omg languages! (or my background in languages, what I am learning and how I am learning)

There is a TL;DR at the bottom!

So now that I have the introduction out of the way, let me start with the reason I ended up making a blog on here now, instead of waiting for the urge to learn html to overcome me, so that I can build something more suited to host the chaos that are my interests.

I really want to document my process of learning Japanese and Korean before I get so far along that I cannot remember anymore. Also, I want to be able to look back and laugh at myself, I am sure I'll spit out some trash takes here and there. And last but not least I want to make sure that I can go back and see how far I've come!

Prepare yourselves, I will try and fail at keeping things short, there is some backlog to get through!

Language Background

English

My native language is German, but I have been in contact with English for most of my waking life, I grew up as bilingual as someone can, in Germany with German parents. I don't want to get too far into it, but essentially I had a head start to my peers, a few English speaking people in my environment, and started early on English books and movies.
I don't think I can improve my English further than I already have, I might still make mistakes, my accent shines through when I am tired, or when I haven't spoken much English lately (or when I sing as I've been told), but I see no need to iron out those crinkles.

French and Latin

Now that we got the obvious out of the way, I want to quickly mention that I had, next to obligatory English classes, French and Latin in school. In the former I reached an intermediate level that quickly degraded into a very rusty upper beginner due to years of disuse. It is currently a zombie language but I hope I can keep it alive enough until I feel like properly reviving it. The latter is definitely a dead language, but then, it was a dead language to begin with.

Japanese

Now to Japanese. When I was eight/nine years old, I went to a Japanese Elementary School, in Japan, for six months or so. Albeit not a long stay, it left an impression on me and I picked up some of the language. The school was not an international school per se, but it was geared towards foreigners. That essentially meant that instead of Japanese class, or Calligraphy, I'd have a nice lady teaching me words with pictures and some hiragana too. For the rest, kids don't actually need a lot of words to play and have fun. The way I recall it, by the end of the stay, I could usually comprehend what people were talking about but I couldn't have said how or why. A Family friend said that my Japanese was rudimentary, but not wrong.

Back in Germany, there was no opportunity for me to take classes or anything, so I forgot most of it. Not all though, I never forgot how to introduce myself or greet, a few Hiragana, the Kanji to write my full name, and a few random words and phrases. I also believe I retained some idea of how the language is structured and like..the vibe?

Anyway, I always hated how I lost all the rest, so when I started university, I decided to take an entry level Japanese class. And stopped after one semester. Beside my heavy work load leading me to drop it, I just couldn't get over how much more laborious it was, compared to how easy I seemed to pick up things when I was there. It felt like a huge chore, not much sticked and by the end I just felt like it was too much.
Whilst I don't think that traditional learning is absolutley impossible (I did get quite far with French after all), I think it is very very difficult to do for a language so far away from my mother tongue like Japanese. Apart from the occasional Anime watch with subtitles, I didn't touch Japanese for some more years.

Korean

Enter Korean! So a few months ago, I had seen some Korean shows. At the beginning it all just sounded very strange and like this soup of sounds that my ear tried to decipher but couldn't handle. Plus I was distracted with the subtitles. But, some time in, I noticed that I picked up words, when they were frequented enough. I specifically remember putting together that 물고기 (fish) was 물 (water) and 고기 (meat). After that I was hooked and my mind was blown.

 

Language Learning in General

As if it somehow new, the YouTube algorithm pushed some immersion learning videos my way and suddenly I was reconsidering how I actually learnt English, how much easier Japanese was as a kid and how much I had progressed in French after I had trunched through a novel. Suddenly I felt like I could learn this way, with native media as the main part and everything else, grammar and vocabulary study secondary.
For a bit, I thought that the way to go would be a language exchange, I think I wasn't over the idea of needing a teacher. I still consider it a good idea, it is helpful and great, but finding someone is stressful, doing it as a beginner is very hard and getting taught entirely without other tools just not viable for me.

At this point I was more thinking of how to learn and what to learn, rather than actually learning. I went back and forth between Japanese and Korean and was scouring the internet for advice and experiences. On one hand, I had this connection and sentimentality towards Japanese, but also resentment from my failed learning attempt. On the other hand I had this new shiny thing Korean, with no baggage but I'd start so much more from scratch, why would I not do the language I had already started? I obsessed for a few weeks and came to the conclusion that I should just do both and I didn't care if it made me slower in total. I might talk about this decision and how it is going at a later point. To start, I layed some ground rules for myself.

1. Prioritising well-being and fun. This is my free time, I will not put pressure on myself whatsoever. If I don't feel like doing something, or if I feel like dropping/pausing either language, I'll do it. I am more likely to stop if I get stressed out, so being not stressed at all, lacking all discipline but keeping it entertaining, is the way to go for me.

2. No rules or over-thinking in terms of efficiency, however I feel like studying is the way I'll study and I don't care if there might have been a quicker way.

3. No comparing my process to anyone else but my previous self (I especially struggle with this one, but it is good practice)

Most of this might seem obvious, but I really need to remind myself of this from time to time.

On the 2nd of Oktober 2022 I joined the Refold central discord server (google Refold on the offchance that you have never heard of it, every time I want to describe it, I sound like I'm in a cult) as well as the Japanese and Korean sub servers. I was initially more curious and hesitant to actually partake, since I didn't think the Refold method with all of it's levels and time-tracking-sticklers, was going to go well with my laissez faire approach. But I ended up sticking around, grateful for the resources, delighted to have found some immersion learners and motivated by everyone's wins. I am still prioritising my rules over the Refold Guide, but as far as I remember, doing whatever suits you most is part of the guide too.

I will make respective posts about my journey since then to where I am right now in my two languages. There is a lot of back log and this is getting to novella length.

Thank you for anyone who felt like reading through this, I promise not every post will be this badly formatted. <3 (I am used to LaTeX doing all the heavy lifting for me)
Also so sorry for the bad title.
Cheers,
Zora

TL;DR

This person loves languages. Native German, acquired English from a young age, had some other languages in school too. Lived in Japan briefly when still a kid, but forgot most of it. Saw one too many K-Drama to the point of picking up words, found out immersion learning was a thing and is now studying both Japanese and Koran at the same time, loosely sticking to the Refold Guide and winging the rest with a relaxed approach.