This time it’s 3000 sentences in ~6 months.  The deadline is January 7, 2011.

Korean study continues! I’m still reviewing my anki deck (sort of)  but i haven’t added anything for several weeks. At the moment I have a backup of around 900 cards. Honestly, I just lost interest after I did six months of anki. I reached my goal didn’t bother making another.

As I said, Korean study continues but these days I’m doing other stuff.  My latest project is memorizing and reciting things that are said to me or asked of me over and over and over to me by Koreans I’ve never met or just met.  It’s all true. The list is not complete and not in any particular order.

1. 나이가 어떻게 돼요? / 몇 살이에요? / 몇 살이세요?
2. 이름이 뭐예요? / 성함이 어떻게 되세요? 돼요?
3. 언제 한국에 오셨어요? / 한국에 얼마나 있었어요?
4. 결혼하셨어요? / 왜 결혼 안 하셨어요? 했어요?
5. 어디서 오셨어요?
6. 어디 사세요?
7. 오빠나 언니 있으세요? / 가족 어떻게 되세요?
8. 한국음식 좋아하세요?
9. 맵지 않아요? 괜찮아요?
10. 왜 한국에 오셨어요?
11. 무슨 일 하세요? / 어떤 일 하세요? / 어디서 일하세요?
12. 한국 좋아하세요?
13. 한국 날씨 좋아하세요?
14. 미국은 날씨 어때요?
15. 잘생기셨어요. / 잘생겼다! / 멋있으세요.
16. 한국 나이가 어떻게 돼요? / 한국 나이로 몇 살이에요?
17. 한국말 잘하시네요./ 한국어 잘 하시네요.
18. 한국말 이해할 수 있어요? 한국말 이해돼요? /한국어 이해되세요?
19. 어디서 태어났어요? / 고향이 어디세요?
20. 가족들 보고 싶지 않아요?
21. 얼마나 여기 있을 거에요? / 얼마나 여기서 지내실 거에요? / 얼마나 여기에 머물 거에요?
22. 미국에서 무슨 일 하셨어요?
23. 소주 좋아하세요? / 몇 명이나 마실 수 있으세요? = 주량이 어떻게 되세요?
24. 쉴 때는 뭐하세요? / 일 끝나면 주로 뭐하세요? 주말에는 주로 뭐하세요?
25. 여자친구 있으세요?/ 어자친구 있어요?
26. 핸드폰 번호가 어떻게 되세요?
27. 젓가락 사용 참 잘하시네요. 젓가락을 참 잘 쓰시네요.
28. 어디 가요? / 어디 가세요?
29. 집에 가요? / 집에 가세요?
30. 아침/점심/저녁 식사하셨어요?
31. 안녕하세요? / 안녕하십니까?
32. 참 예쁘세요./ 정말 예쁘세요./ 정말 예뻐요.

1. How old are you?
2. What’s your name?
3. When did you come to Korea?
4. Are you married? Why aren’t you married?
5. Where are you from?
6. Where do you live? Where do you live in Buan?
7. Do you have brothers or sisters?
8. Do you like Korean food?
9. Isn’t it too hot?
10. Why did you come to Korea?
11. What kind of work do you do?
12. Do you like Korea?
13. Do you like Korean weather?
14. What’s the weather like in the US?
15. You’re handsome! ;)
16. What’s your Korean age?
17. You speak Korean well.
18. Can you understand Korean?
19. Where were you born? What’s your hometown?
20. Do you miss your family?
21. How long will you stay here?
22. What kind of work did you do in the US?
23. How many bottles of soju(Korean vodka) can you drink?
24. What do you do in your free time?
25. Do you have a girlfriend?
26. Can I have your phone number?
27. You use chopsticks very well.
28. Where are you going?
29. Are you going home?
30. Did you have lunch/breakfast/dinner? (How are you?)
31. Hello, how are you?
32. You are very pretty.

It’s here!

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ankisrs/id373493387?mt=8

This is the month of maintaining , retaining and no gaining.  I can’t seem to keep the anki deck down. I haven’t added  new stuff in over three weeks. I review everyday but never down to zero.

Two times this month I tried to speak only in Korean. It was difficult but I did manage to express my thoughts in broken Korean and have them understood. In addition to the regular anki deck I’ve started another, this time going from English to Korean. So far, so good. I have about 20 sentences committed to memory.  The content is sometimes not so useful for me but the form is helpful. For example I can say, ” I have been thinking getting plastic surgery”. No I really haven’t wanted rhinoplasty, but  yes I have done some thinking.

I have nothing more to report except that I am disappointed. This is the end of a six month experiment. I made progress but the not progress I had dreamed of. Oh well, I’ll keep going.

Took a trip to the 38th parallel last weekend.

Snapshots from the Tokyo-Kyoto Tour.

All this language learning, SRS talk and no how’s Matt and what’s he REALLY doing?

Japan!

Really, I should say I did a tiny fraction of Tokyo and and a bit of Kyoto and a bullet train in between. It was one week of an almost completely tourist adventure. I should emphasize that one unit of measurement, the week. It didn’t feel like seven days. Days and nights were one.  Every hour was different but the whole week was the same. Ramen meals were perhaps the only consistent ingredient in action packed nonstop attempt to experience a bunch ‘o stuff. I’ll run through it here  as I did in Japan  —>  Arrive Toyko,  find Ueno district, find crew and the hotel, eat at best ramen joint ever, wander  Higashi-Ueno market, see Sensoji Temple, see Five Storied Pagoda, eat sushi, wander Asakusa Market , visit Asahi brewery (no more), ascend Tokyo Tower…eat best ramen ever… cross the Shibuya crossing, all-nighting in Roppongi, eat best handcrafted mochi ice cream ever, check out Akihabara cosplay, sleep in a capsule, visit Kappabashi kitchen town, visit Tokyo Contemporary Art Museum, watch  bustle of Tsukiji Fish Market… eat best ramen ever… tour Ueno Park and temples, ride bullet train, check out International Manga Museum, view Silver Pavilion, visit Samurai shops and manga store,  play video games, bike Kyoto,  tour Imperial Palace… eat best ramen ever…train ride back to Tokyo. And that’s maybe 1/3 of the trip, the highlights.  The highlight of the highlights for me, was the Imperial Palace in Kyoto with those sweet  nightingale floors and awemazing murals.  Impressive. I don’t have any interior pictures though. They wouldn’t let me take ‘em.

What about the stories in all that stuff? -Like how Cezar and I played human frogger at Shibuya crossing and lost Melodie in the mass of people and how she wasn’t so happy, and how and why my image of ramen is no longer Top-Ramen, and how dangerous it is to first look left when crossing  street, and what happens with you share beers with carnies? That’s for another time.

녹차
라테

We talked over lattes in in the town of Kimje . I told her I wasted my time for the first year of studying Korean. I spent all that time struggling,  trying to retain what I had learned and trying to output using grammar rules.  But she said, “No. You have what you have now because of that waste of time”.  “Okay”, I said. “You’re right.” Failing horribly forced me do find a better way.

Now, five months later…I’m moving right along with Korean. I’ve stopped with Korean Class 101 lessons last month. I got to the point where I learned enough sentence patterns to set me free from their lessons and dive into other material. Lately its been expression dictionaries. I occasionally run into strange grammar but most of the time now the new stuff I’m learning is vocabulary. I’ll probably go back to KC101 lessons in the future but for now I’m having fun without it.

Learning song lyrics is another thing I’m doing for fun. MC Snyper, Delispice, and Zitten are some of the Korean artists I find interesting. MC Snyper is way too fast to keep up with but still fun to listen too.

And the other day I found myself  watching a Japanese film that had Korean subtitles. I had to pause it often in order to read the subtitles, but I was happy I could even understand a little.

I have around 3500 cards in the Anki deck with  2700 in rotation,  and another 1000 or so waiting to be added. I kinda wish I had more  but I definitely have a limit to the amount I can learn in a day.

This final and upcoming month I will continue as I have done for the past five and perhaps do the Virtual Output Experiment.