Using my location marker (で) and my particle (を) in a sentence combined with two of the hardest (to write because of the strokes and sooooo many of them) Kanji I have come across 🙂

But yeah generally that’s what I did.

I haven’t been posting anything in a while 민망해요 ㅠ.ㅠ

Korean or Japanese! 🙁 so I feel bad. But I think I have come to a place where I am managing the two in an “alright” manner. I have to put sufficient effort into both without overdoing it and just making it a waste. So I have a new system ….that wasn’t needed with just one language.

I study 30-1hr a day of each. Japanese is studied in the morning. It’s odd but I seem to digest Japanese better when I wake up and I’m having a cup of tea. It just seems to work for me, and what works need not be changed. Don’t fix what isn’t broke. 

Korean I study at lunch time, this isn’t new, I usually used to study at 1-2pm for Korean anyway. In the mornings too but that happened for review purposes now I review them both one after another. Order doesn’t matter.

I Got A Bedtime Book 🙂

I am not the kind of person who takes a book to her room to read before she goes to bed, no, I go to bed and I sleep. The only item I ever take with me to my bed before I sleep is my cellphone because it’s just messaging before you sleep. But my Dad is the kind of person who reads before going to sleep, so I just asked because I was bored, staring into space doing nothing so I asked :

“Why do you take a book to read before you sleep, only to have to carry it back so tedious isn’t it?”

“I don’t know. I retain information that way, and whatever I read I think about it and come up with ideas and sometimes they aren’t good and sometimes you realise they are just rubbish and useless”

Hmm!? I kinda thought maybe it would be good if I read a book before bed, and I actually enjoy it now, I have been reading a textbook, not seriously with notes but just like enjoying the content and surprisingly it is quite effective. So now I have bedtime books.

♠◊Progress Updates◊♠

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1. 한국어 

It’s very strange but I think I am using and improving my Korean more than I ever was (I mean ever) because lately I am actively using it in everything I do. For television shows (Japanese) I am understanding them through Korean, without them I find English dean’t carry the same nuance but I find the Korean subtitles to be more accurate and they just carry the message better. Sure I don’t watch it with super ease as if it were English but its close enough.

As I a result of that I am forced to learn new vocabulary both passively as actively. I don’t like running into confusion so I have taken it into my own hands and am learning more vocabulary actively which also counts in points to helping me write better.

I am speaking much much  more, in Korean. I have had the same language exchange partner for three years and she is great always helpful always makes me type in Korean (more like forces haha) but she is the reason that certain aspects of my Korean have greatly improved over the years and others because I am lazy are lacking but anyway she introduced me to a new language exchange partner and this one is focused heavily on speaking. I literally spoke about 2hours of Korean combined last week, and I know that’s not much but apart from in my head and when I see something and just record it on my phone in Korean for fun I barely speak. Nothing to be proud of haha but it’s true, I am not going to lie to you. But I realised how much fun talking is, I obviously talk a lot its very clear (but I’m still a little shy) so this talking idea is really fun to me. LOVE IT <3

To make up for my lack of active study last week I will just read a book today 🙂 it’s studying, because I have to look stuff up. Almost like a homemade graded reader (those are nice by the way I got a Yonsei one which is hard wow but it’s entertaining lots of interesting topics in it, will finish and review….really I will)

I will also be creating a page up top there in the bar thingy (I just mean next to the menus that lead to sub-pages of my blog) about all my textbooks. Actually I was asked to do this but in  hindsight it’s a very good idea and it will help me to keep track of things better. Still two books I have barely looked at. I try to give all of my books attention but my buying habits kinda dampen my efforts just a little bit. Hence the newly formed ban.

????

２.日本語

Well, its pretty obvious I am focusing on this more than Korean (actively that is) but I think the fact that my Korean isn’t that bad allows me to have some leeway and just let it slide for just a week and then start with both again more actively. *don’t judge me*

But there is a lot of basics to understand with Japanese, I sort of feel like all the hard part of the language are the base understandings (the particles, the locations particles and when to use them in what situations) and etc the verbs which I am sort of cool with now but its those little things that weren’t too major with Korean but with Japanese they are important to understand at the beginning to have an easier learning journey ~ well as easy as it’s going to get alongside being challenging. And I like that.

I have noticed that kanji is not something you can leave to “picking it up as you go along” no – sorry but with this I will write them down and study them like a  list of words. If I don’t like it after a while I will stop and think of something else (maybe a graded reader) but I don’t want to leave it to chance. Language learning is always an active activity but sometimes you can let it go and just “learn” with the way everything is. I don’t know, am I making sense? I hope so, but sometimes you have to focus on something and actively more than usual learn it. Drill it into your brain.

Drills still work. So use them. I know more Japanese vocabulary than Korean at this stage because I am literally making an effort to absorb things and not using the “pick it up as you go along” method. Everyone has what works for them, and oddly enough this seems to work very well with me.

My friend says its probably due to me having another language at a sort-of decent level to fall back on (more experience) but I don’t think that’s very true. I think I just am using different methods.

Who knows? ^^ I guess I will never know.

Haha.

#obligatory_notebook_snap

This is my untidy baby writing. Makes me smile even though it doesn’t look very pretty. I was studying particles here.

MUJI! I got new pens, I use Hitec-C Maica for my Korean notes and general writing because those are my favourite pens but then I decided to try MUJI pens and omg they are amazing. More amazing than my Maica pens. And I love their simplistic and minimalistic design.

You would never guess that something so plain looking can be the best pen ever. For Kanji and etc

Look at them ♥ they are so cute too.

Before I break down into pens I love let’s end it here.

Have a good day everyone 🙂