A Year of Language Learning #7

Hi everyone!

On the second of October last year I joined the Refold Korean discord server, making it over a year now, that I started Korean and Japanese with immersion and input based learning. So I'd say a good time for a reminiscence.

Since I have logged what I did and how it was on this blog anyway, I want to spare you all the details and have more of an overall "learnings, what I'd do differently, what I'd do the same" sort of post.

In my very first post about learning, I stated myself the following rules:

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)

Whilst I certainly wasn't perfect in all of these (No.3 is really hard you guys) I managed to stick to them and I think that's exactly what kept me going and motivated for over a year now. And despite being diligent about the Rule No.1&2, I made more progress in that year than I really ever expected.

That says nothing really, since I did not go in with any specific prognoses or time-bound goals, It's hard to gauge the level anyway. But I don't think I expected myself to be able to follow the plot of shows, or work through books, read webtoons, all of that. In terms of Refold, I am 2C in Korean, 2B in Japanese and maybe 2A or 2B in French, I haven't really checked. I suspect I could find some media and test it that could make me 2C in Japanese too, but in comparison to my Korean level it feels off to mark myself that high yet.

I am beyond happy about my gains! No Idea what hours I spent, tracking them would probably make me recoil in shame as to how much time I spent indoors just watching shows. I'd rather not know the extent of the media addiction, thank you.

Methology 

If you don't recall form previous posts (no worries), I ended up completely abandoning Anki, rote memorisation and sentence mining for the most part. Which is probably wild to some because it makes up most of the recommendations for how to learn with the Refold guide. I actually didn't mind doing my Anki somewhat regularly in the early stages, it was quite fun. But the better I got, the more I just lost interest in it and preferred to immerse. If I didn't see a word in immersion soon enough after looking it up, I knew it was not going to stick anyway. So what is the point of making a flashcard then? – Is sort of my thinking.
I do sometimes write down words, look them up repeatedly and all that. It's not that I go dictionary-less. But I would say that most of my immersion time is spent in free flow, with little looking up things.

This has consequences. My vocabulary size is puny for my level. There are so many words that I don't know, that could probably be considered absolute beginner vocabulary. I live in constant fear of exposing myself! However there are some perks:

• My listening is not too bad, better than my reading probably. Which is the opposite of what most people seem to struggle with. 
• I also rarely run into situations where I feel like "I should be able to understand this, I know all the words but it doesn't klick". If I know the words and grammar concept, I will understand too. Although I bet now that I've claimed that so broadly, I will run into something that leaves me stumped.
• And my personal favourite: Some words I learn just via pure immerison. I never look them up, but at some point I will just be like "oh I have heard that a couple of times, it means this!". Which is a great feeling and I think it happens more often this way.
  

Another thing I might do differently than the guide I am supposedly following is: Output.
Whilst I'm not doing huge amounts, I have texted and sometimes called with natives, gotten corrections, constructed sentences with grammar concepts that were somewhat new to me and all kinds of other sinful behaviour! Outrageous really.

I am safe from language hell though because my hours spent doing that are nothing, miniscule really, compared to my hours spent getting Input. Since joining, Refold has also become more lax about it's Output-policies and that's a good thing. After all, what use is the language if by the end you're too scared to use it yourself. Unless your goal is just to be able to understand, which is of course also valid. But not my goal.
I have found for myself that sometimes, after long stretches of input, I want to use the language, test out all the new things I learned and be a bit social too. I feel like I'm all filled up with it and need to get some out to make place to learn more.

Several Languages at Once???

I know, it's mad, it's not recommended, you'll be slower than everyone else. And inefficient too! That would be terrible. I knew all the arguments for why you should or shouldn't do several languages at once and decided to go for Japanese and Korean simultaneously anyway. Like stated in my rules above though, always reserving myself the right to drop either of the two. I am also calling this section "several" and not "two" languages at once, I am a mad person and introduced a bit of French at some point. Mostly because I had the opportunity to output and was curious how good or terrible my knowledge from 2010-2013 middle school French lessons would hold up. The answer is: not secretly fluent but also surprisingly well, but I won't get into it here. 

 

For most of my Year of Learning, Japanese and Korean were great compliments to each other. Like I anticipated, when sick of one language, I could shift to the other and swing back and forth, keeping the system moving overall. And I love finding those words that are cognates from Chinese, or similar grammar structures and expressions.

 

Now, for the last few months my focus shifted to Korean, to the point where I could argue that Japanese is maybe more maintenance than active pursuit of learning at the moment. But that's okay, and it doesn't mean no progress at all, or that I left it entirely.
As to why Korean overtook Japanese, there is probably several reasons:

• The content; I do like Anime, but in doses. J-drama does exist but it is frankly terrible in comparison to k-drama. There is just something about some japanese media that drives me up the wall.
• The Korean Refold server is more familiar to me. Having people around me (be it irl or in virtual spaces) has always been a great motivator and for some reason I became a regular in the Korean server, it's just less intimidating!
• The writing system. I like Kanji, I really do, but it adds a layer of complication to memorise. And I do not like rote memorisation much.
• As I became more familiar with both languages I found it a harder to switch between them often and quickly. Which is a good sign I think, I interpret this as me having them more ingrained in my neurons.
• Lastly, I had a month or so where I was trying to replace some of my Japanese immersion with French. Which just led to me only doing Korean for some time. 

Don't worry though, I am still doing Japanese. 

Conclusion 

Again, I have nothing to complain about my progress (the highest possible compliment from a German). I would do it all over again, even knowing that I could probably minmax loads. But since I don't want to, no point!

And I'll just continue as it is. Learning as a hobby has been a comfort and a stable constant in a year that was otherwise tumultuous and not one of the easiest in my life. It has taught me things about myself and what I am capable of, broadened my perspective and brought me a lot of joy and community.

Thank you to everyone who read this far, even if you skimmed! Thank you also to everyone who's just on this train with me in spirit, especially the entire Refold community.
Now I'll stop lauding as if i were giving a trophy speech, but what had to be said had to be said.

Back to immersion everyone, see you around!
Zora