Language learning
Speaking practice
Yesterday my language partner had to cancel our meeting, so I didn’t get to practice any real Korean conversation. However, I was pretty determined not to let that stop me […]
Yesterday my language partner had to cancel our meeting, so I didn’t get to practice any real Korean conversation. However, I was pretty determined not to let that stop me from practicing my speaking, so when I got home I spent the time I was supposed to have spent on our meeting reading a veeeeery long Iyagi (the one on Taekwondo) as a warm-up and then talking to myself in Korean for 15 minutes. The regular readers of my blog will notice that talking to myself is something I do a lot, but I really find that it helps tremendously. (Bonus info: I don’t just do it with language learning, during my undergraduate studies I frequently led my roommate to believe that I had company when, in fact, I was just reviewing my econ syllabus by talking to myself ^^)
This time, however, I used my phone to record my 15 minute monologue about what I had been doing that day and what I had planned for the weekend, what I was going to cook for dinner, etc. It sounds like a long time, but for someone used to giving hour long lectures it’s not that bad. Obviously, the grammar wasn’t perfect but that also wasn’t the point. I wanted to practice flow. Listening to it afterwards was not as horrible as I would have feared. It wasn’t perfect, and there were a substantial amount of “uh” sounds, but…. it was Korean. Far from fluent, but far better than anything I could have mustered a few months ago. 대박! The cool thing about this is that when you talk to yourself like this you can imagine yourself being interviewed by someone and then repeat the question thereby practising your indirect quotation grammar rules like “오늘 뭣을 했냐고요?”.
I rounded off the day reviewing a few Hanjas. I don’t know about you but I find practising the stroke order of Hanjas almost meditative in some way, so if you feel a bit stressed try practising a few Hanjas. It definitely works for me.^^
Now, it’s time for me to have a Friday beer with my colleagues to celebrate that teaching is over for this semester. Not that I’m too happy about it since I love teaching but the semester had to end sometime. Happy Friday everyone! ^^
소희
I'm a Danish girl living in Korea teaching economics at Sogang economics. When I'm not working I love to learn Korean, discover this beautiful country, read and blog about my experiences and thoughts. Follow me at www.sofietokorea.com :)
Sofie to Korea 
We are so similar it’s a bit frightening sometimes 😀 I also speak to myself as a way to revise whether it’s finance, law, or Korean. I don’t know others who do it when revising for something academic. But it works! It forces you to ask concrete questions as well as answer them, which helps you find out where your weaknesses are and then you can look them up. If you just read something, there is a risk you think “that sounds pretty reasonable, next chapter”.
Hanja is great. I have phases where I study a lot of hanja and then I have phases where I only do it indirectly since I always make a point of looking at the hanja when looking up new words.
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I know! But I must admit that I take comfort in knowing that I’m not the only one with this wacky behavior 🙂 Btw I really wish there were Korean movie nights at my uni. Sounds awesome!
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Haha well the others are missing out on some great practice 😉
It’s a really great initiative 🙂 I’m really happy I heard about it and the two times I went, the atmosphere has been great 🙂
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