Learning Korean in a jiffy

Last year, when I went to Seoul and Jeju, I planned on knowing some Korean but it did not happen. This year, I'm going again with my sister, who is keen on the language enough to dust off her preferred app and pick it up again. We're not competitive partly because she appears to be better at Asian languages than I am (aside from our mother tongue Malay, she already speaks some Chinese and Japanese) although I reckon a little bit of it would help.

Anyway, we've bought the tickets and booked the accommodations. What remains is to figure out what we want to do or see, and learn the language.

It's T-80. I'm not a complete beginner, I would say, because I have watched Kdramas before. Fine, I'm new at it, having never got on the k-wave when it crashed into the scene some thirty years ago, and honestly I probably know the basics like thank you, yes, no and hello. How do you say 'bye' again?

It's been a while since I learned a new language, and one whose alphabet is totally unfamiliar at that. Of course that meant going on YouTube looking for tips on how to do this in a way that I can sustain (won't take too much time, make me lose interest or frustrate me). I found two interesting resources which I will share here:

1. There was a video by the same person about learning in two weeks. I scoffed it at first but it was actually a good watch, especially as I was able to articulate my goals and suddenly felt okay about doing this with intensity. That said, on this video, he talks about how to learn in chunks of 15 mins everyday (it's actually 15mins x 3 times a day) and - it's official - I've adopted it as a learning method.
2. I actually went through four other videos and this is the second of the pile which I would recommend - there are five techniques here, and the one that rocks my boat is "shadowing".

Thanks to them, I've drawn up a preliminary game plan for my Korean playtime:

• Goals: Two of. First, I'd like to speak Korean by the time I get there, even if it's basic level. How much of a difference would it be if I could catch conversations, signs and interact more with locals. Second, read award winning writer Han Kang. Her work, "The Vegetarian" was the first Korean language novel to win the International Booker Prize for fiction (2016) and more recently, in 2024, she received the Nobel Prize in Literature. Say no more.
• Week 1: Learn the phrases I keep saying (up to 50) - look through blogs or record myself (story speaking) and use the Voyant website as suggested in video #2 (above). Keep 'em short. Since I (try to) journal daily, take one or two sentences from my journal entry and translate it into Korean just to practice seeing the words and writing them out. I don't need to know how to write, read or spell at this stage.
• Week 2: Learn the phrases that would be helpful when we travel (up to 50). Find an instructor to start intensive, intentional learning (and intervention!) with an expert. For both Weeks 1 and 2, I'm 'shadowing', which means I learn by listening and repeating the words out loud so that my mouth and ears get used to them (to help the brain catch on).
• Week 3: Look to Kdrama or songs or the website Korean in 90 days. By the way, this is not a recommendation of the course offered there. I see that it's about USD300/year and prepares 4 x 90 days courses to take you from complete beginner to 'high' intermediate. They look like they have structure and a community which are very compelling, especially because immersion and sustainability are so important. Will I do it? No idea but it's an option. Anyway, back to week 3, this is when I start intensive, personal classes (twice a week, >1hr/session) for a minimum of 10 classes (up to week 8) for intervention (which is basically making sure I don't miss the 'big' grammar idea and wire-in a noob mistake.
• Week 4 - 8: Kdrama or other resource. Also start journaling paragraphs. Build up to passages (translated from original)
• Week 9 - 12: Kdrama or other resource. Start journaling in simple Korean sentences and check for correctness.

To learn, I shall:

- In the morning, with or after my coffee/breakfast, practice saying the words/phrases in Korean straight away (helps with listening, speaking). Then, turn phrases I learn into flash cards (writing, reading)

- In the afternoon, take one or two of the phrases I learned in the morning and process to understand them either in terms of grammar or culture or make associations (understanding)

- At night, before bed, recall and revise. I'd like to recall at least one complete sentence every day in the first week. It's not much but I'm signing up for the long run, not a crash and burn.

Today is actually Day 1. How did I do? There's still light out so I guess that's for the next blog.