Speak Korean fluently

I got delayed, but I’m trying once again. I’ve spent the last month or so just reviewing old cards (I haven’t even got through them all yet!). 5,000 is still my goal.

Newspaper articles were a little too hard, so I went back to comic books. I still have a couple more I haven’t gone through yet. Baby books before big books!

I’m reading chosun ilbo (chosun.com). It’s a great jump in difficulty—I’m getting through a handful of sentences each day. I get to my quota each day much faster than when I was going through “The Little Prince” because there are so many new words, and because it’s so easy to use the yahoo dictionary. Many of my flash cards are becoming Korean on both sides (Korean word/Korean definition)!

Goodbye little prince. I thought you were a little conceited and contrived when I read your story years ago, but this time you were more tolerable, perhaps because in Korean you were more understandable to me than the adult narrator. In any case, I’m grateful for the 500+ words you taught me, and the idea of taking responsibility for what you care for isn’t a bad lesson at all.

What to read next? I have a few ideas: online newspapers, another comic book, some korean short story (i.e., long for me!).

Let’s do online newspaper articles for a little while. It will be a fresh new “genre” for me, and it will be easier to look up words since all I have to do is cut and paste into a web dictionary.

I’m now halfway to my informal goal of 5,000. A few observations at this milestone:

• My joy is tinged with guilt as the Little Prince, who traveled with me for 500 words, is now in his death throes.

• At this rate, I should reach my goal of 5,000 in March of 2011. (And even reaching this goal won’t necessarily translate to being able to “speak Korean fluently”!)

• More and more frequently, I’m encountering words that I realize I had recorded in my flash card library, though the realization doesn’t occur until I’ve actually looked up the mystery word in a dictionary.

• Frighteningly frequently, I’m encountering words that I realize I had learned, but I can’t recall at all. Is it old age or just part of the natural process of learning a language???

I think I’ve passed the point where what I’m learning could be called “essential”. The new words I’m learning are:

• 15% completely frivolous. Example: gwanjanori = temples (the ones behind your eyes)

• 20% synonyms of words I know. Example: to cover = deopda = gariuda = dureuda.

I think vocabulary acquisition is yielding less and less returns, and I need to start thinking more seriously about finding avenues for speaking and listening practice.

Chapter 21. The book is getting easier.

Chapter 12 (p.48). I’m going faster now—a little more than a page a day.

Chapter 9 of little prince.

Still reading “the Little Prince.” It’s actually quite hard. I’m only 20 pages in, and have done more than 100 flash cards. The word for asteroid is ‘so hok sung’. It’s burned into my head, but when am I going to use it in practice??

oooooooooooo 2000! 3000 to go, good god.