Korean Job Discussion Forums

[kingplaya4]

I feel like I'm falling into a rut with my Korean where my motivation is down and I have to force myself to study. For about six months I've been at the level which I would call "advanced tourist" someone who can pretty much do any normal daily task by speaking only Korean, but cannot have anything more than basic conversation. It seems like I need to learn thousands of more words before I can get much beyond this.

So I was thinking of starting to study Japanese as I'm somewhat interested in picking up that language at least on a basic level for my vacations there. Korean obviously is more of the priority as I live here and probably won't ever live in Japan.

For people who have done this, I was wondering if trying to learn two languages at once just makes you more forgetful of vocabulary, is it neutral, or does it possibly help your brain become more adept at learning languages?

[amilin90]

As someone who's once tried to take on French and Italian together (similar origins, all that stuff) I wouldn't suggest two languages at once.

Sure, I was pretty damn young then, but trying to do two languages confused me as hell. But it might've been because I didn't know a single thing about either language. I still don't - I gave it up as a bad job/decision.

Japanese is easy enough at the beginning. Then the level of difficulty shoots straight up once you reach a level where you consider yourself a non-beginner. And that's coming from a Korean (me) - where sentence structure is nearly the same as my mother tongue (Korean) yet I had difficulty. And the sheer amount of vocab; you'll not only need to know Hiragana and Katakana (the two 'alphabets' of the Japanese language) you'll also need to learn Kanji, or Chinese characters in the Japanese language. Some Kanji characters have as many as 16 ways of being read. "Confusing" is a major understatement.

Of course, if you know a bit of Hanja, it might be a bit easier.
(Hanja- Chinese characters in the Korean language.. something I definitely have a basic knowledge of (approx 600 of the most common characters?) yet Kanji was still difficult )

Sorry, I think I've managed to properly scare you away.
Or, if you're the type of person who never backs down from a considerable challenge, maybe you've been even more motivated to try and learn..

But in my honest opinion, I feel it'd be best to learn the language of the country you're living in; it's easy enough to access (though a bit harder to get the proper teachers/material, I admit) and fairly cheap too, don't you think?

[peppermint]

I studied French and German at the same time in high school. Noticed halfway through a French test, that I'd been writing the answers in German Then again, I had the classes back to back, and I'm guessing you wouldn't find yourself in such a situation.

[cheeseface]

Having multiple languages can really mess with your head.....


I can speak English (obviously) enough Hindi to function basically.....nearly fluent in German and Welsh.....My Korean however is really bad, I know lots of nouns, but sentence structure is nearly impossible to get over at the moment....Hindi, German and Welsh were pretty easy to learn.......not Korean..

However when I went back to Wales I would find myself speaking half Welsh and German in the same sentence After recently speaking to a German friend over the phone I found that when I was having to think about what I was trying to say in German I would just start speaking Korean......

Strange, I think you have to have a certain gift to be able to learn two languages at the same time.......Good luck to you

[MissSeoul]

Try to learn 2-3 languages at same time is not good idea.
I've once tried to learn 4 different languages at same time during my highschool years in korea, it didn't do any good.
German was 2nd foreign language we had to learn behind English at my high school and I've learned some Japanese at Hakwon and Chinese at home from my parent.

The result of this is I am handicaped of all 4 languages.
I can read/speak some German, that's about and I can speak some Japanese but can't read, I can't speak Chinese but I can read.

Well, I can speak/read English better than most korean and my writing is OK I wish I've just spent my time ONLY to learn English, but learning 4 different languages was idea of my parent, I don't know what they were thinking

[mithridates]

Perhaps a better idea: read some books like this one.

http://www.libro.co.kr/Product/BookDetail.libro?goods_id=0100001968672

[Passions]

Learn Japanese. Very similar grammar structure and also many words are the same. It will be fun.

[PRagic]

I took German and Japanese in Korea. It was interesting to sit in a Korean foreign language classroom.

[OiGirl]

I've had to study French in Korea, in a class somewhat below my level. Since the class was taught in Korean, I was able to review/maintain my French and improve my Korean at the same time.

[jkelly80]

I'm learning Mandarin. The tones are difficult, but it makes the grammar super easy when compared to Korean. The characters are tough though.