My Korean Journey: Update #1

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This post is the first in an experimental series of tracking the progress I make in my journey to Korean learning.

My goal is reaching a high degree of fluency: being able to speak at length on many topics, in a sophisticated manner. I have no need to take the TOPIK exam so none of my learning has concerned that.

I don’t really know what my "level" is, but I’m advanced enough that textbooks and resources offer very little. I just need to consume way more native material.

A recap

I first started learning Korean around May of 2017, a few weeks before I moved to the interesting failure of a city, Sejong City, to teach English.

In total I’ve been to Korea 4 times, over almost 2 years:

  • 2017/06 - 2018/01 (Sejong City)

  • 2019/01 - 2019/06 (Seoul)

  • 2022/05 - 2022/08 (Seoul)

  • 2024/05 - current (Seoul)

Which means 7 years have already passed…​ (wow). Although when I’m in the US I usually end up taking breaks due to lack of motivation.

The early days

A lot of my motivation at this point was from dating someone in Sejong City who spoke very little English.

As far as I can remember, I used 5 main resources:

For most of the Korean learning resources I know about, I got them from LLK (Let’s Learn Korean!). The server has expanded greatly since then but I still think it’s a great resource for beginners to ask questions and get feedback.

Of course there are other resources, but I found these (especially GO! Billy) had the most thorough explanations, with many examples. If you’re learning Korean, I highly recommend checking out his grammar livestreams.

Acquiring vocabulary with Anki

In the early stages, it’s hard to beat Anki - when done right. I used to take the bus ~30 minutes back and forth to my academy, so I used that time to grind anki.

I was able to consistently do 20 words per day for about 6-7 months, which should have put me at something between 3k and 4k words.

This was enough for me to get by in simple day-to-day interactions, but nowhere near enough to start enjoying native content. I tried looking at books, webtoons, and games but I’d quickly burn out and give up.

Studying in the US

In the US, I’ve found it very difficult to keep up the motivation to study Korean. Of the few Koreans living in South Carolina, many are affiliated with the local churches, which I’d honestly rather not get involved with.

I still hung out in LLK and studied grammar, but my vocab study dwindled to random words I’d see while watching 런닝맨 (Running Man), 아는 형님 (Knowing Brothers / Men on a Mission), and 신서유기 (New Journey to the West). Amusing shows, but not that good for language acquisition.

Since I lived in South Korea you might assume I like k-dramas or k-pop, but I never got much into them. I wish I enjoyed k-dramas. I think I would’ve learned a lot more sooner if I did.

I wish I had hopped into voice chat for LLK or Korean gaming discords, but I was just afraid. Distinguishing what people are saying is hard enough in person where you can see facial expressions and body language, voice chat is entirely different.

Language exchanges

In 2019 and 2022 I attended language exchanges, with MingleCup setting the gold standard for me on what I expect out of them. Unfortunately, MingleCup closed during COVID so I found another one in central Seoul that was adequate. Not bad, but not great either.

The main problem I find with language exchanges is that they’re misnamed. Most of them should be named "Adults socialize in English and drink alcohol". Very few set up a structure to actually practice Korean and English. I would often find myself having to lead discussions with shy folks, on the same topics over and over.

MingleCup was one of the few: 7-8pm was 1-on-1 in Korean. 8-9:30 was 30-minute sessions of groups of 3-4, in English. I got to practice speaking Korean and met a lot of interesting folks, so it was quite fun.

The Foreigner Bubble

This is a problem in a lot of countries. It’s usually easier to find friends who speak your native tongue, and it’s easy to end up hanging out with them, leading to a positive feedback loop of just hanging out with foreigners.

I’ve fallen into this myself, and I’m making concerted efforts to find people to only speak Korean with.

It also doesn’t help that English is a lingua franca in many parts of the world, and many people get excited to practice their English with a native speaker.

Apps I don’t find that useful

  • HelloTalk - getting corrections is handy, but it doesn’t help with listening if you don’t hop into calls with random people. Also, it seems many guys use it as a dating app so I think less women are using it these days.

  • ClozeMaster - This might be good for a beginner, but rote study is just too boring for me. I don’t have to commute anymore so I don’t have dead time to fill with studying apps.

  • Migaku - I just don’t use Anki or watch Netflix at my computer consistently enough. Neat project though!

Why I don’t use Anki anymore

One issue with premade decks in Anki is that cards usually lack the context for words. This is fine in the beginning with words like "table" and "mom", but as the words grow increasingly esoteric, it becomes much more difficult to remember them and get a sense of when to use them.

It’s hard to keep up the motivation to memorize words that you probably see a couple times of year and use even less. I would get words up to ~9 months in Anki…​ and then forget them after 9 months, creating an annoying cycle.

Synonyms and similar words get annoying quickly as well. In Korean, a pure-Korean word will usually have a more formal, Chinese-derived equivalent. I had to start adding (formal) to cards, or disambiguate by putting the actual Korean definition instead of the English one. It was a lot more work and I didn’t feel like I was getting that much out of it.

Evita’s deck, in particular, also had cards where a single word had 4+ definitions on the back. This is considered a bad practice for flashcards - it’s usually better to split up meanings into multiple cards.

Note
 I do make cards with 2 definitions for a word on the back, if the second meaning is a figurative usage of the main meaning.

One solution is to make your own anki deck, but here’s the thing: it’s utterly boring. I don’t want to spend hours each week doing the mind-numbing process of word entry. So I burned out on Anki, reaching a backlog of 600+ words, clearing that, and then hitting a backlog of 800+.

If I weren’t employed and had no hobbies, I’d probably stick with Anki. But I am and I do, so I end up watching something or playing Street Fighter 6 after work.

Currently (in Seoul)

What I struggle the most with still is listening. A sentence that I could easily read can flow through my ears as a slur of sounds. I don’t think there’s anything to do besides watch dubbed or native shows and talk to way more people solely in Korean.

I also have a problem where the kind of stuff I want to watch isn’t very helpful to my Korean. For example, I recently watched some of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure and Hunter x Hunter with Korean subtitles, but they use "anime language" for a lack of a better term. Words that just aren’t used in day to day speech…​ I’ve confused the hell out my Korean friends trying to use some of these words.

I don’t have much of an appetite for rote studying anymore. At this point my vocabulary is diverse enough that I can watch shows (with subtitles) and get a rough sense of things, so I’d much rather do that.

Physically being in Korea gives me access to a few things:

  • Netflix’s Korean catalogue (there are many dubbed shows and movies)

  • Laftel (a Korean anime streaming site, that unfortunately offers either subs or dubs but not both)

  • Coupang, Gmarket, and used DVD stores

With the latter, I recently found Spongebob seasons 1-3 dubbed and subtitled in Korean! I’ve also been watching a sitcom titled 지붕 뚫고 하이킥, and playing Stardew Valley set to Korean. I’ve heard Adventure Time has a Korean dub, so I’d love to find a copy and go through that.

Finally, my grasp of vocabulary related to the natural world has gaps. For example, I know some parts of the body, but not all parts. I’d like to start closing out these gaps.

Hopefully the next Korean Journey update is a bit less verbose.

1535 words — under languages, korean