#language learning progress

📖27.07.2023📖

Today's studies were a revision of consonant, vowels and the basics of batchim! i feel more confident on my reading abilities but i still have to work a lot on pronounciation (and hangul in general.)

i used Mrs Vicky's video to study, and using a post it to add little notes to my already made notes. also my username written using hangul is 가와마기 (fun fact: it comes from the word 까마귀, meaning crow. that's bc i really love crows, so i took the korean romanization and changed it around.)

For future references, this is written on March 14th 2020.

I'm 20 years old. I'm a third-year distance university student who enjoys reading books, learning languages, writing stuff, watching tv shows. To sum it up, I'm a nerd who barely gets out of the house.

Now, to my language learning journey. I study languages pretty seriously. And I don't really judge myself on speaking because most days I barely speak ten words in my native tongue. So I judge myself by language test results. I get depressed if I'm not busy so I just prepare for test after test and challenge after challenge. When I'm preparing for a test, I study about 10 to 24 hours per week. If not, I just watch tv or read books all day long.

I'm a native Burmese speaker and I also speak English. I wasn't raised bilingual but my mom and my brother started speaking English at home when I was about 10. I work as a freelance translator (English to Burmese)

I learn Korean, Chinese, and Japanese. (Cue eyerolls) My definition of fluent is C2 in CEFR level or "can easily read hundreds of books and understand 99% of it." Needless to say, I'm not fluent in any of those three.

First of all, Korean. I passed TOPIK (Test of Proficiency in Korean) level 5 in 2019 with 229 marks. (Have never taken TOPIK prior to that) Before that, I studied in a language program in Korea for nine months + six months prior in my country. That's about two years of study. I'm aiming for TOPIK 6 in 2020 and trying to read as many books as I can in Korean.

I passed HSK (Chinese language test) 4 with 289 marks in 2019. (Passed HSK 3 in 2016 and 4 in 2017 before). I learned Chinese for three months when I was 13. But I had no lessons or any practice for three years so I had to start from the scratch at age 16 again. So now I'm self-studying for HSK 5 four hours a day and 6 days a week. HSK doesn't really have passing marks for level 5 and 6. (It was 180 for all levels but then for some reason they removed that from the test.) So if I don't pass an exam with no passing marks, that's gonna be so goddamn funny.

And finally, Japanese! The language I'm least familiar with. I had to start learning from scratch thrice before I finally passed JLPT (Japanese language proficiency test) N4. I finished JLPT n5 and then studied for JLPT n4 in a month. I passed NAT 4Q (equivalent to JLPT n4) with 144 marks out of 180. (December 2019) After my HSK 5, I'm gonna study for N3 and see how it goes.

I also dabble in other languages (like French) but I know how much effort I need to learn a language so I'm gonna hold on until I have at least one more fluent language under my belt.

Why do I study these languages? First of all, because Chinese language is the coolest shit ever and I love calligraphy even though I suck at it. And these three languages are similar so I can learn about another language from one language. (I have tiny epiphanies all the time because of it. For example, I was watching Kingdom yesterday and when they said 백성 I was like oh wait, 백성 is the same thing as 百性 ! They're the same word in both languages!) I also like to read books and I know how many things can get lost in translation so I'd like to read/listen everything in original language. I'd also like to be a writer/translator plus language intructor so learning languages are just very beneficial for me. But most importantly, it's cool as fuck.

Hi~

I feel like once you get the basics down then it’s best to follow one of two resources in depth (this applies mainly for higher advanced & lower intermediate). By in depth I’m meaning; 

making a memorise/quizlet for the new vocab and testing your self till you know it by heart.

making practice sentences using the new vocab/grammar and getting it checked (lang8, language exchange friend or super kind Korean friend). 

Find some resources that have worksheets; doing examples really does help solidify your knowledge & I often learn about usage rules through examples. 

When your self-learning its easy to end up doing a bit of everything (in terms of resources, studying techniques). There is nothing wrong with variety but I know (from experience) that following a resource well keeps you on track & you’ll feel like your making more progress. If you have some extra time then go websurfing in Korean, watching some TV shows, translate some lyrics etc. but perhaps a bit more structure & revision will get your progress going. 

I just very recently started studying for HSK5. (about 2 weeks or so) Everything is overwhelming because now I only have about 60 days before the exam. Today I decided to take a mock test on HSKOnline.

Grammar: Circumflex sincope - reblogged post explaining it

Pronunciation: French stresses all syllables more equally than in English

Vocab suffix transfer*:

English words ending in y >> French words ending in -é and -ie (e.g. cité, éternité, bébé, biologie, calorie, envie) -ous >> -eux (e.g. spacieux, envieux, cérémonieux, curieux, dangereux) -ar/-iar/-er >> -ier (e.g. familier, particulier, papier) no e >> -e (e.g. soupe, classe, adresse, Arabe, architecte, artiste, cabine, calme, carrotte, crabe) -ial >> -iel (e.g. artificiel, partiel) -ack >> -aque (e.g. attaque) -act/-ect >> ait (e.g. abstrait, parfait) -ess >> -ice (e.g. actrice) -ary >> -aire (e.g. anniversaire, ordinaire, culinaire, contraire, élémentaire) -arian >> aire (e.g. autoritaire) -ic >> -ique (e.g. fantastique, exotique) -rete >> -ret (e.g. discret, concret) -ating >> -ant (e.g. fascinant) -er >> -re (e.g. odre, théâtre) -ing >> -ant (e.g. amusant, intéressant) -er >> -eur (e.g. boxeur) -ly >> -ment (e.g. certainement, complètement, essentiellement, évidemment, exactement, finalement, généreusement) -or >> -eur (e.g. conducteur, erreur, couleur, horreur, honneur) -ed >> -é (e.g. décidé, équipé, fixé, forcé)

*keep in mind some words are false cognates, or have approximate meanings. Anniversaire is birthday, not a wedding/dating anniversary.