Planning, Studying, Dreaming – That’s exactly what I’m up to today!
Last Friday I received a few amazing presents on my email, from (one of) my language partner and good friend. He had sent me 3 different guide books full of gems and the best of it all is that it is all in Korean! To begin with I was just exited because I really love guide books – and blogs, articles, videos etc – as they allow me to plan things for my own trip to Korea and I can also use them to dream myself closer to my travel dates! But then as I was printing them out and skimming some of the pages and looking at the pictures, it really hit me that these books are pure goldmines! First of all, there’s so many new words that I can learn and use for my own trip, especially if I want to visit those specific places or if I want to take a guided trip while I’m there! No matter what, we can always use more vocabulary – right? Secondly, I quickly noticed that many of these books are filled with history and culture and if you are like me who has a general interest in Korea and not just in the language, then that is indeed an amazing thing! Study your target language and learn about your interests at the same time – If that isn’t a perfect combination then I don’t know what is!
In my case, my friend bought me a book for 부산, 경주 and 제주. I’m not planning on visiting these places on our trip but my sister and I are determined to visit them some day so I’m really excited to learn more about these places!
These books have facts, pictures, addresses, recommended places, recommended food, recommended accommodation, maps and guides on how to get to the different places. I really can’t explain how excited these books make me. These are from 투어팁스 and can be bought for practically no money, several places online. I personally love to buy ebooks through Ridibooks.com and if you want to check them out then you can find them right HERE – They also a travel books for other places than Korea so I you are interested in other countries and still want to practice your Korean, then here’s your chance! Personally I’ll be buying the one about 서울 as soon as I have finished this post! UPDATE: Not all guidebooks are compatible with pc and mac, so remember to check that out if you don’t have other reading devices!
If you don’t want to spend money then you can also just try to search for ‘(place)가이드북’ and you should be able to find some for free here and there. I know that VISITSEOUL.NET have a bunch of guides with different purposes, and they seem quite interesting too! You can find them HERE
Now I’ll be returning to my books! Have a great Sunday everybody!
I already told you guys about my TOPIK experience and I also shared the fact that I passed level two as hoped (and expected) which of course means that I need new goals. I’m definitely the type of person who need a lot of specific goals in order to thrive and I also feel that my studying becomes a lot more organized when I’m working towards something specific. So what’s my new goal? Well. TOPIK 2 was definitely not a challenge for me, but my 쓰기 skills are lacking a lot more than I want to admit and that combined with the rest of my Korean skills means that I am still not good enough to pass level 3. I’m in a frustrating place somewhere in between everything and nothing. Sigh. But it’s OK. There’s only one way to get past this place and that’s to continue to work hard, right? Anyway, to make sure that I actually challenge myself I set my next goal to be Level 4 in July. I feel like it’s a very suitable choice for me!
Now some of you might be wondering about July, because TOPIK in July is only in Korea – right? Yes, correct. My sister and I decided go to Korea in July instead of May, due to some personal reasons. My sister also really wants to celebrate her birthday in Korea, so when we discovered that it would fit perfectly with the TOPIK dates, we decided to just change all the dates! So far our plan is fly on the 13th and return on the 31st(July 2017)! We will be finalizing the rest of the details until September 1st, where we will buy the tickets and everything will be official! I can hardly wait!
I have a few other goals in mind as well but I’ll be keeping them to myself a little longer!
On another note – On Friday, I’ll be having my last session with my lovely Italki teacher. Her schedule will be changing so she will no longer have time for italki which is something I can definitely relate to. It’s going to be odd though! We have been talking on a regular basis for almost exactly a year now and we have gotten to know each other so well. According to my Italki statistics, we will be having our 70th session on Friday! That’s crazy! She have been following me from so early in my journey. We already talk through Kakaotalk outside of our sessions and I’m sure we will continue like that!
I though about taking a break from Italki too instead of looking for a new teacher, but I just feel like I might regret it later. These sessions have been such a great help to me and even though I know that I don’t try nearly as hard as I could (and should), I have still improved a lot since my first session and I want to try a lot harder when it comes to sticking to Korean, in the future. I have looked at a couple of available teachers and even scheduled a trial session with one of them. Let’s see how it goes!
In general, I guess there’s just a lot of things going on right now.
I am working on a new study schedule that fits my current situation and as usual I’ll keep you all updated!
Now I’m going to go outside in my sunny garden and do some work, while listening to my newly found podcast! Enjoy your Monday guys!
So, as some of you guys already know, I recently started a new short internship which to be honest has taken majority of my time and energy, but more importantly it have meant that I once again needed to change up my daily schedule and find a new balance between work and my Korean studies, not to mention my social life and things like cleaning etc. It has been a really tough month and even though I seem to have found a decent balance between everything again, I really felt like I was doing nothing productive whatsoever with my studies. It’s actually quite interesting! This past month I have been thinking that I haven’t been studying enough for me to make any progress – which in itself is super silly since even short and rare study sessions will have some sort of impact on your learning – and that isn’t true at all! I agree that I haven’t been studying just as intense as I did before this internship, because I simply don’t have enough time, but I have still accomplished a lot! I still chat in Korean every day, I still read my books and magazines every day, I still have my weekly Italki session, I still listen to Korean music and podcast when traveling, I still actively watch different dramas and make an effort to learn from them, and I still managed to make over 40 pages with notes on different language related things and add over 200 words to my memrise, during this month. How could that ever turn into being ‘nothing’? Don’t ever underestimate yourselves.
Anyway, during this month I felt like I just couldn’t find a proper balance or make any good habits to make my daily life better and easier. Until today that is. I guess sometimes you just don’t realize your habits until you somehow break them.
Today I had my first Saturday shift and since I live in the countryside, that was kind of an issue. You see, the local bus only takes 3 trips on Saturdays and the earliest one was 2,5 hours after my shift was supposed to start – obviously I had to fix that problem! Luckily my boyfriend was able to give me a lift and the problem was solved. Easy! However, throughout the day, I kept feeling like something was as just completely off in my mind and I kept making guesses to why that might be. I mean, there was so many new things for me to digest today since it was my first Saturday shift. The Saturday schedule, the Saturday customers, the Saturday special offers etc., but I kept pushing the thoughts away as none of them felt like the real reason.
As I was heading home, it suddenly hit me. Every single work day throughout this month, I have spent 45 minutes reading my Korean books at the bus stop by my workplace. Every single morning for 45 minutes. I don’t look at my phone, I don’t talk to anyone, I don’t actively study, I just sit still with my book and enjoy the story. As soon as I had that thought I realized how important that morning ritual is to me. Thanks to my boyfriend I was able to sleep for longer and be at my workplace in time and I am forever grateful, but apparently I shouldn’t have dropped my reading session.
After realizing this, a whole list of new Korean habits came to mind. For instance, every Sunday evening I go for a 40-60 minute walk on my own, while listening to a Korean podcast, and every Monday afternoon (the only day I get to leave work early) I go online and find some different study material on Naver (whatever seems interesting), and print it all out so it’s easy to pick up as soon as I have time. Also, every single night my boyfriend goes to bed around 10-15 minutes after me, and every single night I use that time to relax in bed while playing around with all my words on memrise. I Guess I really did find a balance! I may not go through grammar points as quickly as I used to, but I still get through one every other day as the very minimum. And that my dear friends, is totally fine with me!
Now, I need to eat my yummy leftovers and then I’ll sit down and read a few pages in my book! Time to make this day right!
Oh! And the TOPIK result came out! I wont be discussing it now as I have a lot to say about all my new goals, but I will let you all know that I did indeed pass level 2! Horray!
I decided to try out something new for a few weeks or so. As you might remember, I stopped writing down new vocabulary (unless it was super important) and instead just kept looking it up until i remembered it. This turned out to be a great choice as it really helps to keep reading and writing the words that you can’t remember, over and over again. However I have been really curious as to why some words just stick instantly while others keep disappearing from my memory. So I started a new experiment last Saturday.
From now on, I write down every single word I come across with only one exception which is when I read 버드나무에 부는 바람. I usually read a few pages in the morning before work, but other than that I usually read it on the go and I hate having to switch my attention between the book and my phone dictionary while sitting in a noisy train, crammed full of people. Also, I haven’t really felt a need to use a dictionary while reading. I understand enough to follow the story line and I’m quite good at understanding through context. I guess 버드나무에 부는 바람 has become my dictionary free zone!
Anyway, back to the experiment. The idea is that on every Saturday, I’ll ‘restart’ my notes. By restart I mean that I’ll write down all new words as well as those that I can’t remember, even though I wrote them down before. This way I can compare my notes from week to week and – if I don’t become lazy – from month to month. Which words just stuck with me and which didn’t? Maybe I can learn something new about my personal learning abilities and preferences. That’s always interesting, right? (asked the geeky Korean lover)
When I forget a word even though I wrote it down just a few minutes ago, I’ll still keep searching for it on Naver, instead of looking through my notes. That way I can still get a lot of practice even though I sort of switched back to my old methods.
I might share my weekly words on the blog and I might not. I haven’t quite decided yet! But I will definitely keep everyone posted about my results!
Last Saturday I finally took TOPIK 1 (whoa, it already feels like it was ages ago!) and surprisingly enough, my sister and I actually found our way to the Korean Cultural Center without any trouble!
When we got there we waited outside for a while, not really sure whether to enter the building or not since we were there pretty early, but soon other Korean lovers joined us and we all got invited inside by one of the employees. After waiting for a while in the waiting area, we all had to get our registration slips and then we got to go to the room where we had to take the actual test.
My first impression was that it seemed just like a normal written exam just like back home in Denmark! I walked in to the dark room and had to find my seat. All desks had names and registration numbers, so you had to find the one with your name. Not too long after finding my desk, the supervisors joined us and started to collect our phones while explaining the structure and rules of the exam. As I mentioned in my last post, I actually had an anxiety attack right before I found my desk, but at this point I was starting calm down and this actually ended up being my favorite part of the exam. Why? Because the instructions were mainly in Korean. Only a few things got translated to English and somehow I just found it so incredibly satisfying to actually use my knowledge and be able to understand what was going on! Honestly, that’s probably the reason why my anxiety started to fade away. At that point I had already considered quitting and just leaving the room before the test started, but I knew that I would regret it SO badly! Passing level 2 in April 2016, has been my goal and a big part of my motivation in 10 whole months! Not only would I be incredibly disappointed in myself, but I would also leave the Korean Cultural Center with a really bad memory filled with anxiety and I might never be able to get over that. So I decided that I would skip TOPIK 2 (which was just a bonus since I was already there) and stay for TOPIK 1 no matter what. And I did!
After waiting for a while, we got out TOPIK pens (I have read about many people keeping these pens as a souvenir, but I never understood why until I got mine. I had no idea that the pens where made specifically for the exam!) and soon after we got our papers too. Soon after, the exam finally started but sadly it didn’t last for long. We started with 듣기 but our audio player kept stopping in the middle of the tracks. I felt really sorry towards some of the other test takers. Some of them where really nervous and had been sitting with their books, cramming, until the very last moment, and these unexpected technical issues obviously made them more nervous! After a few tries we were told to jump straight into 읽기 while they tried to find another cd player. This is my second favorite moment of the exam! You see, there was no clock in the room so I had no idea whether I was behind on time or not, which was quite stressful. Also, I haven’t taken a TOPIK mock test since September, and I had completely forgotten how much time we had and how many questions there was. I literally had no idea what I was doing so I just tried to focus on the current question in front of me. At some point one of the supervisors pokes me on the shoulder and asks “You ARE aware that you need to fill out the answers on that separate paper, right?”… Oh boy! My face must have been priceless! I DID know that had to do that because they said so in the beginning and I DID understand it. However, I have never used that separate answer sheet at home and after my anxiety issues I had just put all of my focus into the test and had almost forgotten that I was NOT home in my own living room and I was NOT just taking a mock test! Having no idea how much time I had to fix it, I semi panicked and tried to fill it out as fast as possible, which obviously caused me to accidently mark a few answers wrongly. At the exam you are not allowed to use your own pen or correction tape, so I had to raise my hand and wait patiently for the supervisor to bring me the tape. I got it corrected and finished the last few questions and then while I was thinking about what a silly mistake that was, one of the supervisors declared that we now only had 10 minutes left! Turns out I had more than enough time! This brings me to my point: This is my second favorite moment! As mentioned above, I haven’t taken the test since September and back then I just barely passed it + I had to skim through the last 3 questions in order to answer them in time. This time I was able to read some of the questions several times, I could fill out the answers twice on different papers, erase a few answers and then correct them, and still be able to finish with 10+ minutes to spare. If that’s not progress, then I don’t know what is!
After the 10 minutes had past, they gave us two extra minutes to finish up, since we had to start the 읽기 so sudden. We then picked up where we left with 듣기 but the new player also seemed to be against us! Once again I felt really sorry towards the other test takers, and the supervisors too! They were definitely worried about what to do if it didn’t start working properly soon! It the end one of the supervisors just had to stand by the player and be ready to restart it if it stopped, and that worked out perfectly.
In the end we finished without too many problems and I left the room smiling and feeling really good about myself! Like most of the other test takers, I brought my pen back home with me. It now has a special place on my desk (aka my favorite study place) and it will stay there to remind me of my first TOPIK experience, and motivate me to study for the next!
I have already thought about my next TOPIK goal, but I have decided to just study without a goal, until May 26th, where the results from the 46th TOPIK will be published. I can’t wait to see my result and I can’t wait to learn more Korean and see more progress. Things have been a bit hectic since I got back from London, but it should be back to normal now. Hopefully that means that I can spend my long weekend with my first post-TOPIK study session!
There’s now 10 days left till I fly to London, and 12 days for TOPIK. While I am still super nervous, I can actually feel my nervousness fade more away for each day that passes, and my excitement is slowly taking over its place. It’s an amazing feeling! I have gathered all the most important things like my passport, money, TOPIK documents, flight documents, hotel reservation documents, books for my sister etc. in my handbag, since I won’t be needing them until I leave anyway. As I was packing these items yesterday I realized that I actually feel pretty ready. Don’t get me wrong here, I’m still convinced that I won’t get more than 2급, but again that was my goal to begin with. While I would love to get 3급, I honestly don’t feel upset by the thought of failing it anymore. As you guys probably know very well by now, I love trying to figure out where my sudden mind changes come from, and this is what I came up with. On Thursday I took another 토픽 2 읽기 연습 시험, and on Friday I looked at my result. I beat my previous best score with 8 points (4 answers), and I felt really happy. On Saturday I continued with the 듣기 part of the test, and I didn’t get any unusual result. 16 points higher than my worst result, but 6 points lower than my best. However, I felt like my understanding had gotten a lot better. I still didn’t understand it well enough to answer the questions properly, but I felt that I somewhat understood the basics of what was going on, which is a first for me. There’s usually 6-8 assignments where I have no idea what is going on, and just have to guess without putting any thought into it. This made me feel so much happier than the points probably would have, because it kept me from stressing out and thinking my usual ’omg I have no idea what’s going on, what does this even mean, I’m going to fail this so hard’ thoughts, and that meant that the time passed by a lot faster, and I was able to enjoy the challenge. It was a truly enjoyable experience.
So, was it the points that made me feel ready? My new and improved understanding of the 듣기 part? No, not at all. My original plan was to keep up with the practice tests, right until the actual exam, but I changed my mind when I was printing out the test from this weekend. I don’t want to ware myself out and more importantly, I don’t want to start getting bored with TOPIK tests. If that happens, then where does that leave me in 12 days? There’s just no way that it would benefit me. Of course I will still be studying until then – I mean come on, it is me after all! But no more TOPIK focused studying. No more 쓰기 practice, no more speed reading practice and no more practice tests. I’m going to study in whatever way I feel like. I’m going to continue reading 버드나무에 부는 바람 and I just started on the 1st look magazine that I bought last month, and I’ll go back to enjoying my grammar books as well.
After making that decision I felt very pleased with myself. I have worked hard until now, and I have improved a lot from my first TOPIK 2 test in January and until now. Now, I have put away all my worries and I’m going to let my excitement take over any nervousness that might be left it me.
In 10 days I’ll see my sister for the first time in 5 months and we’re going to have 3 awesome days in London together. We’re going to go shopping and she’ll eat Korean food for the first time! If only I could make these 10 days go by a little faster!
First of all, learning a language is memorizing information to a certain degree. However, I it does matter how you memorize it. Some people sit down with a list of words or grammar and go through it over and over again until they have memorized every single part of this list. This is what I would call forced memorization. Your only goal is to remember what’s on that list and it can easily slow down your learning process, however, it can also be really helpful.
Other people refuse to memorize and instead they try to expose themselves to those very same words or grammar points, until they know them by heart. But isn’t this just another form of memorization? I would say it is. However, this is what I would call natural memorization and it has a completely different set of good and bad points. It generally takes a lot longer to memorize in this way, however in this way you usually have different situations where you ‘meet’ those words (unlike with forced memorization where the situation is the same for all of the words: sitting somewhere with a paper full of words) and that’ll make it easier to remember. Maybe you meet a certain word often when you are out grocery shopping, and then you meet another word often while you are at school.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that memorization (not to mention everything else in this world) has it’s good and bad points, and in this post I’ll be sharing my thoughts about it.
This post will be all about my personal opinion on the matter, and it is obviously based on my personal experiences with memorization. When I’m saying ´Memorization´ in the rest of this post, I’ll mainly be talking about the forced memorization.
Good:
– It allows you to feel like you are making progress even though you only have a short timespan to work in, and this is an awesome feeling which has the power to give your self-esteem and motivation a boost. Everybody is different and therefore it’s only natural that we all have different needs when learning. Some people just need the confirmation that memorizing a bunch of words, can give. Other people just don’t. It’s that simple.
– If you are the type of person who loves turning everything into a game or who is very competitive, then you probably enjoy things like Memrise, which gives you points for each correct answer. When using Memrise you can also check your position (based on your points) among all the other users. I know several people who find these things incredibly motivating and for people like them, memorizing can be a really good tool for learning.
– When you start learning something new like an alphabet, numbers of similar things, then memorization is an awesome tool. Memorized things are usually forgotten fairly easy but if you can remember them just for a while, then it’ll be a lot easier for you to use them in different situations which then allows you to actually learn the numbers. Memorization itself might not always be a good choice, but it usually does open up for a few new learning possibilities.
– Another good thing to mention is that it allows you to be able to talk about a specific subject in a short amount of time. This is really helpful if you need to make a presentation of some sort or if you want to be able to discuss a certain topic with other people.
– I recently read that memorization helps to keep your brain fit, which then makes it easier to remember stuff in general. My memory is pretty standard I guess, but I would love to make it just slightly better! It also takes a lot less energy to use things you’ve memorized instead of creating those same things all over again.
– Lastly I want to mention that some phrases simply don’t make sense when you look at the words separately. I can’t even count the amount of times where I have been losing my mind over a certain sentence, because I KNOW all the words and I KNOW the grammar, and yet I have absolutely no idea what that sentence is supposed to mean. In these situations, I find memorization very helpful. I’m not sure why, but I actually find that memorized sentences stick a lot easier than memorized words. Maybe because I create a connection between the meaning and the sentence? I’m not sure to be honest.
Bad:
– As mentioned earlier, you often meet new words in a certain situation. Maybe you meet a certain word often when you are out grocery shopping, and then you meet another word often while you are at school. It won’t take long for you to make a connection between the word and the situation, and then when you suddenly read it in a book or hear it in a movie, you’ll have the connection to that specific situation, and that’ll help you remember it’s meaning. If you memorize these same words in a forced way, you most likely won’t have a connection in the same way. If you sit down with a list of words and start memorizing them, then your situation for all those words will all be the same (sitting with a piece of paper) and that won’t be very helpful. I hope that made sense!
– When memorizing words (and often memorizing many words in a short period of time) it often has the – very unwanted – effect of making it difficult for the learner to recognize the very same words if they appear in a new context. This is something that often happens to me. When reading in my books, I have often come across words that I either couldn’t recognize at all, or words that I just knew for a fact that I had ‘learned’ but couldn’t remember the meaning of, even if my life had depended on it. Having a connection to a situation or a place just makes it a lot easier.
– While you can remember every single word today, you might have forgotten them all by tomorrow. Memorized words can disappear from your memory in no time, and you might get really surprised by this if you thought you had learned them for good.
– Memorizing can easily become a really bad habit. If you enjoy the fast results and the steady feeling of progress, then it can be very tempting to just memorize everything you possibly can. We should all keep this in mind when memorizing.
– Changes to the memorized words can ruin your understanding completely. When I wanted to learn the native Korean numbers, I made myself some cardboard flashcards. I wrote the number on one side and the Korean on the other side and started practicing immediately. I looked at the Korean side, and guessed the number on the back of it. It didn’t take me long to memorize them and I even kept practicing for a few days to keep myself from forgetting them, however, after getting all of the cards right over and over again, I decided to practice in the opposite way. I looked at the numbers and tried to guess the Korean side, and guess what? I got about half of them wrong. This slight change was enough for me to completely ruin my so-called understanding of the number. That was a real eye opener for me, and I still remind myself often, so that I don’t make such a mistake again.
Tips:
– Avoid learning to many words at the same time. If you decide to learn 100 new words every day, the chances of forgetting them all or confusing yourself is really high.
– Try putting all the new words into a context. Write down some sample sentences or dialogs. This will make it easier to remember the words meaning later – especially of you find it easier to remember sentences, like me.
– Try to memorize small groups of words that are related, instead of random lists. This way you might be able make a connection between those words and that’ll help you remember it later. Maybe you can’t remember 입장료when you see it, but you do remember that you memorized it along with 놀이 기구 and 놀이공원, so that’ll create a connection which can either help you remember the word or at least understand through context.
– Be prepared to forget many of the memorized words. If you are prepared for it, then it won’t feel like a defeat when it happens – Because it WILL happen.
Lastly I want to share a little story. Not too long ago, I was talking to another language learner and she felt really bummed out. She had been discussing a certain topic with some friends over a few days and therefore she memorized a lot of words related to said topic, though this weren’t her intention. However, after reading pretty much everywhere that memorization is really bad and that it slows down your real learning speed, she felt upset because she now felt that her sense of progress from those discussions, were fake and useless.
That’s a really dangerous thought for anyone who’s learning anything, and that’s the reason why I decided to write this post. While I do not recommend that you rely too much on memorization, it does have some benefits, and it’s not wrong to do it. It does allow you to learn certain things faster and even if you only learn one out of the 30 words you wanted to learn, then that it still one more word you know now. Don’t get stressed out over memorization – it’s really not that big of a deal. Even if you experience temporary progress, it’s still progress that you can use at that time. Enjoy it!
This year, my spring break took a frustrating turn which caused me to change my plans as well as go into a semi hiatus on the blog. Basically, I knew that the first few days would be busy but after that I didn’t have any other plans than focusing on my TOPIK preparations. However, I started to suffer from intense toothache and half of my face started to swell up, making me look like something straight out of a horror movie. Sigh.. The pain meant that I couldn’t focus on anything whatsoever and the swelling was to bad that I couldn’t eat or talk. Ugh just thinking about it makes me depressed!
Anyway, the pain is more or less under control now and the swelling has gone down a bit too, though I still look slightly scary, haha! On Friday I was finally able to focus enough to study again and I felt really happy to be back on my usual schedule. Saturday was another busy day with family so I weren’t able to study for long.
Actually, I don’t think I have ever studied this little in a week before.
Anyhow, I was able to get a little work done! I finished 작은 아씨들 and I’m now reading 버드나무에 부는 바람. I’m 18 pages in and even though nothing has really happened yet, I enjoy it so far. I have also started the Korean Grammar In Use Advanced book, but I’m mainly focusing on getting more comfortable with the content of the intermediate book as I still don’t feel like I can comfortably use the many grammar points. I haven’t really been working on my 쓰기 since I need to focus completely to write something even slightly descent, but I have been working with my 읽기 book. It’s for TOPIK 1, so it’s not really that challenging and it have been a great way to do something Korean/TOPIK related without actually having to focus. I also had my weekly italki session (random fact: When half of your face is more or less paralyzed, it’s apparently a lot easier to speak Korean than it is to speak Danish) so I guess I haven’t wasted my vacation completely. I’ll be hitting the books this evening and I have the entire day tomorrow too, so hopefully I will get some studying done.
I’ll be starting another grammar book tonight, but I’ll be talking more about that in my next post. Also I’m working on a review that I have been wanting to do for a very long time, so hopefully I’ll be able to finish that soon too.
There’s 20 days left for TOPIK – I’ll try to get as much as possible out of the remaining time!
Ok guys! You all know about my TOPIK plans and guess what? It’s finally official! 아싸!
However, it most certainly wasn’t easy, haha! I had a lot of problems when signing up for the exams, and I have been patiently waiting for 2 weeks, to get a reply from the Korean Embassy. Phew! It’s been super nerve wracking!
Anyway, basically what happened was that I got the dates mixed up and therefore I was suddenly left with only 4 days to fill out all the papers and send them of to London. If you send a high priority letter to London, it still takes 3 days to get there, which means that if the letter had the slightest delay on its way, then I would pretty much be doomed. As you can imagine I was suddenly in a hurry!
Sadly, after this stressful discovery it all just started to go wrong. First of I had a ton of problems when trying to download the application form and once I finally got all that technical stuff figured out, I had no idea how to actually fill out the form. At that time I was already freaking out, and I was starting to think that I would never make it in time. When you download the application form, you also get a guide on how to fill it out, but the things is that the guide is in Korean and when I started translating it, I still didn’t understand what to do with some of the fields. In the end I got help from my awesome italki teacher (HI RACHEL!) and was able to fill out most of the form. I wrote an email to the embassy in London with my remaining questions and luckily they were able to answer my mail on the same day.
Just as everything was back on track, I suddenly couldn’t transfer the exam fee. It turns out that I was missing some of the needed information about the bank I was transferring to, and it was too late to contact the Embassy again. Sigh. Luckily my google skills were able to save me this time, haha!
In the end I was able to fill out the form and send it off to London, but as I mentioned above, I still had to wait and see if I made it in time. I have been checking my email and mailbox several times a day, and yesterday my conformation finally came!
Ah.. I would never have imagined that it would cause me this much stress, but now that things are finally set in stone, I definitely feel that it was worth it! I had many sleepless nights (starts singing 잠은 안오고 배는 고프고) but I have no regrets!
I now have everything prepared. TOPIK, new passport, flight tickets, a booked guestroom, money, days of from my internship and so on. It’s all ready!
LET THE COUNTDOWN BEGIN! – No seriously, I added a countdown Widget to the blog.
Now I just need to focus on studying which will be easy with all my new books and magazines! More on those later!
So as most of you lovely people are aware of, I have been a kpop fan for about 4,5 years now. Just like with many other Korean learners out there, Kpop was one of the very first reasons to why I ever even considered learning Korean, and even though my reasons have changed a ton, I still enjoy studying with songs.
Lately I see more and more people seeking advice on how to study with songs and I personally feel that it is a very useful way of studying – especially if you are running a bit low on motivation or in my case, energy. Using songs makes it a lot more fun and also a lot easier to remember. Just think about all those learning programs for young children! It really does work.
Anyway, I have been using songs to study for quite a while now, and I have found it very helpful when it comes to expanding my vocabulary and even more useful for improving my pronunciation and talking speed. A while ago I thought of a way to use songs to improve my reading speed as well, so after testing it out for a while, I believe it’s time to share it with you guys. As I go through my study methods, I’ll be using a song that I haven’t studied with yet. This way I’ll get to study a bit too!
No matter what part of my Korean skills I wish to improve, I ALWAYS start out by translating the song. This is where you really have the chance to improve your vocabulary. Translating it yourself will make it a lot easier for you to remember because you have to read every word (usually we glance over a text a lot faster and we pay less attention, if it’s in a language we are comfortable with) and spelling the unknown words over and over again to look them up, will help you recognize and remember them faster (not to mention it helps you spelling skills).
I recommend choosing a song that you have listened to at least a few times as it will make everything a lot smoother when you at least know the melody a little bit, and that way you usually know if it’s a song that you like or not, and obviously it’ll be more fun if you actually like the song that you’re going to study with.
In my case I chose 칸버스 by 포미닛 (like that would surprise anyone). I have listened to this song many times but never actually listened to the words and sentences. When looking up new words I split them into two groups:
1. = Words I don’t know.
2. = Words that I know for sure that I have heard or looked up before, but just can’t remember.
Here’s my work with the lyrics. The words in green are the words that I have come across before.
새하얗다 – Pure white 엎질러지다 – To be spilled 위태롭다 – Risky/dangerous 완벽하다 – Perfect 배경 – Background 밤새 – All night long/ overnight 색칠 – Paint 해나가다 – Rub on/along 둘만의 – One-on-one/between you and I 채우다 – Fill/satisfy 오직 – Only/solely 정밀 – Accurate/precise 묘사하다 – Portrayal 작품 – Peice/work 물감 – Paints 검정 – Black 망설이다 – Hesitate 명화 – Famous work (film, painting) 펼치다 – Unfold/open 화가 – Painter 붙잡다 – Grab hold of 비다 – Empty 물들다 – To get dyed 거칠다 – Rough 덧칠 – Paint over 닿다 – Touch 영감 – Inspiration 대충 – Approximately 명작 – Masterpiece 흔적 – Evidence/marks/trace 넘치다 – Overflow 아낌없이 – Generously/freely 감다 – Reel in 조화 – Balance/harmony
Now, as for vocabulary there’s a ton of methods you can use for improving and remembering the new words, and we all have different preferences. I like to switch it up very often so that I don’t get bored. You can create flashcards or write down sample sentences. Lately I have been trying something new and very entertaining, but I’ll keep it secret for now as I’m working on another post for that one!
As for pronunciation and talking speed, here’s what I do: I sing. Yes that’s pretty much it! Now let me just make it very clear that I couldn’t sing to save my life, however I do find it super entertaining and very helpful. When listening to music you’ll be listening to the same words in different contexts and the words are often pronounced differently as they get adjusted to the melody of the song. Pronouncing them in different ways makes it easier for you to recognize the word in new contexts as well.
When I use this method there’s a lot of memorization going on as it’ll be a lot easier to sing the full song when you have memorized the lyrics. Memorization has both good and bad points, but if your goal is to improve your speaking speed then it won’t really matter. Learning the lyrics and trying to keep up with the song is very similar to shadowing, however singing the same song over and over again is a lot more entertaining than to say the same sentence over and over. Also, when you have practiced singing the song and you can finally keep up with the artist and maybe even have memorized the lyrics, you just feel more satisfied. At least that’s how I feel!
Now the new part that I have been trying out is similar to the previous part, except I avoid memorizing. After translating the song I immediately start singing along. Since I haven’t memorized anything I have to rely completely on reading the lyrics as I sing the song. If your Korean reading skills are slow as mine, then you’ll get lost quite a few times since it’s almost impossible to read as fast as the song goes (especially if you have a tendency to pick songs with rap parts in them, like me! sigh..) but it’s still fun which makes it a lot easier to continue even though you fail at it a few times. This is also why I recommend translating the lyrics as well as choosing a song that you’ve heard before as it gives you an idea about when the song is fast or slow, and you can recognize the words you read a lot faster, when you have already spelled them before. Of course you can make it more challenging by not translating the lyrics first but I find that this is the perfect balance for me – Plus you’ll be missing out on some great vocabulary. I personally feel that this method is super helpful and I’m surprised by how fast I can improve my reading speed (even though I still have such a long way to go!).
Lastly I want to add that when you practice the same song over and over again, you will at some point naturally memorize it and it might give you a false feeling of improvement, which can be incredible disappointing in the long run. To avoid this I recommend that you try singing it once in a while without looking at the lyrics. If you are able to sing most of it, then it’s time to move on to another song.
I hope you guys find this post somewhat useful! If you are curious about the song that I’m currently working with, then here’s the full lyrics as well as the actual song.
Have fun!
새하얀 Carpet
엎질러진 Wine
하늘도 빨간 Sunset eh
조금 위태롭게
완벽한 배경 우리의
비밀스런 우리 드라마 밤새
서로를 색칠 해나가
둘만의 Canvas 가득 채워 나가
숨마저 색을 담아
너와 나 오직 우리 둘만의
미술시간 서로를 정밀 묘사해
이 작품에 물감이 왜 더 필요해
검정배경 빼곤 오직
우리 둘만 색 있네
더는 망설이지마 더욱 날 느껴봐
이 완벽한 명화 Feel 가득한 이 밤
Canvas 가득 우릴 펼쳐봐
Hey 거기 화가 어서 와서 붙잡아
빈 종이 위에 우리 둘이
서로에게 또 물들어가 Yeah
함께 그려가는 이 시간
이 밤이 가기 전에 너의
꿈 어서 나를 데려가
뭐든지 그려봐
여기 우리 둘만의 Canvas
Canvas
여기 우리 둘만의 Canvas
Canvas
여기 우리 둘만의 Canvas
그래 그렇게 널 볼 수 있게
거칠어진 그 숨을 더 느낄 수 있게
그리다 만 나쁜 드라마 마저
서로를 덧칠 해나가
오늘의 Canvas 가득 채워 나가
마지막 색을 담아
손 닿는 곳 어디든 영감을 꽃피워
여기저기 대충 명작의 흔적 넘쳐
아무도 몰라 지난 밤 우리의 View
아낌없는 Idea 밤새 서로의 Muse
새롭게 날 느껴봐 두 눈을 감아봐
이 완벽한 조화 또 날아봐 Tonight
Canvas 가득 우릴 펼쳐봐
Hey 거기 화가 어서 와서 붙잡아
빈 종이 위에 우리 둘이
서로에게 또 물들어가 Yeah
함께 그려가는 이 시간
이 밤이 가기 전에 너의
꿈 어서 나를 데려가
뭐든지 그려봐
여기 우리 둘만의 Canvas
Cammilla's Korean 