Day 15 of Korean in 80 days

This is part of "Learning Korean in a Jiffy" where I attempt to become speak-ready for an upcoming trip to South Korea.

T-66. I have a little more than two months left. It's the start of Week 3 of learning Korean and so far my track record has been on the slight side.

Here's what I did today to move the needle:

1. Went through the next two videos from Billy Go's Beginner Korean Course on Youtube (pats self on back).
2. Picked a song to shadow (shadowing is a technique where I repeat the words I hear, even if I don't know what they are and end up saying nonsense).

Fun is important. So to keep things entertaining, I opted to learn more Korean through songs. I found a list with suggested songs to help people learn the language. I've pulled these songs from various recommendations but it has to vibe with me, too. I'll be curating this list as I go through the songs one by one. I'm not sure for how long I will keep it, but for now here's where you can find the playlist.

Meanwhile, today's shadowed song is the Three Bears, a well known children's song. It's the only children's song which I kept on the playlist :)

I spent a good 15 minutes shadowing Papa, Mama and Baby bears. When I tried to recall the song a few hours later, however, I couldn't even remember the melody, let alone the lyrics. Maybe I don't have a musical brain. Or perhaps 15 mins was not enough for me.

The beauty of self-study is that you can switch things up until you find something that works. If music is not my thing, then I could try movies. For now, I'm assuming it's a time issue. I resolved to spend at least 30 minutes on song-shadowing tomorrow.

Ah, and with the Beginner's course on Youtube, 15 mins isn't going to hack it if I want to be speaking 9 weeks from today. I'll have to up the ante on that as well.

So, moving forward:

1. Continue learning for at least 15 mins, three times a day. Small but frequent doses does it. Since it's supposed to be intensive learning from here on out, one of the three 15 mins study sessions will stretch to 1 hour.
2. Since I don't have a tutor, I will sign up for platforms that can match me up with Korean speakers (native or learning like me) for conversational practice. The two I have in mind are Tandem and HelloTalk. For both, I'll need to download an app to my mobile although I can use a webapp after the mobile app registration. Ok, that's a deterrent but not a great one. I'll make room for at least one of them.

Am I ready to start speaking? I've got doubts. Then again, if not now, when? Babies don't bother waiting until they could articulate, do they?

Still, out of respect and so as not to waste my language exchange friend's time, I'll go through at least an hour of Billy Go's course. That should be in 10 videos or so, since they are each about 5 to 7 minutes long.

Onward!

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Read about the journey so far:

• Day 1 - I was so gung-ho!
• Day 2 - Still excited
• Day 3 to 7 - Travelled and, ugh, broke the momentum
• Day 8 - Realised that I don't have the muscle/habit of learning - yet. Resolved to keep showing up
• Day 9 to 14 - Reminded of the power of visualisation and departed slightly from the original plan.