Sharing my plan when teaching myself a language for the first time. My choice was Korean. You can check out my reasons and prior language learning experience in this this post.

My general goal is to stay with Korean long enough to easily understand popular media. I don't intend to read science papers or classic books like I do in English, but intermediate-ish level would be great. But the most important thing is to discover how I would learn languages on my own. 

First of all, let me introduce myself. I'm a full-time daughter, friend, and student with a part-time job. Pretty standard, right?

Second of all, a few sentences on how my language learning perspective has shifted over the years: 

1. Mandatory lessons twice a week. And they consist of grammar drills and endless vocabulary lists.

2. Languages can be fun! It's pretty much the same lesson structure, but you learn through your hobbies with an enthusiastic teacher. Yeah, tutors are wonderful.

3. Screw the lessons! Immersion 98% of the time, this is the only way to go. For a year. No exceptions. (Nope. But I'm typing this in English, so I probably did something right... If you want me to post about it, leave a comment 🙂).

4. No, learning my TL in my TL is so cool! I finally found the answer.

5. Well... no. Most likely, it's something in between. Balance. There is no fits-all perfect method. We have our own strengths and weaknesses, goals and preferences, lifestyles, and many more differences that I'm too lazy to mention. Even the language we choose matters.

Okay. I want to show what others hide (either because people don't think it's important or because they want to appear as the best language learners on the planet), so take a look at 

My Perfect Plan

• Start with "Billy Korean". 1 lesson a day.
• 30 new words a day. I'll try to incorporate them into my daily life right away.
• 1 hour of intentive listening (probably a TV show).
• All of my downtime listening is in Korean.
• 30 minutes of reading practice.
• After finishing the introductory course, I'll jump straight to the native content and supplement my lack of understanding with more studying.

What do you think, guys? In my opinion, that's the perfect plan! To go crazy.

My Actual Plan

Well, it's kinda the Perfect Plan, but much more doable. You know, for a person who would like to have a life.

In preparation for this, I set up a Notion page with my resources and a daily tracker. Tracking is not for everybody, though. I like to see how my tiny efforts accumulate over time😁. And I'm so busy that I have to put reminders on everything I do.

In short, I plan to combine deliberate studying (for progress) with immersion (for listening and pronunciation). Gradually, as I build my vocabulary, I'll be able to enjoy reading.  

• Start with "Billy Korean". 1 lesson every 2-3 days.  

They are short, but I need to first take notes and then actually try to process the new information.  

• Learn 8 new words from a "most common-vocab list".

I hate flashcards, but they are necessary in the beginning. I'll also try to experiment a bit. For example, use Korean nouns in my non-Korean sentences (I feel like other words need a lot more context, so I'll practice them in phrases). It might be much more enjoyable. I'll let you know!

• Active listening for 30 minutes.

Meaning I'll pay attention to sounds, speed, and intonation. Maybe I'll shadow for a bit. Hopefully, I'll quickly find an interesting TV series to obsess over. And, of course, I'll look for YouTube channels and podcasts.

As you might've noticed, my main focus for now is vocabulary and grammar.

This is what I'll try to do on my normal day. Everything beyond that (both studying and immersion) is extra. Hurray! Well done, me!

The Bare Minimum:

1 new grammar point. I may not learn it, but I will at least familiarize myself with it.

3 new words: a verb, a noun, and an adjective. Or 2 sentences. Depends on my mood.

15 minutes of active listening.

In general, after I finish the course, I plan to follow a grammar guide to study one new point a day. After finishing the vocab list, I'll take most words from immersion (or not). I actually want to write down scenes/senerios about me and slowly translate them. I'll definitely continue to mix native and beginner content.

This is gonna be interesting. First and foremost, Korean is my hobby. So, the plan might change. I lot. Starting tomorrow, I'll update you on all my endeavors.