Jeanne's Korean Learning Journey

Happy Birthday To Me

Jeanne — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 21:06:54 +0000

…Though that’s absolutely not the point of this post.

I just wanted to explain why this blog has been lacking updates lately. The day after I wrote my last post, I learned that I had a chance of getting into my dream school in Paris (basically the same thing I was doing, but in the capital city). I went for it and a month later, here I am watching the Eiffel Tower from my window (no kidding, I’ll take pictures soon)! I’m living the dream!

About Korean: of course it took me a while to find an apartment and settle, and I have to deal with classes, but I’ve still been reviewing my Anki cards daily and, albeit more slowly, learning new things.

And being in a bigger city means more opportunities, language-wise too. At the moment, I’m not contemplating joining a class, but I’ve had a few Korean-related experiences. I eavesdrop on Korean tourists’ conversations and I love hearing the language, even though I’m all the way in France! One day I even sat in the metro next to a Korean girl reading a book (I forgot the title, though). A few days ago, I went to the Japanese and Korean street with my Japanese-learning (and now officially studying Japanese, congrats Claire!) friend. Before going in a Korean grocery store, we had made a bet that I would speak in Korean to the cashier – but of course I totally chickened out. (Next time I promise, I shall go through with it…) Also, we’re going noraebanging soon, and I plan on visiting Korean libraries as soon as I get my metro card! Stay tuned!

Law School & Korean

Jeanne — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 23:28:51 +0000

So today was the beginning of term — I’m basically doing law, not the regular curriculum, but I’m not going to explain it here, there’s just no cultural or linguistic equivalent for this in English. Moreover it’s really not that relevant to my blog. (For possible French readers: une CPGE ENS Cachan, avec des cours en prépa et d’autres à la fac de droit.)

I’ll still be doing English and Spanish at school, but the teachers said that it was possible to manage to follow evening classes for a third language (of course they don’t offer Korean in my city, but knowing that we have time for our personal projects is relevant to my interests), and the sophomores told us that the workload was definitely bearable and would allow us to maintain extra-curricular activities. So I guess that I won’t be as overwhelmed as I thought I’d be, AND that I’ll still have some time for Korean-learning!

So I’m starting higher education as a happy and determined girl. Wish me lots of success!

Noraebang In My Own City

Jeanne — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 20:09:34 +0000

I just discovered an Asian-style karaoke in my city, and decided to go with my Japanese-learning friend. They have Chinese machines with songs in various languages, including Korean, and quite a few K-pop songs. The clerk, probably assuming that I couldn’t read 한글 to save my life, asked me if I was sure that I wanted to put on a Korean song (namely, Oh! that I had practiced mainly because it doesn’t have any fast rap part that I can’t keep up with). I think I scared him when I started belting out “전에 알돈 내가 아냐 BRAND NEW SOUND“. He left us with a “I see you’re doing just fine”…

They didn’t have very recent songs but they had enough Big Bang, Epik High (I didn’t want to butcher their songs, though…), f(x), Super Junior (I totally underestimated the speed of Sorry Sorry), Beast, SHINee and more to keep me going. I couldn’t find any 2NE1 or DBSK though, that’s a bit weird. And my friend was very disappointed by the Japanese catalogue, there weren’t many recent songs (we ended up singing a weird, old, unknown ballad).

I need to practice the rap parts before I go again! They’re often too fast for me, and most songs don’t have romanizations. Here’s a picture of me having trouble with the rap parts in Forever With You:

Despite the small inconveniences, it was an awesome experience, especially considering that I didn’t leave my own French medium-sized city to have it!

Chrome Add-On: Pop-Up Dictionary

Jeanne — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 03:58:12 +0000

Ever since my Japanese-learning friend bragged about pop-up dictionary Rikaichan or something, I’ve been looking around for something similar for Korean, in vain… Until now. Seriously, why didn’t anyone tell me about it?

A free Chrome add-on (though I’m pretty sure that other browsers have it too) allows you to double-click on a Korean word and have its dictionary entry opened right away, in a little pop-up window. Easy-peasy, and you’re not even leaving the page you’re on.

Pretty neat, right? And it’s a diverse and customizable tool, through the “Options” menu (right-click on the add-on’s icon, at the upper-right of the browser).

기본사전:
That’s the little dictionary you could access through the add-on’s (removable) icon. It’s convenient if you’re writing something, for example. You could choose :
- Naver / Daum
- English / monolingual / 한자 / Japanese / Chinese / French (Naver only)
- main page / remember last search

표시 방법:
Configure the clicking options. I do recommend to disable the plain double-clicking and go for a setting where you have to use the keyboard too. Otherwise the pop-up will appear when you don’t want it and it gets really annoying on pages in English where you couldn’t care less about a Korean dictionary entry, and even on pages in Korean when you’re just trying to select a word.
- 단어에 더블클릭 : double-click on the word
- 단어에 Ctrl+더블클릭 : Ctrl + double-click on the word
- 단어에 Command+더블클릭 (Mac OSX) : Command + double-click on the word
- 단어에 Alt+더블클릭 : Alt + double-click on the word
- 사용하지 않음 : deactivate

표시 위치:
Choose where you want the pop-up window to appear.

선택단어 언어인식:
The most important part ! Choosing the pop-up dictionaries. (I don’t get the UTF-8 and non-UTF-8 thing, though…)
- English to Korean, Daum / Naver / French to Korean, Naver (most useful to Korean users, I guess)
- Korean to English, Daum / Naver / monolingual Daum / Naver (the latter is great for more advanced learners)
- various 한자 options (didn’t investigate that yet)
- Japanese kana (probably never will investigate that)

I do know that such resources could give an illusion of high understanding, therefore making some people feel that they don’t need to memorize vocabulary anymore, but I for one will be motivated to read longer texts in Korean without being put off by the amount of unknown words to painstakingly look up. (Yes, admittedly, copying, switching tabs and pasting isn’t as bad as browsing a paper dictionary, but still. I’m talking about double-clicking here.) And of course, I still have Anki to stop being lazy and be sure I don’t forget anything worthy.

New Theme

Jeanne — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 13:48:46 +0000

My new theme randomly displays headers featuring genre painting (풍속화) by 18th century Korean artist 신윤복, also known as 혜원.

Quick Picture

Jeanne — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 13:15:10 +0000

Of my new MacBook, ready to learn some Korean (you get a glimpse of the keyboard stickers and my Anki decks!), and my new textbook, Integrated Korean: Advanced Intermediate 1, that finally reached in the mail today!

MacBook, Textbook & Fangirling

Jeanne — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 12:06:57 +0000

First of all, I moved, finally got back Internet, and above all, got a sexy MacBook! (I’ll post a picture later, and you’ll see the neat 한글 keyboard stickers my penpal sent me!) I’ve never really used a Mac before, so I still don’t know how to do some very basic things, but I’m very happy and hopefully I will pick up everything quickly.

Tomorrow my Integrated Korean: Advanced Intermediate 1 will be delivered. I should have gotten it a week ago but my name wasn’t on the new mailbox so it got sent back and whatever… I can’t wait to work with it. These days I’ve mostly been learning from online dictionaries sentences (or old books, while I didn’t have Internet), but I’m welcoming the change! I hope that it won’t be too difficult nor too easy, and that I did the right thing by skipping the Intermediate 2.

Some quick fangirling: I’ve started to really, really like HoMin since 이것만은 알고가 (Before U Go), my most played song on iTunes, and I love many older songs too (including some from before they disbanded). So I’m very excited for their new Japanese songs and music videos, I Don’t Know (it seems to have already been released?) and Superstar (20th of July).
It’s such a shame that I’m not learning the language… At least, when I fangirl on Korean songs, I’m learning some vocabulary or structures and don’t feel as guilty!

And did I mention that I passed my final exams with 86.4%?

2,000 Anki Cards

Jeanne — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 20:36:57 +0000

Today, I’ve reached 2,000 vocabulary cards, 1,010 serious sentences (from textbooks and dictionaries) and 330 fun sentences (from songs and TV shows). I’ve calculated that it’s been exactly 5 months and 5 days since I added my first Korean flashcard (“반갑다”), and I’ve been doing my reviews every single day since then.

I’m happy and proud that I’ve come so far, and I feel like my diligence somehow paid off, as I’m now able to have decent written conversations in Korean. However, my skills are still very limited, especially when it comes to listening. As I have loads of free time during these summer holidays, I will maybe look into the Talk To Me In Korean series and see if it could help me with that problem. Of course I can’t recognize a word if I don’t know it before, so I should also focus on continuing to build up my vocabulary.

I will also try to use more monolingual resources (mainly dictionaries) and exclusively create monolingual flashcards, ie. using definitions in Korean instead of relying on English translations. I already do it occasionally, but I shall now stop being lazy and do it systematically.

Updates on School, Korean, Penpals and Travelling

Jeanne — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 23:25:57 +0000

Final exams are finally over! It feels good to finally be able to relax. I still have to wait until July for my results, but I’m confident, and anyway, I just need to get 50% to pass (I would hate to go to the rattrapages, but most likely I won’t).

I now have loads of free time to study Korean. I’m adding each day a lot of new cards to my Anki decks. I take vocabulary and sentences from online dictionaries (mainly Daum), but also from online penpals, with whom I decided to exclusively converse in Korean. It’s a huge leap for me as, except for a few Lang-8 posts, I used to focus on input rather than output. But after six months of reading Korean daily through my Anki reps, I now feel confident enough to have basic conversations in Korean without being too awkward and getting into bad language habits. Also, they kindly correct my mistakes, so I feel like the damage is limited.
I’m going to buy Integrated Korean: Advanced Intermediate 1 soon. I finished the Intermediate 1 a while ago, which was quite easy (I understood spontaneously most of the “new” grammar points, and already knew a lot of the “new” vocabulary), so I decided to skip the Intermediate 2. Also, I’ve learned a lot on the Internet, without any textbook, so I’ve made a lot of progress nonetheless.

This week I’ve received a package from my lovely 주영. I’m not going to linger: picture of what I received here, and what I sent here. The big news is that she’s thinking of coming to the South of France to visit my city and me a few days this winter. I’m really excited, and I’m hoping everything will go as planned (though there aren’t really any plans yet…)! She was my first Korean penpal and we’ve been writing to each other for nearly a year now, so I’m really looking forward to meeting her.
Also, I’m thinking more and more seriously of going to Korea in a year or two. When I first started to learn Korean, I didn’t know how long this hobby would last and I didn’t have any plans to go visit the country. Now that my passion has grown and that I have contacts there, I really want to see the country, even if I’ll just be a tourist there. And of course I would really like to use my acquired skills to speak the language and improve.

Updates

Jeanne — Tue, 31 May 2011 18:20:11 +0000

My first oral exams went really well! I’m so glad, and it gives me strength for the ones to come (recap here).

Anglosphere History/Geography:
The document I had to talk about was about the US economic decline, and the rise of the NICs. I think I did a good presentation without outrageous English grammar or pronunciation mistakes, and I was able to answer accurately most of the examiners’ questions. They made me talk about myself a lot too, for example they asked me if I knew about Chinese/East Asian movie directors or other artists (and God knows I do!)… So I guess that went well.
Latin:
The examiner was very nice and laughed a lot. I did a good presentation, and luckily she didn’t ask any grammar questions. She wasn’t too fond of the text that I presented, but said that I was convincing anyway and that I should become a salesperson. She told me that with the bonus points I would have 21/20, but knowing the system, this will most likely become a 20/20 (which is awesome too, of course!).
I’m so glad I picked up Latin, I loved learning about the language (yes, we learn more about ancient languages than the languages themselves – at least that’s how it works in France) and culture (our teacher made it really fun with all the decadance, the murders, the sex…), and I’m glad I worked hard (a few hours before the exam, I was so worried about not knowing everything that my adorable philosophy teacher nicely let me go and study my Latin instead of staying in her class and stressing out)!

Anyway, reading about fellow learners’ summer plans (Alodia‘s, Shanna‘s, Archana‘s…) makes me really want to be on holiday too. Sadly I’m not going to Korea, but to Scandinavia, which is great too! – I’m thinking about Korea for 2012 though… But of course I’m still going to be learning Korean intensively! I’m thinking of attending a class given by an organization in Paris, just to see what it looks like, especially since it’s very affordable (for now I’m still not sure if the schedule will suit me though, I might not be in Paris at the right time). Also I’m already planning trivial things such as buying proper stickers for my keyboard (my homemade ones don’t last too long), writing to my penpals, shopping for school supplies (hello law school!)…