Korean Job Discussion Forums

[IncognitoHFX]

So I've been obsessing lately. I'm setting up a language partner, studying grammar in my down and off time at work (two to three hours a day) and doing listening / speaking exercises at home for a few hours every night. This has been consistent for the last couple of months and is picking up momentum as the returns so far have been satisfying. Above all of that, I really like learning Korean. It's a really fun language to learn and kind of like putting a puzzle together.

Within a couple of months I believe I'll be at the level where I can rent Korean movies, pause and mimic the characters while understanding all the salient points of dialogue on the first run through.

My question is... does this quick learning slope ever stop?

I've heard a lot of people complain that once you get through the basics and nail the grammar/vocabularly, there comes a point where it is nearly impossible to advance. I'm also a little doubtful given the speed at which I've progressed through the language.

I'm learning very quickly, though I'm far more comfortable with speaking than reading. I don't get any practice speaking or forming sentences free form, other than MSN conversations I have with Koreans who can't speak English.

What are some unexpected roadblocks I should prepare for?
How grammatically correct is spoken Korean language these days (should I be prepared for a whole country of people who speak a lot of slang, and will studying movies help me get past this?)

Thanks again.

[M-su]

IncognitoHFX,

I powered through the hangeul and survival Korean stages really quick, surprisingly quick actually. I have never studied Korean formally before (class room style) and I'm now at a ....let's say lower intermediate level. I've been floating around here for months (don't mean to discourage you) and yeah it's kinda frustrating. However, after flipping through my old note pads I was quite amazed by the volume of stuff I've covered so far and I have improved quite a lot actually.

Guess what I'm trying to say is the changes are very subtle as this point in time (to me). Still, I'm moving forward and I'm going to Ewha this fall. Seems to me you got the grammar down but need to practice more conversation...well I need more grammar which is why I decided to finally study Korean formally. I'll keep you posted on how things develop.

And as for you last question;
"How grammatically correct is spoken Korean language these days"
Well, my girlfriend majored in Korean literature and can't stand it when Koreans (not foreigners) make sloppy grammar mistakes or butch their own language with English style slang.
Most Koreans will correct you or recast your sentence if it sounds all kinds of wrong, but they tend to let the minor slips go. When you are free talking in Korean just try to relax and don't overanalyze (I know it sounds lame!) In the beginning I used to hate free talking cuz I was so aware of my short-comings and I would translate every sentence from English into Korean = major word order collisions. Does it make any sense??

Well anyway, I got get going. I have a Korean class soon

[Hootsmon]

How long have you been studying for?

When I first came here, I was able to do anything I wanted in breaks at work and I was studying Korean, on my own, for up to four, five or even six hours a day. Everyone I knew was amazed at my swift progress. They were all predicting I'd be fluent in no time.

Sadly, it doesn't happen that way...at least, it didn't for me. After I had the basics, I hit this huge plateau, where I pretty much still am. I've been here for almost 2 years now. This huge plateau is when you hit the "conversational" level. A year ago, I could have conversations with Koreans. Now, I can have conversations. The only difference is that my conversations can be far more varied and my listening is much, much better.

If I watch Korean TV or movies, I understand maybe 50-70%, perhaps slightly more on a good day. On a bad day, if the program has a lot of slang or unfamiliar vocabulary, it's much less.

If you get the grammar basics then the best thing, in my opinion, it to try and learn as much vocab as possible. That's my problem - I can sit and have a long conversation with someone but as soon as unfamiliar vocabulary comes up, I'm stumped. Just have to keep learning.

If you've been studying less than a year, I think you're expecting too much of yourself to be understanding movies soon. No insult to you...I just think learning any language to that level takes time.

All these thoughts are based on the fact that you're working and studying in your spare time. A full-time student may be able to manage it.

Then again, maybe I'm just a bit thick...but I'm pretty pleased with being able to chat away in Korean considering I've never had a lesson. Anyway, good luck...the vocabulary learning is never ending...

[samd]

Good posts by the previous two posters, and I agree with it all. My experience lately sounds similar to Hootsman, in that I seem to have reached a plateau, although I am studying less than I used to also.

It's funny that you say that your speaking is best, I feel it's the opposite for me - I can have great MSN conversations, but struggle more in person when my listening skills and pronunciation let me down.

I found Korean tough at first, very difficult to get my head around. Then with roughly an hour of study a day for about a year I improved a lot, combined it with some free classes and lots of practice with Koreans and I felt it was getting easier.

Now I am able to have basic conversations, make friends, and maintain friendships in Koreas, but I am still a long way off being able to watch a movie without subtitles, or understadna newsreader, and I am finding the language increasingly frustrating.

I also find it takes me a long time to become fluent in things I learn quickly. For example, I learned and understood indirect discourse about a year and a half ago, but It was only recently that I felt I was reasonably fluent, and I'm sure I still make mistakes.

I also find a memorise a lot of vocab, but have to look it up again in a year as it hasn't come up in coversation a lot since then.

After a while it seems to become a massive grind of learning new vocab, relearning old vocab, practising grammar structures that don't come up in conversation very often. I also find it harder to study these days, maybe because the necessity of learning the language is gone, and although I'm still motivated to become fluent, I no longer have to sit there silently with Koreans who waffle on for hours while I sat there bored which used to fire me up to study later.

But stick with it, it gets easier, and more rewarding. With the amount that you study you should continue to improve fast. Good luck and share your tips as you go.

[IncognitoHFX]

Thanks for all the advice.

I have met a few fluent speakers in Korea, and a couple people who could rattle off sentences quite easily but weren't exactly fluent. The vast majority of people I run in to though, don't seem to have the desire to learn it.

Luckily, some of my good friends from back home are coming to Korea shortly, so I vowed I would teach them what I know, catch them up to me and then study together with a conversation partner on a regular basis. These are the kind of people to learn things quickly too, so my incentive will be to always stay ahead of them and not to let them get ahead of me.

I am worried about plateauing though. The fluent speaker I know that has reached what I'd call fluency has done so because he married someone who can't speak English. I don't know if that will happen to me, though I wouldn't be opposed to the idea. In any case, I can see the language being really hard to learn if you weren't always around someone who wasn't fluent. There's just not enough contact with it other than small talk with people who aren't around all the time.

Thanks for all the advice though. I'm pretty determined to learn it. As I said before, there are a lot of returns learning Korean. For example: I learned the word 사용 recently and saw it frequently as I used my computer or in other places. I also learned the grammatical point _______ +(으) ㄹ 수 있어요/없어요 and am now able to understand why the printer at work isn't doing what I'd like it to be doing.... and that's just some small stuff.

I'll keep working on it and try to improve.

[billybrobby]

[UberJRI]

[out of context]

There is a big plateau, and if you're not sufficiently motivated it's going to be discouraging, but it's not like there's a big, special moment when you get past it either. There comes a point where it's just language--you don't ask why it's the way it is, you don't worry about how people think about your using it, you don't fret over your pronunciation, and you just use it to communicate with other people to accomplish goals. And no matter how good you are, there's still stuff you don't quite get 100%, and you don't worry about that. The words that you have trouble with today will be active parts of your vocabulary by tomorrow, and you'll forget you ever had a problem remembering them.

In my case, I really wanted to become a translator, so I was motivated enough to keep working even when I felt like I had nothing to show for it. But I can totally understand why so many people get to the plateau and think it's good enough for their purposes. There's a real sense of "You've got to be kidding me" every time you see a movie or read a book and find so many unfamiliar words.

Another thing, pleasant or not: if you're serious about learning Korean, you have to study Chinese characters, at the very least through level 4. If you do that, it will really help speed the process along and you'll remember much more than you would have. So when I hit my plateau period, I got one of the hanja-for-elementary-schoolers books and went to work.

[PeteJB]

The fluent word gets thrown around too often and it jars me somewhat. To be fluent, you have to speak better than even native Koreans. There are many words/grammar details in study books and resources that even Koreans don't use or understand correctly (except older generations, as with any older person who understands a language better, which is why kids always ask their parents what so-and-so means).

Anyway, the answer is, yes, it gets harder. But if you are learning at your own pace by yourself, you probably won't hit into that kind of wall - having it thrown in your face at a language program is a different matter entirely.

[Cheonmunka]

Vocab accumulation and remembering words is the hard part.

About hanja, it is useful for finding definitions. Some words are the same but only come to the different definition via the base hanja word. Can't say I use it beyond that, though.

[billybrobby]

[yingwenlaoshi]

I think at one point, once you get a lot of the grammatical aspects down, a good way to go about it is to ask and ask and ask, "How do you say this?" to a Korean friend with English ability. And always bring a notepad with you. Grab things out of the English to Korean dictionary, too and then conjugate its example sentences. Also use a Korean to English dicitonary. Write it all down. You see something in Korean somewhere? Write it down and try to get the meaning out of it. Ask and ask and ask again.

[Cheonmunka]

Collocations (matching nouns and verbs) we are used to in English are not the same with Korean. When we grab a dictionary and make a few sentences we may well not be matching common speech.
Try it in English, pick any word, say, 'heighten.' In English we might say our 'senses are heightened.' The dictionary word for heighten is, in my desk dictionary, 놉게 하다, yet does that actually fit the meaning if in Korean we say 오감이 놉게 했다? I don't know I haven't asked. I doubt it will have any meaning whatsoever. Shoot, I don't even know if the word 오감 can replace 'senses.' Maybe 기쁜 then with a different verb would be better???
With Korean, you have to learn everything in context and in real-time. That is the problem with learning Korean. We want to practice but heck, everyone wants to use English.
Anyway, the dictionary is used to check vocab, not to create sentences.

Edit: I asked the wife, she says '오감을 놉혀 했다' for a similar sort of meaning in English, as in good feeling and possibly used a little in Korean. So we changed into passive and made an object noun. I think it shows the difficulty of going straight from the dictionary. In this case we'd really have to think about the active and passive nouns or whatever they are, think on the interplay ... to be able to make the sentence work.
Strangely, that collocation did work. First time ever, I feel.

What do you guys think?

[out of context]

[rocketdolphin]