Tag: TOPIK

Posted in books, Personal, Selfstudy, TOPIK, Uncategorized

It’s Official

Posted on by 카밀라

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!

Posted in Personal, Selfstudy, TOPIK, Uncategorized

Final thoughts on my break

Posted on by 카밀라

Now matter how much I wish I could continue with my current schedule, there’s no way to get around the fact that my break officially has come to an end. I’ll be starting a new adventure on Monday and I honestly have no idea how packed my schedule will be, but since my Korean studies is one of my favorite ways of reducing my every day stress, there’s no way I can keep away from my books, haha! Hopefully it’ll be similar to my previous schedule. Anyway, I’m spending my evening here on the blog to write a short (no seriously! I’ll really try to keep it short!) post on my final thoughts.

As you might remember, I made a very detailed study schedule for my break, and I am pleased to let you guys know that I managed to stick to my schedule, almost every day throughout the last month.
I made a list of ‘end-of-break-goals’ and I have been working very hard on completing these.
The first goal was to finish ‘Korean Grammar In Use intermediate’ and I’m pleased to say that I did indeed finish it. I have been eager to start the advanced book, but I told myself to wait and focus on getting more familiar with the intermediate grammar first, so that’s what I’m working on right now. I’ll probably start it soon though, as starting new books is just too exciting ㅎㅎ
The next goal was to finish ‘News in Korean’, by TTMIK, and I accomplished this as well! I also had a goal about finishing the TTMIK grammar podcast and I can mark this goal as completed as well.
The fourth goal was to finish ‘작은 아씨들’, however this goal I have not completed. I felt a lot of problems when it came to focusing on the book and in the beginning I just forced myself to continue, but as you can imagine it didn’t have any good effect whatsoever. Even though I could still just continue, I decided to just put it away for the time being. I’m definitely a ‘books-over-movies’ type of person and since I don’t count my ‘book-reading-time’ as a part of my study time, I would rather be able to enjoy the book than to just go through it as fast as possible. However, I’m glad to let you guys know that I picked it up again about a week ago and I’m currently flying through it without any difficulties. See? Sometimes it just pays better of to put things away for a while. I’ll finish it in the beginning of March, at the very latest.
Now, as for the fifth, last and most exciting goal, I wanted to improve my TOPIK 2 skills. To be more specific I wanted to improve with 3-5 points on listening and reading in a TOPIK 2 mock test. During this last month, I have taken 6 mock tests and while the results obviously varied from time to time, if I look at the one with my lowest result, I have still gotten 3 points more than my first test, on both listening and reading! Not too bad if I may say so myself.

In other words, I have successfully completed 4 out of 5 goals, and I’m really happy about how I spent my break. I have no regrets. However, I can see that I semi-failed at my attempt to keep this post short. Sorry guys!

Anyway, I just ordered a ton of books on my birthday and I am currently experimenting with a few new study methods, and I can’t wait to share them all with you guys. Lot’s of new interesting things coming up!
Have a great evening guys! ^^

Posted in Personal, Selfstudy, TOPIK, Uncategorized

Language tag

Posted on by 카밀라

Good morning everybody! Sofie from Sofie To Korea has been so kind to tag me in a language tag, so I’ll start of my Wednesday by answering a few questions – Thank you Sofie!

What would you consider your native language?

Danish is without a doubt my native language, however it is not the language I find myself most comfortable with, and no matter how depressing it may sound, I’m actually not that good at it, haha! I stumble across words when speaking, randomly mess up my pronunciation and screw up basic grammar. Of course this doesn’t happen all the time, but it happens a lot more than when I use English. I almost NEVER think or talk to myself in Danish and my grades from English class has always either been identical or better than those from my Danish classes. Slightly depressing but nevertheless true!
My sister (and best friend in the entire world) is just like me when it comes to English VS. Danish so I keep thinking that I most have gotten in from her, however no one else in our family is like this, so I’m not sure where she would have gotten it from.. It’s interesting now that I really think about it.. Oh well, I’m sidetracking!

What was your first language learning experience?

I actually don’t really know. My sister is almost 11 years older than me and she always loved English. In Danish TV there’s a ton of american TV shows and movies with Danish subtitles, and watching all of this was of course very helpful, but there’s no doubt that my sister is the biggest reason for my English love. Since she loved English so much she would always talk to me in English from when I was very young, and as I grew up we would watch movies and animations in English, without subtitles. Our favorite is Happy Feet! Till this day I still cannot see it with Danish dubbing. It’s just wrong! Our favorite games was anything related to ‘hidden objects’ games and this gave me a huge advantage in school, as my English vocabulary was growing rapidly. (I suddenly wonder if I could find a Korean version? Hmm). I’m starting to sidetrack again. What I’m trying to say is that I started learning English naturally in a very early age while still learning how to talk in Danish. I don’t know how old I was, what my fist correct sentence was or when I started thinking in English. It just happened.
However what I do know, is that I had no idea that I was ‘unusual’ in any way until the end of 8th grade. In a random English class at my new school I realized that I was the only one who were more comfortable in English compared to Danish, and nobody was thinking in English, except me. When you think of your native language, you don’t think of it as something you have learnt. It’s not an accomplishment, it just happened as you grew up, right? That’s how I felt about English, but that day in that class, I realized that I was the only one who felt that way. I guess that can be considered my first language learning experience? Maybe. Haha!

What languages have you studied and why did you learn them?

Through school I studied English and Danish. For those two I don’t really have a reason. I was supposed to learn German in school as well but I ended up being absent more or less constantly from 4th-8th grade, however that’s another story! Also, that’s why I didn’t realize that I was different from many others until 8th grade, as I had never really been taught any English in a class before that. Even though I never got to study German, my understanding is pretty decent. Growing up in Ribe (Denmark’s oldest city, which is pretty close to the German border) meant that we constantly had German tourists so I would often listen to people talk in German when walking around, but even more importantly, my Mum is obsessed with German. She loves her German music, dramas, movies, and even German dubbed movies. This started a long time before I was born and as a result I grew up listening to German all the time. For some reason I never really felt comfortable with German. I wonder why I immediately felt comfortable with English and not German, since I was surrounded even more by German than I ever was with English. My dad had the same German obsession and I never understood them until I got my Korean obsession. Slightly depressing since my Mum still finds mine ridiculous even though her obsession is the very same!

Anyway, as mentioned above I don’t really have a starting time for Danish and English, so when I started learning Korean on my own ( 1 year and 4 months ago) it was the very first time I had to start learning a language (that I can remember at least) which meant that I had no idea where to begin. I had no idea where to start looking for supplies, what was basic knowledge or what I even wanted to do with my Korean skills, if I was ever able to create some. It is the best, most challenging, frustrating and scary decision I have ever made. Which is sort of a lie since I never actually decided to start learning it, but nevertheless – here I am!
I guess I don’t really have a reason for learning Korean other than liking the language and culture, however I do have a story on how it all started, right here.

How does your personality affect your language learning?

I can be super stubborn when it comes to learning and this is just as much a blessing as a curse. It means that I don’t give up easily but it also means that I can waste a lot of time because I just can’t move on due to some tiny and often irrelevant detail that I can’t figure out. Also I want to try figuring everything out on my own before asking for help, which again leads me to waste a lot of time.

Do you prefer learning a language in a class or on your own?

Definitely on my own! That special day (whoa, this sounds so dramatic!) in 8th grade, I discovered that I was on a higher level than the rest of my class which shows how much more effective it can be to learn in other ways than in a class, but in my case it also means that I can’t explain grammar what so ever. Don’t ever ask me why I choose certain answers when being tested, because I can’t answer you properly even if I wanted to.
However I quickly learned from this problem and when it comes to Korean I focus a lot of trying to remember why things work like they do, instead of just using it.

What are your favorite language learning materials?

Everything! Haha! I generally love books so anything in book format is usually a good start, but looking outside of that, I just love anything that’s natural. Novels, dramas, movies, music, newspapers, blogs etc. Anything that isn’t made for language learning purposes can make my day. I feel like it’s a lot more useful and I feel a greater sense of accomplishment when finishing anything from those categories.

How much time do you spend learning a language per day?

Normally I would spend about 2-3 hours per day, not counting things like watching dramas, listening to music, using memrise etc. but for the last month I’ve had an awesome break that means that I have been able to study for about  4-5 hours per. day. Sadly this is coming to an end soon!

What are your short-term and long-term language goals?

My short term goal is to pass TOPIK 1, in April. I will be taking TOPIK 2 as well, however I have no goals about passing this one yet. I just want to try it out while I’m in London anyway, and hopefully it will help me feel less nervous about it in the future. Though it isn’t a goal to pass TOPIK 2, I’m still working hard to get a good result.

I’m not sure what my long term goal is yet. I want to feel just as comfortable with Korean as I do with Danish and English, and I also want to pass TOPIK level 6. I guess that’s all I know for now!

What is your favorite language?

Definitely Korean!

What is the next language you want to learn?

I have no idea. Maybe Japanese? Maybe. For now I only know that I want to learn more languages in the future!

What advice could you give new language learners?

Don’t worry too much about pace and goals. Don’t compare yourself to other learners.
If you know yourself very well then use that knowledge to find what works for you, and if you don’t know yourself that well then think of your language journey as way of learning more about yourself. Just enjoy yourself. 🙂

 

Thank you for reading all of this! As for tagging new people, all the people I wanted to tag has already been tagged, so I’ll think carefully about it and get back to you later!

 

Posted in Personal, Selfstudy, TOPIK, Uncategorized

Studying with TOPIK?

Posted on by 카밀라

As you probably know by now, I have been working a lot on my TOPIK skills lately and I do seem to be making progress, however I still feel slightly uncomfortable with TOPIK 2. It’s not so much the thought of maybe probably failing, but more the general writing part. Having practiced TOPIK 1 so many times I have naturally become very comfortable with the different questions, but as soon as I start working on my TOPIK 2 skills, I sort of just panic when I reach the 쓰기 part. Even when I understand the assignment description (which doesn’t happen very often I might note) and I know what I want to write as my answer, it’s like my mind just goes blank for a few seconds before restarting and letting me continue my test. It’s not really a problem now, but it’ll become a problem at the real TOPIK, when I have to spend my time wisely. Sigh.

I think everything will become easier if I become comfortable with TOPIK 2, in the same way I did with TOPIK 1, but since I don’t have that much time I have been trying out different things to speed the process up a notch, and as a result I now study everyday with a TOPIK 2 test. I don’t use it as a mock test though. I simply grab my grammar books and my phone (I prefer looking up words from my naver dictionary app.) and then I choose a TOPIK 2 test (usually one I have already tried and failed at) and then I go through it word by word.
It takes FOREVER to get through all three parts of the test, but I really feel it’s worth it.
Also I do not write anything down, except my answers. By doing it this way I am forcing my self to read and spell the same words over and over again whenever I forget it’s meaning and I do the very same thing with grammar. The good thing about working through a TOPIK 2 test in this manner, is that it uses grammar from both Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced, so I will not only be learning new grammar but also be reviewing all the grammar the I already worked with previously but either have forgotten or is still unsure about.
Also, since the TOPIK questions aren’t related (unless stated otherwise in the specific question) to each other, you don’t really have to worry about your possible lack of time. You can easily work though one question and then go back to living your life, without worrying about loosing some of the meaning.
I currently have that problem when reading 작은 아씨들 – the chapters are between 20-40 pages long and when I have to spend a long time on looking up words, then it’s rarely possible for me to just read 40 pages without putting away the book at some point during the chapter. Every time I return to my book and I am in the middle of some sort of situation or conversation, I easily loose the idea of what was going on and therefore have to work through the first part even slower than usual. Did that make sense? I hope so.. ㅎㅎ Anyway that was a short detour! This way of studying/reviewing can easily be adjusted to your personal situation.

Of course everybody has different preferences but I will definitely recommend that you give this method a try at some point – It just might work for you too!

Posted in Personal, Selfstudy, TOPIK, Uncategorized

Making progress! Or not?

Posted on by 카밀라

The last week have been full of Korean studies and so far I have been loving every minute of it! I have been sticking to my schedule and I’m feeling progress already. Feeling progress makes me feel slightly more optimistic about TOPIK 2!

I’m sure many of you know this feeling very well, but let me just mention it anyway! Everyday I see my book marks moving closer and closer towards the ending in all my different books, and I just feel so incredibly excited when my effort is psychically visible! Knowing that I have read every single word on every single page just makes me feel so proud of myself.

Anyway, I try to practice all elements of the language everyday, but there’s no doubt that I’m feeling progress in my vocabulary and my grammar the most. Its’s not that I learn a lot of new grammar every day, but I’m starting to recognize a lot of the grammar that I have learned previously but for some reason just keeps forgetting, which is even better than learning new grammar. I feel like I am closing some of the blank spaces I have here and there, in my Korean learning journey.

On a less positive note, I seem to be having problems with my head lately.. ㅎㅎ Whenever I’m reading my book, my brain reads words that aren’t correct. Just recently I got super confused by the word 미안해. It made perfect sense in that part of the book, but it seemed like that part suddenly didn’t match the part that I previously read. The 분위기 of the story that completely changed in just a few lines and I just didn’t get why. After reading the entire page 6-7 times I realized that it said 그만해 and not 미안해. Even though I had read it so many times, my brain just didn’t seem to accept or understand what it actually said. I have never had this problem before, but the last few days it has happened 3-4 times. Of course it’s a lot easier to deal with now that I know about it, but it still makes me really frustrated since I have no idea why this is suddenly happening. Hopefully it wont continue!

Before ending this post, let me just give you all an update on the Italki challenge! I’m 7 hours in so far, and I’m having a ton of fun. It doesn’t feel like a duty in any way! I feel like it is my Korean themed play time instead – I’ll definitely complete my 30 hour goal!

Well, time to get back to that 쓰기 book that has been staring at me for the last hour or so!

Posted in books, Personal, Selfstudy, TOPIK, Uncategorized

Making study plans

Posted on by 카밀라

These past few days I’ve been planning on making myself a new study schedule specially for this long break I’m currently on. Even though I get to study a lot these days I keep having this fear of wasting my time away. You know how sometimes you got nothing done during a long break because you keep thinking ‘Oh, I have plenty time so it doesn’t matter if I don’t do it today’? That’s the fear I keep having, even though I know that I am studying more than usually.
To avoid this, I am currently working on a new study schedule so that I can get to at least do some specific things, and then just study as I feel like it outside of those things.

I have decided to take on the TOPIK 2 (my mock test was less tragic than expected but nevertheless still tragic.. Sigh..) in April, so there’s no way that I will let this break go to waste!
Here’s what I have decided for now:

Everyday goals:
Morning:
– Go through 1 article from ‘News in Korean’, by TTMIK.
– Go through 1 article from Naver.
– Go through 1 story + assignments from ‘Korean folktales and Aesop’s fables’, by TTMIK.
– Listen to a TTMIK Podcast (grammar or 이야기).

Evening:
– Go through 2 grammar points from ‘Korean in Grammar intermediate’.
– Review 2 previous grammar points from ‘Korean in Grammar intermediate’.
– Complete 2 assignments in my TOPIK 쓰기 book.
– Complete 2 assignments in my TOPIK 읽기 book.

Weekly goals:
– Complete 5, 1 hour sessions with my italki teacher.
– Study with a practice TOPIK test from my ‘Pass new TOPIK intermediate’ book.
– Read one chapter in ‘작은 아씨들’.
– Write a short review of all finished chapters from ‘작은 아씨들’, using the narrative form.
– Go through each written review with my italki teacher.

End-of-break goals:
– Finish ‘Korean in Grammar intermediate’.
– Finish ‘News in Korean’, by TTMIK.
– Finish the 9th level of TTMIK grammar podcast.
– Finish ‘작은 아씨들’.
– Improve with 3-5 points on listening and reading in a TOPIK 2 mock test.

All of the things mentioned above is obviously just my lowest goals, and the more the better. Outside of these goals I will also be continuing my plan to surround myself with Korean, which so far is going very well!
Also, I got some other pretty awesome news today. Apparently the office at my soon-to-be workplace made mistake so I will be adding an extra week to my break. I can’t even believe my luck!
I made myself promise not to waste any time, so I’ll end my blog post here and return to my books!

Posted in Selfstudy, TOPIK, Uncategorized

Study vacation?

Posted on by 카밀라

Yesterday I had my final exam at my current school and because of some ridiculous rules, my classmates and I have to wait 4 weeks before we can start on the next part of our program. This also means that I will not have an income in February and in March I will only get half my usual pay, which quite honestly is bothering me more than it probably should.
Anyhow, there’s also a lot of good things about this forced vacation of mine and I’m sure you can already tell where I’m going with this!

6 months ago I decided that I wanted to take TOPIK 1 in London this coming April, but lately I have been thinking about taking TOPIK 2 instead. I haven’t completely decided yet but I think I’ll do it. I’m positive that I can pass TOPIK 1, but if I were to take TOPIK 2 at this very moment, I would probably fail it, and I would hate failing my first attempt at a TOPIK test.. On the other hand, it’s more fun when you’re really challenging yourself and I know I would feel more motivated in my studies if I’m reaching for something that I might fail. Or maybe I just enjoy torturing myself.. I’m not sure. But that’s where these 4 weeks might come in handy!
I never got around to trying that TOPIK 2 mock test, but I’ll be doing that later today, when I’m alone. Hopefully my result won’t be too tragic and I’ll have a more clear idea of what I can and what I cannot do. After that, I will be able to use these 4 weeks to really immerse myself in Korean. Since the registration is from February 15th to February 24th, I’ll be able Study for these 4 weeks  and then decide if I want to go for TOPIK 2 or not. It really couldn’t be timed better.
Also let’s not forget about the italki challenge! Starting from Monday, I’ll be having 1 session every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and then 2 sessions every Friday. This means that I will be able to really immerse myself in Korean.
I’ll read articles, my webtoons, my books, my Korean TOPIK preparation books, as well as my usual text from Korean friends. I’ll basically be reading all sorts of texts.
The same goes for writing. I’ll be texting with different people in Korean, I’ll be writing when I complete the different assignments in my books, and I’ll be writing a short note in my new notebook every time I finish a chapter of 작은 아씨들 to make sure that I have understood everything properly as well as to practice my writing skills.
For listening I’ll be listening to music as usual, watch different dramas and movies, stream whatever is on MBC (It’s currently news in case you were wondering ㅎㅎ), have conversations with my italki teacher and exchange voice messages with a few of my closest friends. These things will also give me many opportunities to speak as well.

You can accomplish a lot in 4 weeks – especially when you have so many great opportunities at the same time! Just by writing this post, I have more or less convinced myself to go for TOPIK 2, haha! Ah I’m so excited!

Posted in Personal, Selfstudy, TOPIK, Uncategorized

Have I become lazy?

Posted on by 카밀라

‘Have I become lazy?’ is a thought that has been appearing on and of throughout the last month or so. Lately I have found it quite difficult to remember all the things I go through in my books and especially in my grammar book. The thing is, my overall Korean skills are definitely improving in a decent speed, but when I compare my progress from ‘Korean Grammar in use – Beginner’ with the progress from ‘Korean Grammar in use – Intermediate’, it just isn’t working as well as before. I don’t find the jump between Beginner and Intermediate too big, so it’s not that Intermediate just happened to be a lot more difficult. These thoughts have been joggling around in my head for a while, and a few days ago, I started to realize that I have simply gotten lazy.

I’m not sure when it really hit me, but there’s definitely no doubt that I have found the cause of my change. I have been thinking about it a lot these past few days while preparing for my IT exam (Korean will always be more interesting to me ㅎㅎ) and I have come up with quite a few examples, so now I’ll share the most important with you all.

When it comes to my grammar books, I’ll try to illustrate the differences like this:

BEGINNER:
– I used to look up every word that I didn’t know, with no exceptions.
– When there was something I didn’t understand I would immediately look it up somewhere else or ask someone to help me.
– When I made the assignments after each chapter and I got something wrong, I would go back and reread it until figuring out what part I had misunderstood. If I didn’t know what to answer while making the assignment I would also reread it and then return to the assignments.
– When reading I would focus mainly on the Korean parts and pay full attention.

INTERMEDIATE:
– I only look something up if I’m lost. If I understand a sentence or situation through pictures or context, then I’ll move on without looking up the unknown words.
– When there’s something I don’t understand I move on and tell myself that I will look it up somewhere else later, that I’ll understand it when I make the assignments in the end or that I will ask someone at some other time (spoiler alert: It almost never happens).
– When making the assignments in the end of the chapter and I get something wrong, I’ll just correct it and move on. If I don’t know the answer to a question I’ll just guess without rereading (This part is something I started on deliberately. I’m using it as a way to test how well I can remember everything and obviously it isn’t working).
– When reading I don’t focus properly. I just sort of force myself through the Korean part and then rely mainly on the English parts.

Do you see what I mean? These things are the most obvious ones but there’s many small things that has changed as well.

However I also want to point out that becoming lazy isn’t always a bad thing.
Another lazy point of mine is when I’m reading. I used to be very strict when it came to my notes and I would always write ALL unknown words down like this:
Word – Wordtype
English meaning
Korean sample sentence

It worked fine but it was extremely time consuming and also quite demotivating when I could easily see how many words I had to write down.
When I started reading 어린 왕자 I stopped doing it like this and instead just looked  up the words and moved on. If I couldn’t  remember the words the next time I came across them, then I would simply look it up again.
This seems to be working so much better than the other method! Having to spell the word over and over again to look it up, has made it stick to my brain so much easier, plus I go through the books a lot faster and thereby feel more motivated to continue. There’s no way I’m going back to the other method – lazy or not.

So.. What am I going to do about my laziness? Well first of all, I am going back to looking everything up immediately if it’s possible. I’m going to focus on the Korean parts instead of the English ones and I have started working with some of my other books that only has Korean explanations. They are still way over my level, but I’m working my way through them and I’m already finding it easier to focus fully on Korean. Lastly I’m going to stop guessing the answers when I don’t know and instead keep looking up the grammar points (the Intermediate book’s assignments are designed in the TOPIK format and it often uses grammar from different chapters and not just the one you are currently reading, so you get to practice different parts of the book) – basically just as I do with unknown words. I have been doing this for 3 days and I already feel like I’m improving, so if this feeling continues, then I’ll work though my PASS NEW TOPIK books, in the same way!

Wow this really turned in to a much longer post than expected. ㅎㅎ

Before ending my post I also want to give an update on the Italki Language Challenge, as I know some people have been waiting for this, so here’s my final decision:
I’ll be aiming for the 30 hour goal! Woohooo, I’m feeling pumped already! I’ll discuss it further with my teacher tomorrow to see if she has time enough for me and her other students, and if not then I’ll start looking in to other teachers as well. Though to be honest I prefer to just continue with her, so I’ll keep my fingers crossed. ^^

I’ll finish of my blog post with one of my favorite ‘background-music-for-studying-Korean/-relaxing’ songs (Yes, that’s totally a thing… I think..)

Posted in Personal, Selfstudy, TOPIK, Uncategorized

Italki Language Challenge – January 2016

Posted on by 카밀라

It’s finally here! As some of you guys already know, I have been wanting to try joining an Italki Language Challenge ever since July and I almost signed up for the one in October, but in the end I had to be realistic and accept the fact that I simply didn’t have the time. However I also made myself the promise that I would join the next one for sure, so when I saw that the countdown for the next challenge had started, I immediately signed up before I could change my mind.

I believe they have changed a few things since the last challenge, but since It’s my first time to join then I’m not really sure. You can go read about it here 🙂

I’m not really sure what goal I want to reach. Obviously the 30 hour one would be awesome but 30 hours is a lot of time and money. On the other hand I will be have 4 weeks forced vacation from January 15th (That’s a looong story) and the challenge is from January 16th to February 29th, so it matches perfectly! I mean come on, who knows when I’ll be able to put that much time aside for a challenge? Plus I’ll be taking TOPIK  1 (and maybe 2) in April – That would be an amazing thing to add to the list of preparation plans, right? 아.. 어떡하지… I think I’ll talk to my italki teacher on Monday and see what she thinks!

I’m feeling really excited already, haha! It’ll be fun! I’m positive.

Anybody else joining this time?

Posted in Selfstudy, TOPIK, Uncategorized

When things are looking brighter

Posted on by 카밀라

Okay, SO MANY things has happened lately and I’m not quite sure where to start, so I’ll just stick to the most interesting points. First of all, as I mentioned in my last post I finished 어린 왕자, and was pleased to see that I had underestimated my abilities once again. That’s always a lovely feeling!
However, when I decided to move straight on to 크리스마스 캐럴 my confidence sort of faded. Holy cow guys. Despite knowing the general plot (I have only seen the movie once as a child, though.) I find myself feeling lost quite frequently. I look up the words I don’t know, but in several cases I still don’t seem to know the actual meaning of the sentence. That is one of the feelings I hate the most when studying. Sigh..
Anyway, I’m not giving up. I’m sure that I can finish it without being lost in the end, but there’s no doubt that it’ll take a lot longer time than first expected. Luckily I’m not in a hurry! 할 수 있어요!
The next update is that I just bought 4 new e-books from TTMIK. That’s always a good way to start the week! Also, in case you don’t know, they are currently having a 40% Christmas sale on their e-books – Don’t miss it! I bought: Korean Folk Tales & Aesop’s Fables, Korean in Action, Street Korean Ep. 4 and Street Korean Ep. 5. I can’t wait to begin! It’s not like I really NEED anymore materials right now, but how could I possibly resist?

My third update is about my TOPIK goal. I was planning on taking two Mock Tests this weekend, but due to my IT exam, that wasn’t possible at all.. However, the actual exam will be tomorrow 11.20, and it only takes 30 minutes, so I since I’m finally finished preparing for it, I’ll be studying for at the rest of this evening, and I’ll have most of my day tomorrow available for studying as well!
The fourth and last thing I want to share for now, is about the promise I made to myself in a previous post. Remember how I promised to try harder to use Korean in my conversations with my good friend, even though he’s fluent in English? Well we talked all Saturday (from around 9AM to midnight – Yikes), and much to my friend’s surprise, I only wrote 4 English sentences during that time. The first two was in English because we were talking about something very serious and personal, and I didn’t want to risk creating any misunderstandings. The other two sentences were in English because I made some mistakes and he needed to know what exactly I meant, so that he could correct me at accurately as possible.
The next day (yesterday) we talked again most of the day, this time with no English at all! Needless to say, I’m quite satisfied with myself!

I believe that was the most interesting Korean related things that happened. Ah.. I can almost hear my Christmas vacation calling my name~ Things can only become better now, right?
Now its time to eat Christmas cookies and watch the last episode of 사랑하는 은동아  study!