Korean Job Discussion Forums

[mithridates]

[Ginormousaurus]

[robbie_davies]

Some people have a talent for languages. DaShan learned Cantonese as an adult and performs 'crosstalk' Something that not even 95% of learners are going to ever aspire to doing. So there is natural talent as well all the other factors such as age, motivation, education level etc.

[Ginormousaurus]

[mithridates]

[World Traveler]

[ghostrider]

Joseph Conrad didn't start learning English until he was 21. He became one of the greatest novelists in the English language.

[World Traveler]

English was his third language. His childhood bilingualism helped him learn English down the road. I've said people who learn more than one language at a young age are better able to learn other languages later in life. English was not as distant and unrelated as Korean is for us. Joseph Conrad wrote well, but (due to deficits in speech) didn't like to speak in English in front of audiences. Lastly, just because one person does something doesn't mean it is possible for everyone. Otherwise, why don't you join the NBA, ghostrider? I mean, Mugsy Bogues was in the NBA. Why don't you sign up for a team now? Playing basketball is a lot more fun than teaching English. It pays better too.

[andrewchon]

World Traveler: They were Australian WW2 veterans who survived Japanese labour camps after the fall of Singapore. You can see that they were frightened for their lives. Charles Jenkins on the other hand, didn't have to worry about his life, or food or roof over his head. Do you see the difference between their respective motivations? Granted, their level of Japanese was pretty low, but they spoke better than another group of second language learners I've come across, immigrants. There are large number of immigrants who arrived in Australia after the WW2. Their English isn't as good considering the years they've spent living in Australia. Life was pretty good in post-war Australia compared to the wreck they've left behind in Europe. Nobody starved to death, unlike the food-rationed Germany and Japan.

[Fox]

[Fox]

I suspect a lot of people set themselves up to fail at this endeavor:

1) One important thing is studying every (or almost every) day. Our Mithridates here, I am given to understand, say down doing a huge amount of study each day for a few months. I cannot do that, I am naturally lazy. I still studied every day though, so while I would not progress anywhere near as quickly as him, I made progress. That is what matters.

2) Good resources are important. Integrated Korean is a decent line of textbooks + audio, and not expensive. Anki SRS is free. Lang-8 is a great website for writing practice and meeting native speakers. Lingq is a terrible website (so slow) which none the less has a huge amount of tiered audio/script pairs, which is very useful for listening practice (I would not advise using their paid features, just use Anki to memorize words). Online you can find a "Korean Grammar Dictionary" which has a huge list of Korean grammatical particles with English explanations.

3) Being willing to look foolish is important. Even now, I say stupid things not uncommonly. My vice principal just the other day asked me, in a mumbling old man voice, how many students would be at our camp. I misheard and, thinking he asked what day we would start on, answered, "Oh, we start today!" He asked again in a louder voice and I corrected myself. Sure, I looked like an idiot, but the alternative is to never practice in "the wild" and never make headway. How many people stall out because they do not hold themselves out and try? A lot I suspect.

Intermittent practice, poor resources, and reticence to practice in public will make failure likely. Korean is not easy, but that just means you need good methodology.

[markness]

[Fox]

I practice somewhere between 20 minutes and one hour a day, not counting actual use of the language in day to day circumstances. Like I said, I'm lazy. As a corollary, this means that if someone whose "floor" is 20 minutes a day can make progress, so can you.

There's a finite amount to be learned here; it's a skill, not magic. If you want to learn faster, obviously you'll have to study harder, but if you are willing to pick away at it for years, just make sure you do a bit every day and you'll get somewhere. It also gets easier to be lazy about it as time goes on. Being able to sit down and read a few pages out of a book on a topic in which you are actually interested when you have a moment is luxurious compared to studying out of a textbook, and to the extent that I would ever recommend anyone actually try to hurry things up, it's for the sake of getting to that stage faster.

[mithridates]

[PatrickGHBusan]

You posted threads on this topic a few times WT and it usually results in you getting the same basic answer (ignoring the trolls and snark comments): learning a language is mostly based on motivation.

If an adult is highly motivated by what I will call core motivations then he will learn a new language. If not, he will likely fail to learn due to lack of interest.

It is that simple in my experience.

Why did I become fluent in Korean? Because I was driven by core motivations that kept me going when I hit the various learning walls. Also because when you have such core motivation, you tend to make the time sacrifices that are needed more readily (practice, study, oh and more practice).

The same would be true of my brother who has lived in Japan for longer than I was in Korea and who also became fluent in Japanese: core motivation.


My opinion is that if a person starts studying Korean but has low motivation, he or she will likely fail once they hit the first or second learning wall (typically when progress slows down and the first setbacks occur). That is simply because low motivation will lead that person to see the challenge as bigger and more daunting and interest will wane.

Setting realistic goals will be key as well! I mean expecting to have fluid convo in Korean after a couple of months of study may be unrealistic. Failing to reach this goal would then sap motivation.

Also, when you are highly motivated to learn, you tend to deal far better with the setbacks (ex: ntrying to communicate with a Korean shop keeper and falling flat on your face after you were sure you were capable).

So..motivation is the key.

I will agree with you one one thing WT: knowing a second language will typically mean (in my experience) that a person finds it easier to learn a third language. This would be because the mental process is similar and the learner theoretically has gone through the various learning statges, setbacks and through the mental process required.