As I wrote in my previous post, I encountered some issues while learning Korean. I'll write them all here and then move on to my new plan. [My original plan/general structure]

The issues:

1. I felt like I wasn't progressing enough (for more details, check out my 77th update)
2. My bare minimum isn't really working.
3. My side-goal of figuring out how to teach myself a foreign language suddenly became much more relevant.

Although I created it for the toughest days, I still struggled to keep up. From one hand, this is completely justified (someday I'll post an explanation, I promise). From the other hand, I'll only get busier in the future. I missed language learning and my other hobbies. So, I need to figure something out eventually or I'll go mad.

I'll take German classes in a couple of months. And since I want to take German much more seriously than Korean, it'd very helpful to go in with a better approach in mind. The classes would be helpful, sure. But the best language learning happens outside of school (unless you have an amazing tutor).

So, the plan. I'm not changing it entirely, just bringing in more specificity.

Vocabulary

The flashcards are staying, but with a tweak. Remember how I said I hated them? Well, that's still true. But they're are still super helpful on a beginner stages. They're always accessible and I can check information much quicker.

• I'm going to try and make my own sentences for every new word no matter how short or basic it'll be. I thought that a million three word sentences are pointless, and that I should wait untill I know I specific amount of grammar and vocab to really benefit from output. But single words or two word phrases don't stick.

• I'll try to use it more exactly as I did when I was learning English. I went around the house and repeated random stuff outloud. At first, they were short exclamations like: "I can do it!" or "Is it okay?". Eventually, I wrote plots for my stories English with ease. And I actually started speaking without having a language partner. I didn't believe that it would work for Korean because I had a really strong base in English. I couldn't produce complex sentences, but all the vocabulary and grammar was there somewhere, I just had to get it out. But right now I'm building those two foundations at the same time.

• I'll try and start chunking right away. I think it would be like learning patterns instead of phrases*. And Korean is perfect for that. The whole grammar system is based on patterns. But I'll also look for an authentic way to express a massage and just copy that without worrying about grammar**. I speak as naturally as possible and as painlessly as possible. And if you consider that Korean has a SOV sentence order... Well, translating in my head is now that more difficult.

I'm thinking more and more about the meaning of different languages. Think obout it: we're all humans, and today we're extremely interconnected. We all want and experience the same things. And you can research something you don't know. My point is, the underlying messages are always the same. Native speakers all over the world express those messages differently, and that's what we as language learners aim to understand. Translation is slowing us down. And there're a lot of beautiful things you just can't translate in other languages.

In short, I'm curious to try this new approach.

• I want to try putting Korean words in non-Korean sentences again. Let's give it a proper go. I still earn to jump into more complex content ;)

Oh, the flashcards? I'll use them as a mental reminder of what I planned to practice each day. I'm not used to all these activities in Korean, so it would help. Also, flashcards are still perfect for busy schedule. If my new activities work, I'll see what I'm going to do about them later.

Grammar

I won't stop consistantly studying grammar both because I like and because I want to be able to produce my own sentences. Relaying on "autopilot" has proven to be effective, but I still have a long way to go to express myself more fluently.

What do I mean by this? In both Hebrew and English I express myself with ease because I now speak in chunks. I don't even have to think. Even most grammar structures became automatic. That being said, writing on Journaly has shown me that I should come back to intentionally working on my output skills (thank you😊). And when it comes to Hebrew, I still struggle with conjugating familiar words in a new way on the fly.

So, I want to continue explicitly studying grammar to (hopefully) build a solid base for good writing.

• No more videos. Billy's course is great, no doubt about it. Initially, I chose to stick to it because I didn't want to overwhelm myself with resourses. But it takes a lot of time to make notes and review them. It doesn't fit into my daily schedule. Instead, I copied the TTMIK curriculum into my digital notes and will go from there. Youtube videos are for extra explanation and grammar structures the the corriculum does't cover. This approach is much better beacuse:

1. I keep track of what I need to practice. Since Korean is not an active part of my life, I have to contiously remind myself to practice it. I can ocasuanally look at the list and go: "Oh, I actually learned how to say "I have to do X..." a week ago! I forgot I could make those kind of sentences. Let's practice".

2. I keep track of my progress.

3. I create a beginner database for reference. My notes are searchable. The more notes I have, the more it becomes like my personal Google search. And it works offline too.

A set time to learn. When the world gets crazy I unfortunately have to treat my hobbies as "obligations" or projects. This mean countiously making them a priority for the sake of my sanity. So, I now wake up earlier and do an hour of delibirate studying first thing in the morning. The rising sun is beautiful 😊 (I don't wake up at the crack of dawn, but it's pretty close).

It's mostly studying grammar through making my own practice sentences. I set up a system where in the morning I only go through the TTMIK corriculum. All of the structures I encounter in my immersion are dumped into a seperate file. I can go over them when I feel like it. This way, I won't focus on random things all the time.

I'll have to find balance between using beginner and native resourses on those study sessions. Specifically when creating flashcards for the day. I'll figure something out eventually.

Additional Notes

• No more shadowing. Speaking isn't my priority. I thought it would help me to concentrate on the sounds, but it didn't. If one day I want to start speaking/bettering my accent, I will. There won't be much issue with that, I'm sure.

* a "phrase" for me is just two compatible words. Ex: Adv+V/Adj+N

**For example, phrasal verbs in English. If I had to translate the sentence I got out of there quicky from Russian to English, I would have probably said: "I exited from there quickly".