehension, challenges, misc notes:
I had a 회식 with colleagues after work today so I didn’t get to do any studies this evening. But I was still able to put my morning to good use and get some Korean time in.
My tip: I always do listening in the morning when I get ready for work on weekdays and it’s such a reliable way to get hours in since it’s easy to fit into my routine!
Discovery of the day:
When reporting or quoting speech in the news, I discovered just 며 can be used on its own in addition to 이라며 between quotes to link them together while still breaking them up.
Comprehension, challenges, misc notes:
The article today I read was about an ongoing trial in military court and my comprehension was very low. I’m seeing a lot of the same verbs show up in news articles and I’m starting to get a grasp on and feel comfortable with the most frequent ones, but the amount of nouns related to the military tripped me up. It’s alright though, the news is full of very high level or domain specific vocabulary anyways! I’m just enjoying getting a glimpse into what’s going on in Korea from an inside point of view.
Discovery of the day:
While reading 책벌레의 하극상 제1부 - 병사의 딸 1 | L30, I came across the word “홑이불” (bedsheets) and had to pause for a moment to think about how to pronounce it. Trusty Naver said that it’s pronounced [혼니불] which made something click for me! :
꽃잎 and 찻잎 are also pronounced with ㄴ as the 받침 and if I’m not mistaken there appears to be a pattern of compound words where the second part begins with 이 inserting ㄴ as the 받침. This is unverified info from my own brain but I’m going to keep an eye out for more words following this pattern (or not) from now on to put it to the test (or I could like, google it, but you know…).
I haven’t explicitly learned a lot of 받침 rules because 1) there are too many and 2) they’re the type of thing that’s just difficult to outright memorize and are better learned intuitively, so finds like this that expand my knowledge organically are exciting haha!
ooh, something I can contribute to! Yes that’s right. Also applies for ‘y’ vowels too… like 여 and 야. And I learned it as inserting as both 받침 and the start of the next word… 찻잎 → 찬닢… but not an exact science i don’t think.
There actually aren’t that many of them (maybe 10?), but they are confusing. However, when romanizing korean names, they follow these sorts of exceptions so you see them a lot living here (선릉역 = Seolleung Station). One day I decided to just learn them all!
Anectode of 받침 shenanigans
Recently, I said ‘seolleung-yeok’ to a cab driver and he had trouble understanding me… so he said ‘seonleung-yeok?’ really emphasizing the ‘n’. I said yes of course, but followed up asking him isn’t it ‘seolleung’, but he assured me it was seonleung. Asked my teacher about it later and she confirmed that it’s quite wishy-washy and even though the Korean gov’t follows a standard, some words seem to follow closer to the exception standards than others. 선릉역 is probably a bit more acceptable with an ‘n’ sound… whereas something like 신라 is very much a double ‘ll’.
So, moral of the story is to not take the exceptions rules too seriously… koreans are confused on it too !
Are there really so few? All the crazy exceptions make them feel like way more! Living in Korea is a huge boost for listening and speaking I bet (and stressful at the same time when it comes to talking to old taxi drivers )
Well, beyond your basic 받침 rules, yeah I only count around 14 rules in my anki pronunciation deck (has about 42 cards). I haven’t come across any pronunciation confusion since I finished this deck, so don’t think there are any more!
I do think it’s worthwhile to learn, it’s pretty easy. I just shared my deck if you want to check it out… but have to wait 24 hours (ankiweb requires a 24 hour wait).
It’s really what you make of it! After you reach a basic competency (pretty low), you can live here quite comfortably without Korean. Granted, it’s a limited experience mostly in the expat community, but Korean is hard enough many people end up there. Hoping I won’t be one of them though!
I’m sure you won’t be at all! You seem like you’re making fantastic progress and are dedicated!
I actually live in the country where one of my other languages (that isn’t on natively…yet ) is spoken and totally know what you mean, since I see a lot of other expats around me who haven’t mastered the language after years here. And it is nowhere near as “hard” as Korean! A lot of dedication is required if you want to get anywhere and priorities also come into play.
Thanks for sharing your anki deck! I’ll have to look into that to see what insights I can gain!
)
Finish the vocabulary textbook できる韓国語韓国語能力試験 必須単語集 (DONE 2400/2400)
(seems to refer to the level of salt in a lot of cases - I notice Koreans are paying more attention to if food is 짜다/싱겁다 than I would, and have encountered people asking others if they prefer their food on the salty side or not in media 
)
But I was still able to put my morning to good use and get some Korean time in.
It’s alright though, the news is full of very high level or domain specific vocabulary anyways! I’m just enjoying getting a glimpse into what’s going on in Korea from an inside point of view.
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