120 Day Language Mission - 2 Languages - Esperanto and Korean

[Scipio]

I'm about to embark on a language mission for 120 days. This thread will be like my "blog" to keep me responsible about studying the languages, especially during periods where other things will overlap (exam period in December, and goal to attend Brazilian Jiu Jitsu training 6x per week on the winter break, and wrestling in the evening 5x per week).

The two languages are Esperanto and Korean. I want to learn Esperanto since it is a quick and easy language that will provide me motivation and the mindset that I can become multilingual. It has also been shown to have value in helping people acquire other foreign languages more quickly. My Esperanto studying will be done without classes, as I will learn it online completely for free. I can see one drawback to this being that I will need an internet connection to study it and I won't always have one, especially at times where I want to get quick studying done like on the bus or subway.

For Korean, I live in Korea at the moment so I want to learn it. Everyone in Seoul wants to practice English with me so it has been slow-going so far. Around December 1st I start a Korean class on Monday and Wednesday nights. One of my initial goals is to get placed in their level 2 class rather than level 1. The placement test is on the 26th of November so I will need to study hard on my own for the next month in order to get up to that level. I will also attend a free Korean class at a local university on Saturday afternoons, and the Korean class I'm taking for credit at my own university on Fridays (which is not taught very well). My current knowledge of this language is fairly basic--I can just read the script, order my favourite dishes, and say simple greetings so far.

My goals during this time period are to spend at least one hour of self-study time (apart from classroom work) per day on each language. More if possible (especially for Esperanto so I can complete it quickly). I want to elevate this to a level of "mission" or "purpose" like Steve wrote in his Graduating College in 3 semesters article.


This trial period lasts until the end of February, which is when my 2.5 month winter break ends, so I will have a long period where I can commit to more studying.

The Korean class I will be paying for is 10 weeks long starting at the beginning of December.

Outcomes: I want to be able to chat online at a quick pace in Esperanto, and if I can find a local club or association here, the same speed for speaking.

For Korean, my initial goal 30 days in is to be placed in a level 2 class. I want to be in that class and surpass their ability with outside study, enough that I'm learning at double the pace of the class and could skip level 3 next time. The same with the free weekend class, I want to move up in levels in half the time it normally takes most students. I will be studying more than twice as much as most people, and will be more than twice as committed, so I bet I can cut the time period in half.

I was also thinking of a 10 new words in Korean per day goal, which would put me at 1200 more when I'm done, and 20 new root words in Esperanto per day, including cognates, which would put me at 2400 root words and the ability to make thousands of words because of the way the language is made.

[Eisho]

Originally Posted by Scipio

For Korean, I live in Korea at the moment so I want to learn it. Everyone in Seoul wants to practice English with me so it has been slow-going so far.

I had / have the same problem in Japan. Get yourself into positions where the people around you don't know enough English to be able to start a conversation (harder to do in Korea than in Japan, but try...) and take it from there. Your ability will improve far quicker than in a classroom. For those that talk to you in English, unless its a gorgeous girl, always reply in Korean.

Eisho

[Scipio]

Thanks Eisho. I'll have to head to Fukuoka this August for a visa run so I'll remember your site.

The first day (the day I wrote the original entry) I did about 2 hours of esperanto studying and 1 hour of Korean studying, plus about 1 hour of esperanto resource gathering. I signed up and found free sites and stuff on the internet.

I am using Learnu! (en.leurnu.net) which has tonnes of stuff to take a person to intermediate, a 10 step course with a free email tutor Free Esperanto Course , and a free program I downloaded called Kurso De Esperanto. I am also going to input all the vocabulary from these courses into a flashcard program called Mnemosyne which uses the spaced repetition method in order to install things into your long term memory.

Today I did 2.5 hours of Esperanto. I got into a state of flow and didn't want to switch to Korean and sacrifice how well I was doing. So I did a bit of Korean on the bus home (I had work, class, and wrestling practice today as well). I'm gonna change the goals to: Study each language at least 7 hours per week rather than 1 hour per day. It makes sense because on some days I have huge blocks like a 3 hour Korean class, and reviewing before it, so that day I might take a break from Esperanto. And on days like today where I'm limited on time and just want to sit and focus, I might only study one.

I'm so enthralled with Esperanto and it makes me feel like I'm having a little competition with myself to see how fast I can learn a language.

[Scipio]

I pulled a muscle in the back of my neck tonight at wrestling, disabling me for the next week probably. That means I won't spend 2+ hours in travel time and 3 hours at the wrestling class, every night this week. That's an enormous amount of time to study--what a blessing in disguise!

I did more than enough Esperanto study again today, I've probably met my 7 hour goal already and its been three days. I'll focus more on Korean the end of this week, but I'm having so much fun with Esperanto because I'm progressing so fast. I know by the end of this trial I'll be reading real literature and be fairly quick at chatting online.

[newmark]

Have you met anybody who you can speak esperanto to yet?
Good luck on reaching your goals.

[Scipio]

There is the Esperanto Asocio in my city but I'm not going to meet with them until I'm better at the language. At minimum I'd like to be doing text and voice chat online with other beginners first.

Right now I am on lesson four from the Pacujo 10 Lesson Esperanto course. I am also studying Mi Estas Komencanto (I am a beginner) at Lernu.net. I have the audio version in my MP3 player so I can listen to it while walking around.

Yesterday (Halloween day) I had a 3 hour Korean class. However, like most large classes, it wasn't extremely productive. I wish I had a better way to study Korean solo, like I'm doing with Esperanto. There are so many free and very well organized learning tools for Esperanto, but not for Korean. Mainly because many linguists and translators learn Esperanto, and very few English speakers learn Korean. Usually it's the other way around--Koreans learn English. That's why I hope the class that I will pay for will help me out a lot more.

Today is Saturday and I'm at the library studying. I'm also going to take a walk with my MP3 player in some relaxing area and practice the speaking and listening MP3 for Esperanto.

One setback I had yesterday was that I declined to go out with my friends for Halloween night (no big deal since it's not actively celebrated in Korea) in order to study. However, I spent a lot of time browsing the net and didn't get much true studying done.

[dinc]

Korean? How strange... I have also done something like this, though my challenge was ten days instead of 120.

You can view my exploits at: Nitroviper

I make mistakes so you don't have to .

[NuclearGorilla]

First, I'd like to point you here, if you've not already been, which has the vocabulary for the lernu lessons so that you can import them into mnemosyne. That should save you some time.

If you're trying to learn enough Korean to qualify for a level 2 class in roughly a month, at only 7 hours a week I think you might have some difficulties. Unless you feel it has necessary benefits, you could consider toning down the Esperanto for the month. Although in general language classes are a joke compared to self-study, I don't know that 30 hours would equate to a full level (I don't know how much is expected of a level for them).

Noting your goal of at least 7 hours per week per language, I'm just going to make the recommendation that you work in each language every day still, if only for 15 minutes. For some reason, languages seem to prefer this (my experience, in any case).

As far as materials, you may want to look at the course available at [a site which they won't permit me to share for I have no idea what reason] (I haven't personally). FSI courses were used by the government long ago and are usually very drill-based.
Here is the link; remove the spaces.
http://www.free language courses.com/korean/korean-language-courses-59/

Language learning is a time-consuming but extremely rewarding endeavor. I wish you much success!

[Scipio]

Thank you Nucleargorilla

Sorry for not updating recently.

I made the decision that I won't enroll in the class. Why? Because it takes a long bus ride to get there, and it is $300 out of my pocket which I don't have. If I were to get some type of job, then that would take additional time away from me. Time that I could spend self-studying or just talking to Korean people! It's very easy to get language exchanges here. My friend also gave me some good Korean books yesterday.

I went to Mnemosyne and downloaded the vocab a week ago and there was an error message and I could never get that set of cards loaded on there. Said something about 'unable to parse XML.' I wish I knew computers better than I do. It seemed like the problem was that it didn't allow another deck name to be created when I wanted to add them, but it worked fine with other downloads (I downloaded SAT English just to test out another deck).

Anyway, I'm so short on time lately with school, Judo (competition coming up Saturday), wrestling, cooking my own healthy meals, part time job, that I want to study these languages on my own instead of enrolling in a class.

This week I probably fell short of my goals. However, I'm going to make it up in the coming few days and then some.

[breakthestatic00]

anyeonghaseo Scipio!

I'm living in Korea as well, I'm teaching down in Busan. 2.5 month break? are you teaching in a university up there? lucky you...

[Scipio]

Nope, I'm attending university in Seoul. Have fun in Pusan!

[lovelyn]

I lived in Korea for 6 years teaching English. I also learned to speak Korean when I was there too.

I did a language exchange with a Korean friend. We met twice a week for two hours. We'd spend one hour for English and one hour four Korean.

I took Taek K'yon class from a teacher who spoke no English. This class was five days a week and only one of the students spoke English well and she usually wasn't in the class.

I took saxophone lessons from a teacher who spoke poor English and hung out at the music school a lot talking to other music students. I made it known that I was studying Korean and had a small notepad that I carried with me with vocabulary words in it. The people at the music school were always very excited to help me and give me new words to study.

I watched Korean television when I was at home and tried to navigate the internet in Korean.

Learning Korean can be tough, but it's also tons of fun. I found that it was easiest for me to practice Korea with Korean friends who spoke English so well that they didn't really care about practicing it. One of my friends had an American husband and was annoyed that he never learned Korean so she was always very excited to speak Korean with me.

Good luck. I hope your studying goes well.

[Scipio]

Thanks Lovelyn,

Can you give me an idea of what to focus on during language exchanges?

I had a couple before but I didn't come with many plans, and it ended up being unstructured and not very useful.

I can see how getting a consistent partner who knows your level would be best.