I picked up a children’s book at the my school library. My translated title: The Crayon that Went into the Woods [숲으로 간 크레파스] I expected to understand a large portion of it, because well, I was able to read the title, AND it’s  a  children’s book!

I have some work to do. I first went through once and wrote down all the words I didn’t know. I’m too lazy to count how many but it looks like about 100 words. That’s okay. I’m actually relieved. It looks like it’s just vocabulary that I am not familiar with. The sentence structures and verb endings look like ones I’ve learned in the last two months from the beginner and intermediate lessons at Korean Class 101. Recognizing these things and their associated meaning is pretty hard right now. I have vague ideas and rough translations in my head of what they mean. At this point I really want to get a firmer grasp on the grammar that I’ve amassed. New vocab using the same grammar is really what I want right now, so I think this book will be great. Actually, I hope the next few books could be like this one.

If I can get a copy of the video I will post it up here. For now I just a have a few shots from my first dance performance….ever. I and the other male teachers from my elementary school performed two dances based on the two K-pop music hit videos (Abracadabra and Sorry Sorry Sorry), for the Christmas festival. It was fun. I would do it again but  I would practice some more. I know I made some transition errors, but I was nicely hidden in the back to cover them up…I think. I won the best dancer title anyhow. I accepted it but I still wonder what the criteria was. Most colorful necktie while dancing?

This is my two month report on an experimental Korean Language Study Method.

How do I feel about this study method? I love it. It’s still fun this month. There was a week where the fun factor decreased but I recognized it and adjusted the SRS. I had too many unknowns at a time. I had intermediate material sentences  in the SRS and sometimes I had a sentence with 3 new words and one or new two grammar structures. This killed the fun. The concept of comprehensible input +1 was lost.

As I worked through many new sentence structures this month I became a little concerned there would always be another one to learn. I’d like to think there’s a finite number of ways to make a Korean sentence. The language would seem more manageable. A number like 100 would be fine with me. Is there a commonly accepted number? I would like to get to the point where I’m not learning new structures but only new words to fit into the those structures.

Progress? I can read a little more, I can read a little faster, I hear a little more, I understand a little more. I don’t feel a tremendous gain compared to the last month, but compared to two months ago I feel it.When I pick up a children’s book and start to read, there are still many words I don’t know. But, what I do understand  are the sentence structures that are used, and can gain some meaning from that.

The isle signs at the grocery store have started to become useful. I used to stand and look the signs for what seemed like a lifetime, trying to figure out if what I needed was on that isle. After a few seconds I gave up and just went the isle looking for whatever I was looking for. Now, I feel that’s it’s a close match between reading the isle signs or walking down the isle.

New Tools. This month I discovered  the Naver English Dictionary. When there’s a new word I come across and I want to know it,  I just put the word into the search bar and then hit the sample sentences button and  I have sentences to throw into my SRS. When I feel like writing a few sentences and want to check if my spelling is correct I use Google translator.

Another Study Experiment. In addition to the sentence reading experiment I also started another, to help with my pronunciation. I choose one dialogue from a Korean Class 101 lesson. I listen and repeat, trying to match the prosody. I only spend 15 minutes a day on this one. It’s just 15 minutes while I’m in the shower in the morning.  During this two week trial I’ve noticed a few things.

• It’s easy.
• There’s fun in the challenge to match the speakers voice while showering at the same time.
• It takes me about one week to match the native speed.
• I remember whole sentences without effort.
• When I read completely different material, I’m more inclined to stop and start after certain particles or create similar tone changes.