Comprehensible Input

Comprehensible Input has become a buzzword in the language community of late, and I'll admit that I knew little or nothing about it until recently, when I watched a YouTube video about it. The video alleged that the best way to learn any language is to just expose yourself to copious amounts of comprehensible material. What does comprehensible mean in this context? Basically, that means that you know what is being talked about. For instance, you can't just turn on a video of two people discussing politics willy-nilly with no pictures or graphs, etc., and expect to get anything out of it linguistically. It has to be material that interests you and that gives you visual or auditory cues as to what's being discussed. Needless to say, after having successfully acquired several languages on my own, I was rather skeptical about this approach to language learning, but the reasoning behind it made perfect sense to me, so I watched on. If you think about it, we all basically learned our native language this way. Our parents and the people around us would point to something and ask us if we wanted it, for instance; or they'd taste something good and smile and say "delicious"; or, conversely, they'd taste something disgusting and frown and use the appropriate adjective, etc., and we just absorbed and imitated what we heard and observed until we could replicate it ourselves. My interest was piqued!

The video went on to say that greater success can be achieved if we don't bother with the writing system right from jump street. Infants, after all, are perfectly capable of acquiring their native language before they can read or write one lick of it. And the time you'd spend grappling with a new writing system is time away from valuable input! Once you start learning to read and write, you'll be struggling to make sense of the written word — to say nothing of trying to produce it yourself — and that'll distract you from hours and hours of essential, invaluable input. This, again, made perfect sense to me. Then it said that you don't have to understand everything you hear 100% and dissuaded watchers from running to the dictionary every time they heard or read a word they don't understand. If you don't understand it from the context, leave it alone — it'll probably come up again at some point. This actually made sense but also gave me a huge sense of relief. I have notebook upon notebook of Russian notes and vocabulary that I wrote down at some point and never looked at once. What a waste of time and paper! 

The video then suggested that one not get too hung up on pronunciation at first. Repeat what you hear as best you can — you'll have plenty of time to work on the finer points of pronunciation as you mature in the language. Imperfect pronunciation at the beginning of your language-acquisition journey is perfectly acceptable and to be expected. It can be likened to baby talk in infants learning to speak. 

First Steps

Well, I was intrigued with this concept to say the least... so much so that I decided to try it out for myself. The way I saw it, anything that made that much sense on paper, had to work in practice, right? I decided that it had to be a language that I knew absolutely nothing about and actually had no special interest in learning. I also figured I'd pick one that had a challenging writing system, so that I wouldn't be tempted to try to read or write before I was at a good juncture to do so. Thirdly, I reckoned it should be a language with copious available material for me to consume; in order for my experiment to work, I'd need hours and hours of material appropriate for comprehensible input in line with the above conditions for what qualifies as comprehensible input. After some thought (and upon seeing some posts on here), I opted for...

Korean! 

Let me say right out the gate that I had zero knowledge of Korean; I didn't even know how to say hello. I'd literally be coming to the language a virtual helpless, innocent, vulnerable (and I daresay adorable) baby. According to the video, I was to imagine myself plunked down in a country where I didn't speak the language and would have to learn it from the word go in order to survive. I figured Korea would also be the perfect place because I wouldn't be starving anytime soon — I know from experience that Korean food is absolutely scrumdiddlyumptious! I've been to Korean BBQs in Miami and New Orleans, and on each occasion, the meal has been a maelstrom of deliciousness that's almost indescribable. In all seriousness, the food is so delectable that there's little or no talk at the table. But I digress! 

Having decided on a country and language, my next task would be the most important and the most challenging: finding Korean material appropriate for comprehensible input for an absolute beginner. I wish I could say that I had to kiss a lot of frogs before I found my prince, but that's not the case. The first channel that came up on YouTube belonged to a remarkable young man named 태웅 [tʰe•uŋ], who literally plays video games and speaks Korean throughout. And he doesn't just rattle on in Korean with no regard for the listener — each of his many video playlists is strategically geared towards a specific level of proficiency with lots and lots of videos for absolute beginners like moi. Additionally, each video is about 45 minutes long, which is also really important. I was elated! And the fact that the teacher is male was just the cherry on top. I'm a firm believer in learning languages from people you want to sound like, so I naturally always shadow and emulate males. 

Day One

It was Saturday, and I got up bright and early for my first Korean session. I started the video, and my teacher appeared in one corner, motioned to his eyes and said pogo, motioned to his ears and said tutko and then pointed at his head and said iyehaseyo. Obviously, he was instructing me to watch, listen and (try to) understand. In the past, I would've written these words down immediately... and I'd be doing myself a big disservice. If I understood the process correctly, all I had to do was understand and keep listening. However, just for good measure, I decided to go back and listen again, and this time, I made an effort to repeat what he said. Looking at his mouth, I replicated all the sounds just like him and was actually quite happy with my pronunciation. I did notice one thing though... when he said tut, he didn't round his lips, so I fixed that and sounded even better! The rest of the video was brilliant. He basically played sudoku and effectively taught me all the numbers. I kid you not — half an hour into the video, I was telling him what number to put or not put in the square... in perfect Korean! But more importantly, I wasn't checking a vocabulary list; it was just coming up naturally and without any hesitation. Zero! I was like a computer. And not only numbers; I had learned to say yes, no, there is, there isn't, this is, and this isn't. After the video, I was able to rattle off my phone number, address, social security number... I had effectively acquired the Korean numbers with absolutely no effort. 

Instant Connections

During the video, I also learned the word sang-ja, but didn't actually learn it. Let me explain... he used this word to refer to the box or square where the numbers go in the puzzle, so I didn't know if it meant box or square, but what's important is that I knew what he was referring to when he used it and that's all that mattered. At no point did he speak slowly in this or any video, but every time he used the word sang-ja, I was able to pick it out and knew exactly what he was referring to. About five videos later, he was talking about animals and he showed a picture of a kitten playing in a box and called it a sang-ja! I heard a choir of angels as I made the immediate connection. I hadn't heard that word since the first video, but there it was! If I had been making a vocabulary list during the first video, I would've called it a square and I would've been dead wrong. But more than that, I would've created a mistaken association that can be hard to change once it's been established in your mind. 

It seemed like all my language learning was happening behind the scenes somehow and was almost completely passive, which I'm not used to. But those processes were working in the background despite me and effectively teaching me the language. I had gone into a learning mode that I didn't recognize, but it was working. 

Another example: At the beginning of every video, he'd say the phrase chinan shigane, and I had no idea what it meant and couldn't work it out from the context. Then in a video about telling time, he pointed at a clock and made it clear that shigan means time. Then in another video, he talked about the location of things in relation to other things, and I learned that the ending -e means in. Then in another video, he played a video game where he's in an underground train station with long corridors, and he has to walk into each new corridor and see if there's any anomaly, and if there is, he has to turn around and walk in the other direction. In that video, people constantly walk past him and every time, he says chinagayo (he passes by/walks past me). Remember, I never wrote anything down during this process, so there was no vocabulary list for me to consult. But something amazing happened: the next time I started a video and he said chinan shigane, my mind automatically and effortlessly made the connection: chinan shigan-e "in the passed time" → last time! He was actually recapping what he talked about in the previous video! In other words, I didn't hear it and think Hmmmm, maybe that means blah-blah-blah, it just all came together on its own from concepts my brain had absorbed that just instantly made sense. I just understood. It's hard to explain. 

The way the material is presented is also pivotal. In one video, the game involved different color arrows. The speaker at no time taught the word hwa-sal-pyo arrow; he'd just ask what color they were, and I found myself absentmindedly using the word for arrow as if I'd known it all my life. I thought that was kind of cool. It's like he forced me to learn it subliminally because I needed it in order to answer the questions about the colors.

Reading and Writing

I completed the absolute beginner playlist of 13 videos in three weeks, by the end of which I was able to understand everything the speaker said with absolutely no problem. But more importantly, I was able to understand and answer all his questions with no hesitation and could even finish his sentences most of the time — perfectly and flawlessly emulating his pronunciation and intonation, mind you. As you can imagine, I was gobsmacked. I was actually acquiring a language — Korean, for God's sake! — not "learning" it as I have other languages. Every day, I'd start a new video with mounting excitement and suspense about what new concepts I was going to absorb that day. The next playlist was a game I've actually played: Inside. You're a little boy in a dark forest with danger lurking around every corner and a hundred ways to die. Having "been there and done that," the "comprehensible" factor was off the charts! Obviously, there were lots of new words. I'd understand about 80% of each new sentence, and then work out the meaning of the unknown word(s) from the context... or not. But again, I would just leave the words I couldn't make out alone, and by the end of each video, I'd usually have worked out what they meant. I decided to watch these videos twice: once for comprehension and input, and once more for comprehension shadowing. I watched another video on comprehensible input where this guy says that if there's a persistent word that you just can't get from the context, there's no danger in looking it up in the dictionary. The problem is, I couldn't read or write Korean yet. 

It took me all of three days to learn the writing system and I was now able to read anything in Korean, even if I didn't know what it meant. It's quite phonetic, although there are certain changes that take place when certain sounds come together. Learning to read clarified certain doubts I had. For instance, in Korean, to say there's [something] you say [something] iss-o-yo. In the new game, the little boy walked into a clearing and saw there was a refrigerator and said Nenjanggo inneyo! From his intonation, I gathered he was surprised, so I concluded that in-ne-yo was a different verb that can replace iss-oy-o to express the element of surprise. I was only half right. When I learned to read, I realized that it's the same verb: [inneyo] is actually spelled iss.ne.yo, but in speech, the [ss] assimilates with the [n] resulting in [in.ne.yo]. So I learned that the only thing new here was the particle [ne], which seems to express surprise. I couldn't possibly have made that connection without seeing the written word. 

Another thing I learned is that my teacher pronounced nen-jang-go refrigerator as den-jang-go, as well as other words that he pronounced with an initial [d] when they're actually spelled with [n]. My curiosity got the better of me, and I googled this and learned that Koreans routinely pronounce initial [n] and [m] as [d] and [b], as if they have a stuffy nose. Mystery solved! Den-jang-go it is! If the choice is between something written in a dictionary or textbook and a real live person, I'll go with the live person every time. The way I see it, language lives on the lips of its speakers, not in books.

But the most surprising thing about being able to read Korean was the reading experience itself. When I was learning Russian, for instance, I learned the alphabet first thing, like most people do. Then it was a process of sounding out words, but having no idea what I was "reading". With Korean, it hits different: the written word just confirms what I already know! My first reading experience consisted of re-watching some of the absolute beginner videos with no sound and just reading the Korean subtitles. It was mind-blowingly satisfying. It was like meeting someone in person who you've only ever chatted with online but never seen. Like I know you, but now I can finally put a face to the name. Also, since I already knew how the words were supposed to sound in terms of pronunciation and intonation, I was able to read them with the appropriate tone every time. When I was learning Russian, I could read words, but had no idea how they were supposed to sound in connected speech or what intonation to give sentences, which is at the same time daunting and fruitless. 

Having said that, in terms of Korean, I'm limiting myself to reading for the moment, not writing. I don't want to be tempted to revert to my old language-learning ways and start wasting time writing stuff down. I much prefer this passive input method; I'm literally absorbing the language like a curious child with little or no effort on my part and I love it!

Conclusions and Takeaway

My conclusion, even at this early juncture in my Korean language-learning journey, is that comprehensible input is the only way to go. I wish I'd known about this when I started learning Russian eleven years ago. But guess what, it's not over till the fat lady sings: I found a YouTube channel belonging to: 

☑︎ a Russian male 

☑︎ who speaks only Russian in his videos 

☑︎ at a natural speed 

☑︎ for learners with different levels of proficiency 

... and after a month of watching his videos and shadowing him, my Russian has improved by leaps and bounds. No more lists and notes, and I seem to retain new words and phrases with no problem whatsoever. All I have to do is create a context in my mind where I'd use the new word or phrase and it just magically gets archived in my mental database. Then, instead of a vocabulary list, I write a paragraph about the subject matter he discussed while it's fresh and use the new material naturally and organically from recall. Obviously, I can't do that with Korean yet, but I definitely will when I'm a little more proficient. Hell, I'll be able to post stuff on here in Korean!

Recommendations

Obviously, this has been my experience with comprehensible input, but we're not all cut from the same cloth; what works for me may not necessarily work for everyone, but I can't recommend enough that everyone try this approach at least once. Obviously, you'll have to be fortunate enough to find the right amount of material in your target language and a conscientious native speaker to listen to and emulate. I got lucky with Korean and Russian, but don't give up! I believe more and more content creators are becoming aware of the gold mine that is comprehensible input and creating material accordingly.

One thing I can say for sure: If you come across videos where the speaker speaks 80% English (or your native language) and 20% (or less) your target language, run the other way! This will actually slow down your progress and waste valuable time you could be spending absorbing actual input in your target language. Quite aside from the fact that you'll never effectively learn your target language if you continuously run into the arms of your native language every time you hit a snag. Learn to concentrate on what you're able to absorb and leave to one side what you don't get right away. If it's important, it'll come up again.

Also avoid videos that give you lists of individual words like the colors or the days of the week. They'll go in one ear and out the other. Also avoid videos where they speak slowly; this will only teach you to hear slowly, and you'll be lost when people speak to you at a normal speed. Actively train your ear to hear language at a natural speed. The best way is to listen to the same person; after two or three videos, your ear will become accustomed to them. Trust me. Even after eleven years of Russian, I'd hear my new guy say something that sounded like совецно [savietsna] in his videos and realized after just two videos from the context that he was actually saying соответственно [saatvyétstvyenna] accordingly, but at a normal, conversational speed. Now, I catch it every time.

Finally, because this approach is so passive and requires so little effort from you, it's actually more enjoyable and rife with aha moments. Every time you make a connection, you'll be as amazed as the curious child you are in your new language. 

So go forth and pogo, tütko, and iyehaseyo! 

https://www.youtube.com/@ComprehensibleInputKorean

https://www.youtube.com/@RussianRadioShow