Tag: routine

Posted in Personal, Selfstudy, Uncategorized

100 days of productivity?

Posted on by 카밀라

Today my vacation is officially over and I am back with my original internship. Even though I now have less time available, I actually still have quite a lot of time compared to my last internship. Lately I haven’t been doing my best when it comes to studying, and I don’t even have a ‘proper’(only oneself should decide what a proper reason is) reason. I just simply haven’t had the energy or focus to work hard. I feel like it’s important to be honest to oneself with things like this instead of making up reasons to why you haven’t done your best. Things are definitely looking better know, but I have been thinking about how to give myself an extra boost of motivation to do my best again. I have some exciting things coming up and I want to prepare myself in the best possible way.
My first plan was to join the Italki language challenge again but I even though I really liked it the last time, I don’t feel like it’s the way to go this time. I don’t have nearly as much time as I did back then and 효진쌤’s schedule isn’t very flexible either. And since she is now back in Korea, we also have to match it with the time difference. Honestly, just having 1 session a week can be more than enough of a challenge!

So what else can I do? Well, I have seen the 100 days of productivity tags on many blogs and especially on Tumblr and Instagram and I thought that maybe I should give it a try. Making a challenge out of it is always a good way for me to motivate myself and it will probably fit the timeframe for my next projects and goals. It will probably also be a good opportunity for me to learn more about my own study habits.
My goal is to study for an average of two hours pr. Day. My normal daily average is around 1,5 hours (only around 1 hour for the past two weeks) so it’s not really that big of a change, but it’ll get me back on track as well as give me the little extra feeling of a challenge.

I won’t be posting a lot about it on the blog, but I will be updating daily on Instagram and twitter.
So that’s what’s going on right now! I’m starting the challenge from today and I’ll be having the last day on December 20th. Not a bad timing if you ask me! I will be having a few busy weeks (week 38,45 and 50) but I’m sure that won’t be a problem since I adjusted the rules to my personal needs.
My rules are pretty simple.
– As long as my final daily average is on 2 hours, then it doesn’t matter how much I study each day.
– I must study some Korean every day.
– I’ll give a short update every day.

And that’s it!
I’m feeling way more excited about this than I should!
Have a great day guys!

Posted in books, Guides, Resources, Selfstudy, Uncategorized

REVIEW – Korean Q&A sentence patterns by TTMIK

Posted on by 카밀라

qna-1

This is a book that just recently joined my growing collection of books, and since it is one of my current favorites I decided that it was more than worthy of a review on the blog.
The funny thing about this is that I actually bought the e-book when it was published, but because I prefer physical copies I never quite got around to using it. I usually force myself to read e-books since not all books will come out in paper format, but it does take me a lot longer to work through them, which is why I currently have 2 other e-books on standby.. I will get to them soon, I promise!
Anyway let’s get to the review!
As usual I will go through the setup, good points and bad points, my general opinion and lastly my advice for studying with this specific book.

Setup
The books starts out with a short but thorough introduction to the content as well as TTMIK’s own advice on how to study with the book. This is followed by the table of contents and then we get to all the fun stuff.
qna-2

qna-3

The book contains 10 categories, which each has 5 main questions. All of the main questions are followed by 3 similar questions, a main grammar point, a sample answer as well as 3 similar answers.
The book provides vocabulary lists, study notes, a real life answer from a TTMIK teacher as well as a sample dialog.
Lastly there’s a blank area for you to write your own answers in.
The book comes with downloadable audio files.

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qna-5

qna-6

qna-8

Good/Bad points
The good – in no specific order:
– Visually pleasing.
– Realistic and interesting topics.
– Easy to review due to study notes.
– No romanization.
– Can help you improve listening, speaking, reading as well as writing.
– Can help you gain confidence by giving you knowledge about basic patterns as well as expected questions/answers in certain situations.
– Clean design that allows you to focus on the actual content.
– Perfect travel size.
– Answers from real people.

The bad – in no specific order:
– I always write answers on a separate paper and never in my books, but if I did then I would like a bit more answer space.

My general opinion
As mentioned in the beginning of my post, this is one of my current favorite books to study with, and I keep finding more and more ways to study with it, so personally I would recommend this to anyone who is beginner or intermediate. It’s a great way to improve your conversational skills and take a step towards talking Korean more freely, which is what I am currently working a lot on.

My advice on studying with this book
– Go through all the main questions. If you can answer them with confidence then you can move on to the next one. Sometimes you might learn something unexpected and even if you don’t, the book is made in a simple way that allows you to read it all quickly without feeling like you’re wasting your time. Not to mention that confirming your skills might give you a boost of confidence!
If you cannot answer with confidence then work through the assignments provided.
– Make sure to write your own answers to the questions. You can easily skip it or copy one of the sample answers, but practicing is really important if you want to really learn how to use these patterns. Also, writing your own answers forces you to really think about the question and the patterns and in many cases you will also have to look up words that are relevant to your specific answer, which will bring you even more knowledge about the topic.
If you find it very difficult, then start by writing your answer on a separate paper in your mother tongue. This will remove any barriers in your thinking while answering as well as it will give you a guide to what words and grammar you need to look up before answering in Korean.
– Avoid practicing wrong things. Make sure to get your answers checked so that you can learn from possible mistakes instead of teaching yourself something incorrect. You can ask friends, language partners, teachers or get help from websites like italki, lang-8 or apps like Hellotalk and HiNative (Reviews are coming for all of these).
– Use the audio files to practice both listening and speaking. These short files are perfect to imitate and practice pronunciation and intonation.
– Study with a language partner or friend if possible. I’m going to use the topics for my future italki sessions, and I’ll use the book to help me prepare for each session/topic.

I hope you guys found this helpful!
Let me just end today’s post by telling you guys that TTMIK is currently having a chuseok sale so now is a really great time to invest in this book! You can buy it HERE

Posted in Guides, Resources, Selfstudy, Uncategorized

Today’s expression – With Naver

Posted on by 카밀라

I have been wanting to introduce this convenient source for a while, but due to being sick, taking a week long course related to my internship and then having my internet fail me, I simply haven’t been able to do much about it until now.
Nevertheless I am fully back on track, with 17 (yes I’m serious) drafts on my blog, ready to be tackled! I have so many things to share with you guys, and I haven’t even been gone for 20 days! Oh well!

‘Today’s expression’ is a little gem that you can find on the Naver Dictionary app (I haven’t seen it on their website but I can imagine that it is available there as well) and even though it is meant as a tool to learn English, it works pretty well for learning Korean as well! I have seen similar tools online before but because they had some questionable English translations, I wasn’t too thrilled by the thought of using them, even though English isn’t my target language.
I have been going through ‘Today’s expression’ almost every day for a while know and I am happy to report that Naver, in my opinion, is translating these sentences naturally rather than literally (which in certain cases wouldn’t have made sense at all). Good job Naver!
Okay, so let me just walk you guys through this little gem even though you probably don’t need me to. What can I say, I missed talking to you guys!

To begin with, Naver gives you an English sentence/expression along with a Korean translation of it. After that you have an English sample dialog to make sure that you have a context to put the expression into (something that I appreciate in any language).
Then the app breaks down the most important parts of the expression and gives you 3 sample sentences for each point, to show you how to use the same pattern in other sentences. This part comes with a Korean equivalent as well, which is why it can be helpful to Korean learners as well.
Lastly, the app provides a short vocabulary list from the sample sentences.
Basically it’s like learning a language backwards, and it is working fine for me!

Here’s a few examples from the app!

 

 

If you want to do some cramming or hardcore studying then this is obviously not for you, however it is a small and light lesson that you can add to your daily routine, in whatever way you wish.

I hope you guys found it somewhat helpful or at least interesting!
I’ll see you guys soon!

Posted in Selfstudy, TOPIK, Uncategorized

This week 07.08.16

Posted on by 카밀라

Hi guys! I’m a bit earlier today than usual, but I figured that since I already have gotten quite a bit of studying done, and I probably wont be doing more today, I might as well write about this weeks numbers, now!

Monday – 1st of August
– Reviewing words and adding them to Quizlet, for about 1 hour.
– Worked with 덕혜옹주 for about 45 minutes.

Tuesday – 2nd of August
– Worked with 덕혜옹주 for about 1 hour and 30 minutes.
– Worked with an audiobook for about 1 hour and 20 minutes.

Wednesday – 3rd of August
–  Worked with 덕혜옹주 for about 1 hour and 10 minutes.
–  Reviewing words and adding them to Quizlet, for about 1 hour.

Thursday – 4th of August
– Worked with an audiobook for about 1 hour and 10 minutes.
– Reviewing words on Quizlet for about 30 minutes.

Friday – 5th of August
– Worked with SURE magazine for about  1 hour.
– Worked with an audiobook for about 20 minutes.

Saturday – 6th of August
– Italki session for about  1 hour.
-Worked with an audiobook for about 1 hour and 40 minutes.
– Reviewing words on Quizlet for about 40 minutes.

Sunday – 7th if August
– Worked with TOPIK 듣기 for about  1 hour.
– Worked with 서강 한국어 쓰기 1 for about 1 hour.
– Worked with 덕혜옹주 for about 1 hour.
– Worked with 빈도별 토픽 for about 40 minutes.

This makes this weeks total 16 hours and 45 minutes. I’m feeling quite satisfied with this number, though I must admit that I have been completely slacking on my 쓰기 skills, compared to my original plan. So that will be my goal of the new week. I’ll finish the TOPIK mock test that I started today (I only had time enough to do the 듣기 part), and hopefully my 쓰기 will not be too horrible!

Posted in Personal, Selfstudy, Uncategorized

This week 31.07.16

Posted on by 카밀라

Good evening guys! This week was my last day at my internship, but even though it was quite hectic, I still got some studying done. Here’s my numbers from this week!

 

Monday – 25th of July
– Worked with a podcast (1st half of an audio book) for about 1 hour.
– Worked with SURE magazine for about 40 minutes.
– Worked with a podcast (2nd half of an audio book) for about 1 hour.

Tuesday – 26th of July
– Worked with a 만화 for about 20 minutes.
– Worked with 빈도별  토픽 for about 1 hour and 40 minutes.

Wednesday – 27th of July
– Nothing.

Thursday – 28th of July
– Nothing.

Friday – 29th of July
– Nothing.

Saturday – 30th of July
– Italki session for about  1 hour.
– Worked with 서강 한국어 쓰기 1 for about  1 hour and 40 minutes.
– Worked with 덕혜옹주 (YES I FINALLY PICKED AN EBOOK TO READ) for about 30 minutes.

Sunday – 31st of July.
– Worked with SURE magazine for about  1 hour and 40 minutes.
– Worked with 서강 한국어 쓰기 1 for about 20 minutes.
– Worked with 덕혜옹주 for about 1 hour and 20 minutes.

That’s a total of 11 hours and 10 Minutes. Not to bad when I had a forced 3 day break! I now officially have (almost) all of August to myself and I’ll make sure to enjoy all of my time and get a lot of studying done!

I hope everybody had a great week just like me!
I’ll be back in a few days with a review!

Posted in Resources, Selfstudy, Uncategorized

My current plans and trying to decide

Posted on by 카밀라

On Friday I have my last day of work with my current internship. This will be followed by vacation and even when that vacation ends, I’ll still be having a lot more free time on my hands – which of course means that I’ll be studying a lot more!

I currently have 2 projects that I will be pouring my heart and soul (and time and money) into. The first one is still in the beginning stages and isn’t quite certain yet. And the other one is of course TOPIK! I’ll officially start working towards that 4급!
Even though I still have 4 days of long shifts, I’m already thinking about what I want to do with all this new free time, in order to accomplish that goal. While nothing have really been set in stone yet I did make one plan, which is to read a Korean book. As you guys know, I have read quite a few by now but they have all been books translated into Korean, and 효진쌤 urged me to read an actual Korean book and enjoy the language in it’s most natural form. So that’s what I will do!
I’ve been looking at ridibooks.com and trying to decide what book to buy, but I just can’t seem to choose. I don’t really have any criteria for the book which means the selection is quite big. Ah what to do.
I have bookmarked a few by now – maybe I’ll ask one of my Korean friends to choose one for me. That seems like a good solution!

Another thing that I have decided is that I will work diligently with the magazine that my friend sent me last week. I’ll read every note, every article and every add, and make sure to write down the unknown words. And there’s quite a few of those! I already filled a few pages with new words and I only worked my way through a few adds and the table of contents! Since I feel like this might just be my kind of magazine, I really enjoy working with it. I feel like I might become addicted to reading it regularly and since shipping is so expensive I should at least use it to study diligently while enjoying the articles!

I’m looking forward to make more plans for the next few weeks!

Posted in Personal, Selfstudy, Uncategorized

This week 24.07.16

Posted on by 카밀라

Hi guys! Since it Sunday today I decided to take a break from the blog post I was working on (I have a few updates) and write my weekly update!

This week was intense! Due to some unplanned issues I practically haven’t been home which means that I haven’t been studying like usual. However, due to my new study diary I don’t really feel that bummed about it, since I can see the result of last week, and I have still been able to get some studying done.

Monday – 18th of July
– Worked with an article for about 1 hour.
– Worked with 빈도별 토픽 for about 40 minutes.
– Worked on translating a song for about 20 minute.

Tuesday – 19th of July
– Nothing.

Wednesday – 20th of July
–  Reviewed new words for about 20 minutes.

Thursday – 21st of July
– Worked with 빈도별 토픽 for about 50 minutes.

Friday – 22nd of July
– Italki session for about 1 hour.

Saturday – 23rd of July
– Added new words from my italki session, to Quizlet/reviewing for about  1 hour.
– Talked on the phone with a new LP for about  1 hour.
– Worked with a magazine for about 30 minutes.

Sunday – 24th of July.
– Worked with magazine articles for about 2 hours.

So obviously this is a lot less than last week, but it’s still 8 hours and 40 Minutes where I DID get to study. Not bad at all! I feel like this coming week is going to be a lot more quiet and free, so I’m really looking forward to next weeks numbers!

I’ll be back with my updates tomorrow!

Posted in Personal, Selfstudy, TOPIK, Uncategorized

This week 17.07.16

Posted on by 카밀라

Last Monday I started something new in order to hopefully stop myself from certain negative thoughts. You see, I feel a need to study a lot which in itself isn’t really a problem, however it seems like I automatically start on a completely new page each day. Actually. Its more like a whole new book. If I for some reason don’t get to study a lot one day, then I will feel very frustrated with myself and feel like I’m not doing my best – even if I have been studying for over 4 hours on the previous day. It’s like the other days of hard work just disappears the second I go to sleep. Also, I try my best to take a lot of breaks during my study sessions as I know its good for my head, but when I have a lot of short sessions, I loose track of my overall amount of studying which again leaves me frustrated.

I think I have become way too addicted to these long therapeutic study sessions, and now when my schedule simply doesn’t allow a lot of those, it causes me to feel stressed even though I really have no reason to.

To stop all of that stress I have decided to start keeping track of my studying. More precisely I time my study sessions, even when it’s just for 15 minutes and I add it all up at the end of the day. I also added a few notes on what I have been studying with during the day. I figured that it could help me regain overview of my studies, and surprisingly enough it has reduced my frustrations quite a lot. Therefore I have now decided to keep doing this for 5 weeks and see how it affects me and my way of thinking, and I’ll update on the blog each Sunday so that I can look back at my overall progress. Here’s how my week went by!

Monday – 11th of July
– Worked with 서강 한국어 쓰기 1 for about 1 hour.
– Practiced essay writing for about 1 hour.

Tuesday – 12th of July
– Worked with 서강 한국어 쓰기 1 for about 50 minutes.
– Worked with useful Hanja words for about 1 hour and 45 minutes.

Wednesday – 13th of July
–  Worked with useful Hanja words for about 1 hour.
–  Worked with 빈도별 토픽 for about 1 hour.
–  Worked with Korean grammar in use (advanced) for about 50 minutes.

Thursday – 14th of July
– Worked with 서강 한국어 쓰기 1 for about 3 hours.

Friday – 15th of July
– Italki session for about 1 hour.

Saturday – 16th of July
– Going through corrections from my essay for about 30 minutes.
– Worked with 서강 한국어 쓰기 1 for about 1.5 hours.

Sunday – 17th of July.
– Worked with 빈도별 토픽 for about 1 hour.

 

Today I actually woke up with an awful headache and I didn’t really feel like doing anything what so ever. However, I got out of bed in decent time, I went jogging for the first time in 6 months and then sat down to study. At this point my headache became worse despite painkillers and I decided to stop studying. Normally I would feel really frustrated by studying for only 1 hour on a Sunday with no other plans. These days its so rare that I have that much time on my hands so I would definitely feel upset over wasting that time.
But today, I was totally fine with it because not only can I see right here and now in my notes, that I have been studying for over 14.5 hours this past week, but I can also see that I have been studying such a variety of things. I have been working on my grammar, I have been practicing writing, I have been reading, I have been talking and listening and I have practiced specifically for TOPIK (which I will be taking again in exactly 364 days from now – if you were wondering!). The fact that I am not able to use my Sunday in any efficient way, does NOT in any way mean that I have wasted my time or that I’m not doing my best. I’m working my butt off.

It feels really good to see everything over a larger period than just one day. If you – like me – feel frustrated over these so called ‘wasted’ days, then try to keep a small diary like me, over a longer time period.

My Sunday is almost over and as soon as I have published this post I’ll lie down on my couch and probably play some random game on my phone, without any regrets or thoughts of wasted time.

I hope everybody had a great week!

Posted in books, korea, Podcasts, Resources, Selfstudy, Uncategorized

Blind listening

Posted on by 카밀라

While my biggest strength has always been listening, I discovered quite early in my Korean journey that I seem rely a lot on my other senses too. It didn’t really bother me until I started preparing for TOPIK 1. When doing the listening part I would suddenly feel all panicky because I couldn’t follow along as well as I usually could when watching dramas or anything else really.
Obviously it bothered my quite a lot and I immediately started to practice blind listening. It was incredible frustrating for such a long time, but never the less I started to improve. I would find small audio clips or news videos and then put all my focus into understanding the short clips while closing my eyes. In the beginning it didn’t work at all since my general Korean knowledge was quite lacking, but after some time I was able to at least catch most of the words even though I didn’t know their meaning. When I was doing other things or just felt to tired to fully focus on listening, then I would find longer clips and let them run as a background sound, hoping that it would still help my listening skills as well as my intonation. I feel that it did indeed work and this is basically how I met one of my best friends:
PODCASTS
I found a few different ones while using my practically non-existing-google-skills. It worked out fine but after a while I discovered a site that seemed to have all the podcasts that I was listening to and a ton more. I have now been using this site for a little over 10 months (Find it here) and I find it incredibly helpful for my listening skills. There’s so many podcasts to choose from so there should be something interesting for everyone. Go check out the recent uploads, the most popular uploads or search for a topic that you like. Want news? Language learning podcasts? Radio-style podcasts? It’s all there.
Another reason to why I love this site is that they have an app that just makes everything incredible convenient. You can easily listen from your phone when you’re on the go and even if you don’t create an account, it’ll still remember your history and last played podcast. I listen to a lot of long podcasts which means that I often need to stop in the middle of an episode and I just LOVE the fact that it remembers how far I got and just starts me back up exactly where I left it.
I’m currently listening to a podcast called 소라소리 which is a series of free audio books. Each book usually has 1-4 episodes and each episode is around 1-1.5 hours long (Though they just started a new one which is 12 episodes long!) and you can even download them if you know you wont have internet access later. You can also skip back and forward with 10, 15, 20, or 30 seconds in one go, so you can easily listen to certain parts over and over again til you get it right, or you can easily go back if something interrupts you and causes you to loose focus.
In my case I just really enjoy audio books so I searched around and found 소라소리, but I got even more hooked when I discovered that Book 2 and 3 are both stories by Roald Dahl! If you have read about my London adventures then you might remember that I bought a book full of stories by him, and luckily both of the audio books are in my paperback as well! Double bonus! I just started book number 3, and I think I’ll just let it keep playing in order until I have listened to all of the current books. I definitely feel like this one is one of the more difficult podcasts as you only have one reader playing different roles and during certain dialogues the speaking gets really fast, but I still find it so helpful, challenging and kinda therapeutic too.

Wow this became a lot longer than expected. Anyway I just wanted to share my best friend and absolute favorite way for listening practice. There’s so much gold here! I hope this will be just as helpful to some of you guys, as it has been and still is for me!

Posted in Personal, Selfstudy, Uncategorized

New beginnings and a boost of motivation

Posted on by 카밀라

Today is in many ways a very special day to me. There’s a few sad reasons, a few neutral reasons and some really good reasons as well. Isn’t it fascinating that one can experience so many emotions at the same time? While the sad reasons are.. well. sad. I feel like the positive reasons manages to over-shine the sadness of today. As for the neutral reasons, I had a bunch of new experiences that made my day feel special, but they didn’t really add any good or bad vibes to my day.

However, this evening I had an amazing experience which made me go straight to the blog, even though I really should be getting ready for bed (Working weekend – again).
You see, today was the start of something new (cues High School Musical) and very nerve wrecking to me! Today I had my first Italki session with my new teacher/language partner. Whenever I speak in Korean I feel way more nervous than I should and this causes me to constantly switch back to English, and to be completely honest I feel like I never really put in my full effort when it comes to sticking to Korean. As a result it makes me feel really nervous when talking to new people – especially native speakers. I believe this is actually quite common, but nevertheless it means that it takes me a long time to feel comfortable enough to speak freely – with or without mistakes – and that just makes me even more nervous. I don’t like to waste time and I hate feeling like I’m not doing my best.
Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that I entered this 30 minute session while thinking of it as starting fresh on a blank page, and with the intention of doing my very best and make sure that at least 70% of what I said would be in Korean.
Much to my surprise my nervousness disappeared almost immediately and I was able to follow along just fine (though honestly, understanding usually isn’t an issue. Saying something myself on the other hand… Yikes) and somehow we ended our 30 minute session without using any English at all. How on earth did that happen? I’m really not sure. I was definitely more determined than I have been in a very long time, and she made me feel comfortable almost immediately. When I got stuck I just took a deep breath and that was usually enough for me to regain control over my Korean, and when I felt completely lost I simply rephrased my thoughts so that I could either say it completely or at least say something similar enough for her to understand me easily and then learn the correct way from her. Even when I couldn’t remember the meaning of a certain word, she explained the meaning of it in Korean instead of giving me the translation.
She was super patient and I didn’t feel like those deep breathes of mine, were awkward at all. She has a lot of the same good traits as my previous teacher, so maybe that’s why I felt so comfortable? Or maybe she’s just one of those people who have a calming effect on people? I honestly don’t know.
Generally I have always preferred casual conversation about whatever we feel like, but she seems a lot more structured than me. I new this from the messages we exchanged before making the session, and she likes to have a specific topic prepared beforehand so that we both can prepare diligently. While this is not usually what I prefer, I actually think this will be very good for me (which is exactly why I choose her – It was supposed to be a new beginning after all) and I suddenly feel amazingly motivated and proud of myself. I did something that I had no idea I could, and I can’t wait to improve even more!
I just requested 5 new 1 hour sessions, and hopefully she accepts them so we can make me speak even more.

Now, I really need to go to bed – BUT! Tomorrow I will be home earlier than normal and there’s no doubt that I’ll be using my hours wisely! MUST STUDY!