luca learns languages

I'm updating my languages for 2023 - I'm mainly focusing on improving my Korean and French and learning as much as possible. Plus: one new language

Korean

I want to take the first TOPIK exam this coming year, so I will have to prepare myself for it. I got a huge book on Korean grammar for Christmas and my plan is to learn all the contents. I will also find myself a teacher though, because I honestly feel like I won't get as far as I'd like to the way I'm self-studying right now.

French

Obviously I want to keep up my As in school, but honestly I don't think I have to be very careful because it's usually not a problem. Instead I will try to be ahead of my class at least a little bit so I can fully focus on Latin while in school (which is more of a problem lol)

For non-school studying I have set a goal to read at least one full book, it's probably going to be Harry Potter or Le Petit Prince. I also want to immerse myself more, meaning watch more movies or shows in French (I still haven't seen Lupin), maybe have more French conversations with my mother. Also, I am likely going on an exchange to Orléans in early 2023 (my exchange partner is coming in January or February already. If anything works out, that is. There might still be complications) Generally, I hope to achieve a proficiency of about B1. I won't take a test because that feels like too much trouble (and money, I think), but just...generally that area of proficiency.

Other than that, I have also made changes in my plans for my exchange year which is supposed to happen in 2024/25. As there are only few organisations which have Korea in their programme - and those who do are too hard to afford - I have decided to go for Thailand. I hope it will work out, for real, if I end up staying in Germany the entire year I will likely cry every day because missed opportunites and what not. Anyway, these news are the reason I have decided to pick up some Thai basics, at least. I mean, I take what I can get but I wanna keep the bar low and not expect too much of myself for a change. These are my 2023 goals for Thai:

Thai

First of all, I obviously need to learn the alphabet which...might even take me the entire year. xd For real though, I will focus on that first and then try to find a good textbook which can kind of guide me through it all. Because this language seems so complicated, I don't even know where to start

There's some nice shows to watch for immersion though..

gae:)

please don't stop reading I swear I will stick to the topic now

As for my other languages - Norwegian and Spanish - I will be maintaining those. I have Spanish in school so I will be putting about 2 to 3 hours per week into it anyway. To maintain Norwegian, I will TRY being more active on Duolingo again (because let's be for real, the Norwegian course is actually quite effective and it has given me so much let's take a second to appreciate that) and perhaps even do some more units of my textbook which I have, I admit, been abandoning for quite a while now. Norwegian in general, which is sad because it was my first language love :( Well, I got a week calender with pictures of Norway for Christmas, maybe that will serve as a motivation boost. Like for French, I also want to read at least one Norwegian book to the end in 2023. I have one in mind that the Norwegian teacher at the university gave me when I had my one-day internship there

Wow. I hope I will be able to achieve these goals by the end of the year. I seriously have no idea if it's too much or little because this is the first time I've EVER done something like "good resolutions for the coming year" or whatever it is called. But I recently saw a quote.

Aim for the moon. If you miss, you may hit a star. — Clement Stone

Not only does it sound very nice because of the connection to astronomy and space, it also reassures me that sometimes it's okay not being able to do everything or one thing just as well as the other. Small progress is also good progress, especially when it is aquired in a constant pace.

And with that, I'm wishing everyone who happens to be reading this a happy new year and good luck with your goals! You're doing great.

11:57pm

I was less productive today. Started with Thai, just practiced the consonants I learnt yesterday and then called it a day. I forgot to watch Love in the Air :( But I'm doing that tomorrow.

For Korean I just did the bare minimum and turned on Korean subtitles when I was watching Wednesday with my brother (he binge watched it yesterday, I was so mad because I started watching way before him and now he's already done smh)

And I just finished my French session on Duolingo, it was nice actually using it again after just saving my streak for quite a while now. It's actually so much more fun on the laptop than on the phone.

And that was pretty much it for today, but that's alright :)

¡Adiós y buenas noches!

1:40am

Hey look I'm getting the new year right in the date. I'm currently trying to build a habit of doing a bit of Korean, French and Thai everyday. Although I'm feeling sick since Sunday I get up to get at least a little bit of studying done.

I started with Korean today, chose a chill way of studying, started a new K-Drama, Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha. I've had this in my watchlist for a while and saw an edit recently so that's why I picked that one. I actually didn't watch the entire episode because I was taking notes about the plot and characters (fully in Korean, with some help of Naver Dictionary and Papago but still, proud of myself tbh) and writing down new words and phrases with the Language Reactor add-on (which has changed my life, I'm so glad I found out about its existence).

Did that for an hour or so, then reviewed the grammar points for French that we've covered in school so far this year. I still know everything so tomorrow I'm going to start with my plan on working through the points that we haven't covered yet to have insurance for later and such.

I'm still trying to figure out the Thai alphabet, I spent a full hour today learning and practicing only five consonants and one vowel. Not demotivating. At all. Also, the eighth episode of Love in the Air is available on Viki now, I might watch it tomorrow. Solely for immersion of course.

1am

It's gonna be a quick one because it's so late and I can't stay up until four again because it's New Year's Eve tomorrow. How exciting. Today I already fulfilled one part of my Thai plans for 2023 - getting an excercise book. I went to the shop and bought everything they had on Thai: a total of two books, one is an excercise book and the other a picture dictionary.

I am a bit disappointed in the excercise book, for two reasons: 1. It doesn't even use the Thai script? Like, I know very well how hard it is but it's still essential, so I'm a bit confused why they didn't include it. 2. So today I learned the tones, right. So far so good, I think I understand them quite well now although it will obviously take a lot of practice to fully master them. But the accents that are used on top of the letters when written in Latin characters (like ´ for high tone, ` for low tone, ^ for falling tone, etc) are different in this book than the ones I just listed (which make so much more sense. I have no idea why they changed it and it confuses me so much.) I'm sure it will still teach me some basics quite well.

At the book shop I met my mother's friend. We always celebrate New Year's Eve with her and her husband. We chatted a bit and also talked about my plans on learning Thai and going to Thailand in year 11 and I promised her to be able to say "Happy New Year" in Thai by tomorrow evening. I have faith in myself.

สุขสันต์วันปีใหม่

I hope this is right Difficult difficult language

Today was the last study/language session of 2022! I honestly have high hopes for 2023, like, I know whenever we said that in the past three years it did not turn out well but I seriously do. I have nice goals and also some things to look forward to this year!

11pm

This evening I (once again) am starting to learn the Thai alphabet, now finally with some proper ambitions. And dear God, I am at my third letter and I am l o s i n g my mind. Why are there like five letters that are ALL pronounced the same?? Let's not get demotivated.

00:30am

My mother is great by the way. She has studied linguistics and ever since I was a little child she has been providing me with random language facts, which later on gave me opportunities to look like I know literally everything about everything in school. I just wanted to say that. She has given me some advide even though she's never looked at the Thai alphabet before.

I will go to bed now. It's a bit late. I might still watch one episode though (in Thai so let's say it counts as studying)

about me *awkward*

so yeah, my name is luca, but i also go by 윤민석 (yun minseok) usually in korean contexts. feel free to use both or which ever you prefer though. i'm an '08 liner, and am currently in ninth grade. i was born in and currently live in germany.

the langs

fluent

german (duh)

english

pretty solid/learning

norwegian (bokmål)

french

korean

spanish

latin

interested but will probably not genuinely start any time soon

chinese (mandarin)

italian

russian

japanese

thai

polish

indonesian

other interests

i'd say that i do quite a lot of sports. i do taekwondo, hip-hop/i generally like dancing and i go to the gym pretty regularly. i also hope to be able to learn how to play baseball soon but there's little options here, sadly.

i also like music, both listening to it and making it. i mainly play the guitar and the bass but also the piano sometimes. and the drums very sometimes. my taste in music is very diverse but i like it that way. my favourite bands are stray kids, muse and sabaton.

if you've read this far i'm very proud of you. take this biscuit as a reward. 🍪.

I started learning Hiragana, despite not even studying Japanese. But my mum has some knowledge of it and she said she could teach me what she knows. Who knows how this will turn out. I'm still doubtful about whether it will be confusing studying both Korean and Japanese at the same time.