Yup!! 
Amazon doesn’t have a presence in Korea, so it isn’t one of their ebook markets. There are some ways to do it that involve sideloading everything but I’ve heard the reading experience is janky and not ideal. I ideally want to be able to pay, download and just go so ill stick to the RIDI app on my iPad since it’s comfortable enough to read with. 
Have contemplated getting an e-ink android tablet or something for reading in Korean but I think it’ll be a while before I pull the trigger on that. And my kindle is actually brand new since I just upgraded a month ago. 
お疲れ様 to the old one!
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My kindle is old (2017) and I only use it for English and Japanese. I recently got a Boox Page for reading in Korean and Mandarin, since I was fed up with my phone, and I highly recommend it! It’s a very smooth reading experience. If you every have any questions, let me know 
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watchparty? 
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Thank you for the recommendation! There are a lot of android based ereaders out there so it’s good to get a personal testimonial like this for one of them! Which model do you have?? And which Korean reading app do you use? I am curious about how long it would take for the Naver pop up dictionary to appear in RIDI with the screen refresh rate. 
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December 2nd 
Dear language diary…
It’s a new month and the beginning of a new study loop for me! And it was also a Monday. It certainly was a Monday.
Korean Listening: 1 hour of podcasts(388.72/500 hours)
Shadowing: 30 minutes
Vocabulary: キクタン韓国語上級編 Review of Day 31
All-Purpose Textbook: 本気で学ぶ韓国語上級 Vocab, reading, and reading aloud (Chapter 6.1)
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Korean Vocabulary
It was the first day of my “review everything I learned so far using the example sentences in my book” and I picked a day with lots of verbs (my nemesis!!!). I have to say it was a pretty chill study session that lasted around 15 minutes or so.
I listed to the audio a bit and shadowed along to it, quizzed myself on the words using the red sheet my book came with to cover the definitions, and spoke to myself out loud in Korean trying to describe what the words mean using synonyms.
A few of the example sentences had interesting usage of set phrases so I added 2-3 that stood out to me into my Anki deck right away just because I was in the mood. You just gotta do things when the mood strikes!
I’m going to put some of the sentences on an infinite loop tomorrow to do some chorusing to see how that goes, but for now nothing life changing to report here. I think it’ll be a good “consolidation” month for vocabulary as I review and keep seeing the words + other new ones while reading this month.
Korean All-Purpose Textbook
I started a new chapter of 本気で学ぶ韓国語 today and it’s all about Korean vs. Japanese superstitions. It seems way easier than the last chapter (which was coincidentally about Jeju Island, I don’t think I ever wrote what the content was about besides “ITS HARD” here in my log), and so far I only noted down 10 new vocabulary words (hey I could just add all of these to Anki right away right?! Just kidding, resist the Anki urge!! I’m going to learn these by doing stuff).
One thing that came up that I was super happy about was the grammar point “Verb + ㅆ을 터이다”. Every single time I ever encounter this grammar point I look it up, immediately forget it again, go about my life, find it in a book again and wonder, “What did that mean again???”, but not TODAY. That’s going to stop now since I’m extra specially going to devote a tiny section of my language log to it so I’ll remember it forever!
V + ㅆ을 터이다 = 〜したはずだ、〜であったはずだ
Example: 미리 연락해 줬으면 좀 더 기다렸을 터인데.
前もって連絡してくれたなら、もう少し待っていたはずなのに。
Next time I see it I’m sure I’ll remember now.
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漢字 and 한자
蜜柑・밀감
One of my favorite things about learning Korean is finding words that have the same Chinese characters as Japanese ones and getting to see old vocabulary in a new way.
Last week when I was reading about Jeju Island in my textbook, there was a whole reading passage on mandarins, which are called 밀감 (milkam if you don’t read Hangul). Of course, the Japanese word ミカン (Mikan if you don’t read katakana) is quite similar so you can see they are somewhat related.
However, it wasn’t until yesterday when I was reading the story 蜜柑 from the Aozora Advent Calendar challenge that it dawned on me, Ohhhh that is why it is called 밀감! I had never paid attention to or associated the word ミカン with the characters until that point so the connection was unclear.
The character 蜜 in Japanese is read like 밀 (mil) in Korean, so once you know the yomikata you can just keep guessing all kids of words.
密接 → 밀접 (miljeop)
You can even play a fun game of shiritori and learn Korean Hanja words forever!
接触 → 접촉 (jeopchok)
And it’s even easier than Japanese because there is no weird stuff like rendaku or contractions.
Anyways, it was also today that I realized they’re called 蜜柑・밀감 because they are citrus growing clustered closely together lol (I didn’t do wanikani and often don’t think of character compounds that way so don’t judge me!!!) 
葛藤・갈등
Another favorite word of mine in Japanese is 葛藤 - because life is full of 葛藤 (and sometimes I am too)! In Korean it is 갈등 (kaldeung) and has the same characters. But I never paid attention to what the characters are. Have you? I am curious to know if I am just slow and should pay more attention to the actual meaning of the characters in the words I learn, so please tell me. 
Anyways, the two characters mean kudzu and wisteria which don’t really have a lot to do with life being full of conflict and trouble. So, I gave it a google and apparently the origin is actually a Buddhist term with the following explanation having to do with kudzu and wisteria growing together and becoming entangled:
葛も藤も樹木に絡み付くツル草で、このツル草が縺（もつ）れて解けない状態が〈葛藤〉である。実はこのような意味で〈葛藤〉の語を用いたのは仏教経典である。ツル草の葛や藤が生い茂り、錯綜すると縺れて解き放つことができないように、私たちを悩ませる貪欲や愚痴などの煩悩は容易に断ちきることは出来ないと教えている
I’ve noticed a lot of other words with Buddhist origins are similar between Japanese and Korean (煩悩 and 번뇌 for example), so this is another fun one for the collection.
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This is how I use my kindle to read in Korean! I added a font and just email epubs to my kindle. But if you’re buying books through an app idk how you’d do that.
I also had a boox previously for Korean but it died so I went the cheapy kindle lol.
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Ok but when will I learn this lesson 
I’m like oh, it’ll be a fun surprise and then I’m too deep in book I hate 
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This is life
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December 12th
Dear language diary…
久しぶり& 오래간만이군나~. It’s been a while since I’ve been able to post a log update! 
December always ends up being the busiest month of the year, and because of that I haven’t been able to find as much time this month to sit down and do dedicated and active textbook study. However, I’m keeping up momentum by taking the time not spent there and putting it into consuming native content at times that are more convenient for me instead.
In addition to my usual reading of random junk, I’ve spent substantially more time than usual this month listening to native content that is not targeted towards learners, so that’s what I’m going to write about today.
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Korean Listening: 11 hours(400/500 hours)
Vocabulary: キクタン韓国語上級編 Reviews of weeks 1-5
All-Purpose Textbook: 本気で学ぶ韓国語上級 Vocab, reading, and reading aloud (Chapter 6.2)
Dictation: 4色ボールペン韓国語パワーアップ・ドリル (Lesson 14)
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Listening When You Can’t Understand Everything
Developing my listening in Korean has been one of the least fun parts of my learning journey so far. I’ve been able to understand German and Japanese at a high level for a relatively long period of time already, so going back to a lower level of comprehension stinks. It’s so easy to take progress made in life for granted while forgetting the work that went into it. Alas, it’s ok and I’m just trying to retrace my steps now with Korean so I can get to a level of listening to things comfortably and having maximum fun!
So, because it’s not super fun, it’s easy to neglect or put off. But, I know listening is part of a balanced language diet and makes reading easier too, so I’m trying to find the fun in it by looking for things I’m somewhat interested in, or things where the speaker has a nice sounding voice.
The main stuff I’ve listened to recently:
- News - There is a lot unfolding political in Korea at the moment and there is a lot of news coverage of it. I’m interested in what’s happening and want to understand what I’m hearing. A lot of news announcers also tend to have very clear and soothing voices that are pleasant to listen to!
- Audiobooks - I got a storytel subscription and there are so many Korean books available, it’s amazing! There are also a bunch of random generic self help type books, just like I love to listen to on the Japanese audiobook.jp app. This stuff is so mindless and addicting for me - not hard language wise and the content is also kinda generic, so if you’ve read one in your life you can easily understand another, even in a language you aren’t so strong at.
Listening to the news is pretty difficult, but there are a few things I’m doing to make it easier. The first thing is being aware of what’s happening / reading Korean news in English first, so I already know what they’re talking about roughly. The next thing is checking the podcast transcripts automatically generated by Spotify. They’re pretty accurate, so when I lose the thread of what’s being talked about I can just see the words and usually I can catch up. A lot of political vocabulary are hanja words so I can use my Japanese to intuit the meaning by reading, but can’t understand them when listening. 
That’s why I’m practicing though…흑흑
Listening to audiobooks is also pretty difficult?! Even for easier children’s books that I could read with no problem, listening is tough! It’s almost like the language is constantly going in and out of focus - I pick up some words or phrases very sharply, and others are blurry. I can mostly follow the overall plot, but may not realize right away what’s going on. My strategy right now is to focus on what comes in clear and ignore the blurry parts, and just strive for big picture understanding, trusting that things will get crisper and crisper the more I keep listening and learning. I’m ready to only pick up 60 -70% with a positive attitude.
I think the most important ingredient for improving listening (or language skills in general maybe?? Haha) is faith. When listening is frustrated and just sounds like a bunch of noise and you can’t follow what’s going on, it’s really easy to wonder if it’s even helping you improve at all, even if it’s at your so-called comprehension level and you are doing everything “right”. The only guarantee you can have that you will improve is your faith in yourself and the process. That faith can also push you to not give up, keep consistently putting in the time and effort to learn, and trust that time and exposure will do its trick. 
Amen!
It still feels like there are so many Korean words I don’t know and like it’ll be ages before my listening substantially improves, but a lot can happen in even a month so let’s keep going!~
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I absolutely second that. I’ve been listening to books that are much lower leveled that what I would be able to read. Of course, there’s that aspect of it not really being practical to do lookups, but more importantly, there’s a lot of things I just don’t quite catch, or do, but don’t understand until later.
If you find out some nice children’s books, please let me know! Preferably something without too much background noise/excessive voice acting, as I find that this can be pretty annoying. I was listening to 사라진 날 | L18, which was okay, but I’ve finished what’s available on Storytel already, so I’m searching for other audiobooks to listen to.
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butting in to say if anyone hasn’t explored audio dramas they are a great option for listening without needing the depth of vocab audiobooks req. (@HopeWaterfall i know you said you don’t like voice acting but the dynamic with an audio-drama is pretty different from an audiobook i’d say so maybe worth a try?)
I haven’t listened to any recently but the easiest ones i remember listening to off the top of my head are:
오디오클립 채티 귀담 short scary stories, there’s a second season as well (the combination of tropes and soundeffects make these super comprehensible imo)
오디오클립 신부가 필요해 the classic normal girl x CEO office romance trope. cheesy & lightheated
오디오클립 마담 셜록 sherlock holmes adaptation with a female sherlock
오디오클립 [Palette] super short 20 min relationship themed story
[KBS] 라디오 극장 : 팟빵 라디오 극장 Meatier audiodramas based on books (this is recced in @bibliothecary’s post 🎧 Podcasts & Radio Dramas [with scripts] already but it’s good so i’m re-reccing it 
)
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For some reason children’s audiobooks are just filled with background noise and crazy voice acting, aren’t they??
I listened to a few hours of 시간 고양이 | L20?? and it was not bad. It did have background noise and dramatic voice acting, but I didn’t feel like it was excessive.
Now I’m listening to the audiobook of 죽이고 싶은 아이 | L25 since I’m already familiar with it from the book club, and it’s pretty good! Barely any background noises and the voice acting is only moderately dramatic. 
Thanks for sharing these! Definitely going to check them out! Really need a wide variety of stuff to dabble in so I don’t get bored so this is really helpful! 땡큐
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