Teaching myself Korean online, the kpopstolensoul way.
Not only am I overdue for an update on this topic, but I am in need of some lesson plans for myself, and I am hoping that if I make a comment here in LJ I will follow my own intention for what to work on currently/next.
It would be good if I could use this LJ as a way to track what I've been doing up to this point, or what I plan to (ideally) do to keep on with this learning curve.
Recently there were some major plateaus I felt I reached in terms of writing down Hangeul, and a few little bursts of comprehension or grasping a concept about the language.
At the same time, I've been getting more and more frustrated with using Google Translate. It's still great to hear the female recording's pronunciation of anything at all whatsoever. The part that's getting "old" is due to one of the Google "features." Whenever a jamo (letter) is typed in, the translator immediately attempts to provide a new translation, on the right side of the screen. Depending on whether there is one, or a dozen meanings, or some number in the middle, this can cause the on-screen Hangeul keyboard to jump a tiny bit horizontally. So the first consonant is not a problem to tap with the mouse arrow. But the middle vowel is a PITA. I often end up hitting where I saw the key I want, just as the image of the keyboard jumps, and hitting the image of the wrong vowel. which means backspacing to erase, and that takes out the initial consonant as well, so the process can actually repeat itself ad nauseum if I'm not careful. It's enough to make me want to begin to use my actual keyboard for the jamo.
Right now the collection I have saved of things (or webpages and resources) to copy down or write down is enormous. I managed to copy the entire original of "Nameless Song (Part 1)" and it took me eight pages on a full sized notebook.... I did it over a couple of days and evenings, taking breaks when I got handcramp. Worth it to say I've done it, though.
Another very pointless yet educational exercise I did was to copy the list of 2010 Census Korean surnames (alphabetically arranged.) Along the side I copied down the variations they showed that one might see as it gets transliterated to the Roman alphabet.
Sounds like a weird and wasteful exercise, right? But it actually wasn't - It showed me a great slice of samples of how romanizations vary, all over Asia and also the global Korean diaspora.
Even though I had begun my interest in Korean through obsessing on individuals as much as an interest in the language of scripts, I hadn't taken the time to learn the Hangeul of singers' names or band names or song names, and so at first I didn't know whether it should be "oo" "u" or "eu" in the name of the leader of SuJu or whether English-speaking fans are being kind of idiots by calling Jaejoong by what sounds like "Jay" when we talk about him to each other (or in our heads.)
All I wanted to do at first was to practice the muscle memory aspect of the Hangeul, by learning the jamo, how to make syllables, and doing a lot of copying while I sounded things out in my head.
Finally, finally, though! When I'm reading cast lists, the names actually make sense immediately when I read them!
I wish I had written down the first times I ever realized I was looking at a singer's or actor's name over his photo online. (Now I can finally save wallpaper of my idols without being afraid the wallpaper says "슈퍼 주니어 소유하고 동방신기" (which is actually meaningless in Korean, I'm sure, but is an attempt to cleverly write, "Super Junior pwns DBSK." That'd be sooo wrong, even if DBSK is three fingers short of a full hand these days.)
I do remember that there was a specific day when the street sign in front of 고향 Korean Restaurant suddenly jumped from being a sign with two Hangeul syllables on it, to saying "Go Hyang" as I drove by it at 35 mph. It was really a great feeling. Did I already know that the name of the restaurant was "Gohyang"? Yup. I did. But only from restaurant reviews online. And I've passed that sign for probably 15 years now, if not longer. Had I tried to translate it before? Nope, not really... somehow it was too incredibly obvious a thing to translate... so obvious in fact that I totally forgot to try to read it. So as a bit of a shock, suddenly without having tried, or put any particular effort into it, I could read it.... from a moving car!!
I'm sure the same thing will happen with menus and in the K-grocer... any day now. Online, too, I hope.
By the way, this is a neat link if you know the language: http://news.google.com/news?pz=1&ned=kr
There are thousands of sites and answer forums offering translations of common sayings and tourist phrases. Some of them don't agree as to what the polite/formal forms are. One of my shameful moments was when I was in E-Mart a couple of months ago, and the lovely proprietress asked me on my way out (after my confessions of K-drama and K-pop love) if I knew "annyeong-hi gye-seyo" and I just mumbled and smiled and sort of said yes. But although she was ready to say "annyeong-hi-ga-seyo" to me so I could reply "annyeong-hi gye-seyo" I wasn't ready. I knew *what* she was talking about (sort of) but my brain fled in an utter panic.
So this week one of the tasks (oh wait - I know that word - 과제, plus or minus a 를 at the end) I set myself to do was to copy the normal annyeong-haseyo and the two above, over and over. Until they were kind of burned into my head.
That's another plan I have for the coming study plans. Pick phrases, and copy them down.
Meantime I've been having fun collecting signs and words seen in dramas. Everything from what's on cellphone caller-i.d., to the signage on an ambulance, to the hospital entrance, to the pad on an ATM. Handwritten notes and special props important to the plot are fun to translate if the subbers either haven't done it, or when I'm looking for a different viewpoint on it (because they shortened it up too much when it was far more eloquent in the original, for example.)
So to sum up... the number of words I can actually write from memory are very few. The number of useful phrases I could write and say from memory is probably even fewer (because I do know a number of food-related words, actually.)
If there are any phrases readers want to suggest or wish to join me in memorizing, please leave a comment. If you want to learn something, I promise to memorize it with you.
It would be good if I could use this LJ as a way to track what I've been doing up to this point, or what I plan to (ideally) do to keep on with this learning curve.
Recently there were some major plateaus I felt I reached in terms of writing down Hangeul, and a few little bursts of comprehension or grasping a concept about the language.
At the same time, I've been getting more and more frustrated with using Google Translate. It's still great to hear the female recording's pronunciation of anything at all whatsoever. The part that's getting "old" is due to one of the Google "features." Whenever a jamo (letter) is typed in, the translator immediately attempts to provide a new translation, on the right side of the screen. Depending on whether there is one, or a dozen meanings, or some number in the middle, this can cause the on-screen Hangeul keyboard to jump a tiny bit horizontally. So the first consonant is not a problem to tap with the mouse arrow. But the middle vowel is a PITA. I often end up hitting where I saw the key I want, just as the image of the keyboard jumps, and hitting the image of the wrong vowel. which means backspacing to erase, and that takes out the initial consonant as well, so the process can actually repeat itself ad nauseum if I'm not careful. It's enough to make me want to begin to use my actual keyboard for the jamo.
Right now the collection I have saved of things (or webpages and resources) to copy down or write down is enormous. I managed to copy the entire original of "Nameless Song (Part 1)" and it took me eight pages on a full sized notebook.... I did it over a couple of days and evenings, taking breaks when I got handcramp. Worth it to say I've done it, though.
Another very pointless yet educational exercise I did was to copy the list of 2010 Census Korean surnames (alphabetically arranged.) Along the side I copied down the variations they showed that one might see as it gets transliterated to the Roman alphabet.
Sounds like a weird and wasteful exercise, right? But it actually wasn't - It showed me a great slice of samples of how romanizations vary, all over Asia and also the global Korean diaspora.
Even though I had begun my interest in Korean through obsessing on individuals as much as an interest in the language of scripts, I hadn't taken the time to learn the Hangeul of singers' names or band names or song names, and so at first I didn't know whether it should be "oo" "u" or "eu" in the name of the leader of SuJu or whether English-speaking fans are being kind of idiots by calling Jaejoong by what sounds like "Jay" when we talk about him to each other (or in our heads.)
All I wanted to do at first was to practice the muscle memory aspect of the Hangeul, by learning the jamo, how to make syllables, and doing a lot of copying while I sounded things out in my head.
Finally, finally, though! When I'm reading cast lists, the names actually make sense immediately when I read them!
I wish I had written down the first times I ever realized I was looking at a singer's or actor's name over his photo online. (Now I can finally save wallpaper of my idols without being afraid the wallpaper says "슈퍼 주니어 소유하고 동방신기" (which is actually meaningless in Korean, I'm sure, but is an attempt to cleverly write, "Super Junior pwns DBSK." That'd be sooo wrong, even if DBSK is three fingers short of a full hand these days.)
I do remember that there was a specific day when the street sign in front of 고향 Korean Restaurant suddenly jumped from being a sign with two Hangeul syllables on it, to saying "Go Hyang" as I drove by it at 35 mph. It was really a great feeling. Did I already know that the name of the restaurant was "Gohyang"? Yup. I did. But only from restaurant reviews online. And I've passed that sign for probably 15 years now, if not longer. Had I tried to translate it before? Nope, not really... somehow it was too incredibly obvious a thing to translate... so obvious in fact that I totally forgot to try to read it. So as a bit of a shock, suddenly without having tried, or put any particular effort into it, I could read it.... from a moving car!!
I'm sure the same thing will happen with menus and in the K-grocer... any day now. Online, too, I hope.
By the way, this is a neat link if you know the language: http://news.google.com/news?pz=1&ned=kr
There are thousands of sites and answer forums offering translations of common sayings and tourist phrases. Some of them don't agree as to what the polite/formal forms are. One of my shameful moments was when I was in E-Mart a couple of months ago, and the lovely proprietress asked me on my way out (after my confessions of K-drama and K-pop love) if I knew "annyeong-hi gye-seyo" and I just mumbled and smiled and sort of said yes. But although she was ready to say "annyeong-hi-ga-seyo" to me so I could reply "annyeong-hi gye-seyo" I wasn't ready. I knew *what* she was talking about (sort of) but my brain fled in an utter panic.
So this week one of the tasks (oh wait - I know that word - 과제, plus or minus a 를 at the end) I set myself to do was to copy the normal annyeong-haseyo and the two above, over and over. Until they were kind of burned into my head.
That's another plan I have for the coming study plans. Pick phrases, and copy them down.
Meantime I've been having fun collecting signs and words seen in dramas. Everything from what's on cellphone caller-i.d., to the signage on an ambulance, to the hospital entrance, to the pad on an ATM. Handwritten notes and special props important to the plot are fun to translate if the subbers either haven't done it, or when I'm looking for a different viewpoint on it (because they shortened it up too much when it was far more eloquent in the original, for example.)
So to sum up... the number of words I can actually write from memory are very few. The number of useful phrases I could write and say from memory is probably even fewer (because I do know a number of food-related words, actually.)
If there are any phrases readers want to suggest or wish to join me in memorizing, please leave a comment. If you want to learn something, I promise to memorize it with you.