Korean Job Discussion Forums

[r.]

Just found the alljapaneseallthetime.com website and am wondering if I should apply this to my Korean studies.

Basically he advocates reading and listening to a ton of material and saving roughly 50 slightly challenging sentences a day to a flashcard system. Not memorizing the sentences, but becoming familiar with their grammar and vocab.

Anyways, I tried it out today and it seems like there is a lot of sense to this method. I actually had fun learning Korean for the first time in a bit. Although I only put in 10 sentences today. It might be a bit annoying to type in 50 daily.

Recently going to Korean class is so boring and seems to be an exercise in futility and wasting money for me, and I am interested if anyone has had experience with this kind of learning when it comes to Korean.

[chungbukdo]

No, I don't have the time etc. Although Khatz could probably make the case that I'm lazy and /or not choosing to do enough fun things in my target language.

But I do use the sentence method. 10 sentences per day every day with audio mp3s that I learn, then input into Anki. I've been doing it daily since New Years. I went to a small town today and people kept asking "How many years have you been in Korea?" while I conversed with them so I feel pretty happy. Basically consistency is everything and Anki really helps you become more efficient. I don't use textbooks and fill in the blank stuff or contrived Korean and it works fine for me.

[Kepler]

I notice someone in the comments talking about his experience using this method to learn Korean.

[r.]

Yeah I was definitely having fun just reading things I was interested in today, instead of doing some mindless grammar homework, which I just have not been motivated to do for the last 3 months.

I think this method would be a bit daunting if I was a beginner, but I have a strong base that will help me out a lot.

[Slowmotion]

Where are you guys grabbing sentences from?

[r.]

I just hilighted some sentences in a Korean book I was reading today. But I realized it will be a massive pain to type in 50 sentences daily.

I will probably copy and paste into Anki the bulk of mine from the Naver English dictionary, which is incredible, and news articles in Naver on topics I'm interested in.

[chungbukdo]

Just type sentences, you'll get fast at typing. And it will help when you chat online with Korean friends.

I started with the book 2000 Korean words for Beginners, which has 2000 example sentences. It includes a CD so all the sentences are spoken. I memorize the pronounciation.

But the whole idea is to not do too much "study" and just do stuff you'd normally do in English, but in your target language. Instead of this forum, Korean forums and blogs. Instead of chatting in English online, chatting in Korean. Instead of watching English tv, turn on your Korean tv. Take the English music off your iPod and buy a few Korean cds. Label all the stuff in your house with the Korean words. Hang out with Korean friends and speak Korean with them.

[journal]

If anyone's interested, I'm the guy who wrote the long comment in Kepler's post.

Personally, I get my words/phrases from books/comics/tv show scripts/tv shows, and then find example sentences in the naver dictionary. Apart from typing the word/phrase, no other typing necessary. Just copy and paste.

I 'learn' 30 a day consistently, and I only add sentences a few times a week in chunks of 50 or a hundred.

[DigitalSoju]

Be aware naver dictionaries examples are not always the most natural. Sometimes are outdated or no one uses that expression or there is much better expression. See that problem all the time.

[journal]

True. Good warning. Quite a few of the English sentences are junk, or use expressions I've never seen, so I'm guessing it's the same with the Korean sentences.

However, the way I'm using it is safe, as I'm finding the meaning of Korean words and expressions that I know to be used and useful, as I've taken them from real sources (ie books/scripts/etc).

[r.]

I can't seem to copy and paste from within Anki. It's slowing me down... Is there any way to do this?

[Chet Wautlands]

Hey everyone!

AJATT was made by a guy learning Japanese in the USA. Chances are, you are learning Korean while living in Korea. These are very different scenarios, but there are some common truths.

AJATT or other full immersion programs expect that you will become a great understander of the target language before you become even a basic speaker of that language. This is the way children learn, of course. Even as adults, we understand our native language better than we speak it. I can, for example, understand all of what Christopher Hitchens says, but I cannot authentically replicate it.

But you need to ask yourself, are you OK with spending a long time learning to listen without being able to speak? If so, this method is great. From my experience, I find that this method is frustrating. It works well once you get past the very beginner levels, but for a novice it can be depressing.

If you are living in Korea and want to start learning Korean, of course exposure to the language will help you. Make Korean friends, try to read Korean books, watch Korean movies, sing Korean songs and eat Korean food. But you should also study Korean in the same way that your students are studying English. Learning the basic greetings, words, grammar and practice saying them so that they come naturally. Get your speaking to a level where you can communicate the essentials, then focus on the immersion.

If you can say basic things... like "the weather should be good tomorrow" and "Where is the key you had yesterday?" then you'll gain a lot from immersion. If you cannot do these things, grab a text book (or go to the excellent talktomeinkorean.com) and brush up on your speaking.

BTW, I'm not fluent, but I can speak fairly well. About as well as many of those 미수다 girls.

[r.]

I don't think AJATT promotes avoiding speaking the language. It's true he emphasizes input. Although he was studying in the usa, I think our situations are similar--we teach English all day and our most natural friends are our western co-workers. In both situations, in the US or working as an English teacher here, you have to make a conscious effort to maximize exposure to Korean.

Anyway, I think he just emphasizes the input and badmouths language classes because people get dependent on their very imperfect classes and just learn the vocab they are given in their book and don't take charge of their learning. I kind of agree I don't think I would try his approach if I was a complete beginner. Anyways, there is no perfect way to learn a language. I just like many of his ideas and it has given me a new outlook. Wish I had found that site a few years ago.

[Kepler]

As I understand, the goal is to understand 10,000 sentences in a foreign language. I wonder if this method is based on Stephen Krashen's theory of second language acquisition. According to Krashen, language acquisition results from comprehensible input. Speaking is not a cause of language acquisition. It is a result. Memorization is unnecessary and the benefits of explicitly learning grammar rules are limited.