How long do you spend a week studying Korean?

[Taliana]

I'm curious, so indulge me XD How often do you spend a week studying Korean? Including reviewing, going over notes, anything like that.

If you're learning more than one language, how do you manage your time? How many hours do you devote to each language and do you have set days for each one?

I myself spend at least one hour a day on Korean, though I aim for much more than that if the rest of my obligations allow it, so sometimes it's a measly one hour, othertimes I get 3 hours in, and weekends are usually drowned in it. I have to admit, I find Korean pretty addicting :X Once I get started on it for the day then I don't want to stop!

[Chriss]

Heh. You're much more into it than I am. I guess I get around ten hours a week at the most, usually around seven. I usually don't get much done Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday and every other weekend (the Korean text book I'm currently reading is library reference material, though, so when I have an hour free between something, I go sit there).

I'm 90% sure I'm going to give up a subject at uni and thus I'll free up most of Thursday, and I can use the time to study Korean instead!

But yes, Korean is addictive. Even now I'm burning to go to the library to read that book.

[poptartkiller]

honestly a hour a day is all I can take
a first it was interesting but now the sentences are starting to get longer, and its starting to frustrate me.

I keep studying because it would a waste to throw away everything I have learned, plus it makes me feel good when Im watching korean shows and I can understand words or some sentences.

[matthew254]

I'm curious, so indulge me XD How often do you spend a week studying Korean? Including reviewing, going over notes, anything like that.

I'm at about the same at 10-15 hours a week. Here's the breakdown:

- I jog 5 times a week for 45 minutes at a time. While I jog, I listen to the lessons. I also repeat lessons; sometimes only dialogues.

- In addition, I use blank flash cards http://www.biggerbooks.com/bk_detail.as ... 1556370816 for new concepts, vocabulary, phrases - anything and everything gets written down on these cards. I take a stack of them everywhere I go and do comprehension checks at various times throughout the day.

- I also have one of those mini composition books where I write down questions and insights, as well as ideas for translation. I also try to form new sentences and thoughts in this notebook.

- I also go through the KC101 .pdfs for spelling, grammar, and insight into certain conjugations as well as more examples. It helps to see the written form of the dialogue. I also print off select lesson .pdfs to study in depth.

- I'm slowly working through two different textbook series also. the KLEAR series http://www.hawaii.edu/uhpress/realaudio/klear/beg1/ and Ewha's Pathfinder series http://www.hanbooks.com/patinkor1stu.html

- I also do a penpal system with a couple of friends. This is where I can ask some specific translation questions pertaining to spelling, meaning, and proper use of grammar. I also get to see a lot of colloquialism and common spellings (or misspellings I should say ) of some words.

- I meet with a couple of different friends on the weekends. Each friend has a specialty. One is my slang-and-curse-word teacher, another is my culture teacher, etc. After that though, there are times when we get together just for fun, of course.

- Lastly I like to keep up with Korean music. The study aspect for music is listening comprehension and following along with lyrics for pronunciation practice. I like to use GOM player http://www.gomlab.com/eng/ because it has a slowdown feature for audio (as well as being a lightweight all-purpose media player)

So, if I were to sum up in time? At least 10-15 hours a week but oftentimes up to 20 hours a week - spread out evenly. I find learning Korean to be quite challenging but very rewarding at the same time. I plan on taking the TOPIK test, so I'm constantly mentally prepping myself for that. Really though, a lot of it is self-motivation.

Other than 10-15 hours a week of study time, I suppose I spend about 5-8 hours a week on just entertainment stuff. Korean news blogs, podcasts on culture, music videos, writing for KC101's blog, etc. This part of "study" kind of brings it all together for me.

What does everyone else's study schedule look like?

[Chriss]

Matthew, you're so much more structured than I am! I've tried listening while running, but running gets harder and I get lost in thought.

Lately it's been:
+ 45 min-1 hour at the school library most days from Monday to Friday, but now I've finished the book, and need to bring my notebook, but I'm not so keen on bringing it to the gym. =/

+ Learning word shower words on the metro. ^^

+ 1 hour here and there.

+ Most days I try to watch something Korean with or without subtitles and try to understand something.

[erich]

Well, for me it's somewhere around 2.5 hours a day, a little more on weekends, so that would sum up to 18-20 hours a week. I'm myself surprized of this number, since I've never really done the math.

Usually I get up around 5:30. Until I'm up and running, it gets 5:45. Until 6:45 I can learn very well without my kids around. Then I have my breakfast and go to work.

In the evening, I usually spend some time with my kids and my wife, have dinner and when the kids are sleeping (around 9PM) I get 1 hour and a half for my study.

[holdfast]

i guess that depends on what you consider "studying." if watching korean t.v. and listening to korean music counts too, then a lot!

- i usually listen to korean music for a few hours every day, either on my ipod or just in the background while i'm doing something else
- if i'm not listening to korean music, i'm probably listening to korean talk radio (:
- i usually watch 1-2 hours of korean t.v. a day, and i usually take notes and look up new words
- i spend quite a bit of time chatting or emailing in korean every day
- i try to spend about an hour a day of actual studying - currently i'm reading harry potter in korean, so i'll read it on the subway or the bus, underline the words i don't know, then look them up when i get home and read it again until i understand what i'm reading.
- i go to korean church on sundays (completely in korean)
- most days i am able to either talk with a friend or even a stranger in korean, and even if i am not sure how to start a conversation with a stranger, i am usually around a lot of people speaking korean almost every day, so i'm listening ^^
- more recently, also, i've been trying to translate short clips or cyworld entries for other kpop fans (: i'm not good at it yet, but i'm trying

that might be the extent of my studying. but i don't really know how many hours a week that would be.. i'd honestly say at least 20.... maybe more (definitely more, if you count listening to korean music and radio)?

[nosaj100]

You guys are inspiring me to study more. I usually get an hour a day during the week and about 2-3 hours on Saturday. I use the Sogang series as well as Koreanclass101, so I usually listen to both of these on my walk to and from work.

Lately, I have been trying to write more. My spelling is horrible!

[matthew254]

Lately, I have been trying to write more. My spelling is horrible!

Hey no shame in that - my writing (specifically my spelling) is atrocious. Progress is all that matters, right? We all start from somewhere? For me, spelling was the last leg of my studies - I always put it off till the end. Even my spelling in English is pretty bad.

No joke - this time last year I was still misspelling 안녕하세요

[Taliana]

Emily, large amounts of Korean music factor into my day too XD Sadly though, not as many shows as I used to watch a few months ago, I just don't have the time anymore. Gotta say though, it makes me feel really good when I hear or see something in a song, or on a show or in a movie, and can understand it! Even if it's just silly little things, it still feels great.

Thanks everyone for sharing your own study 'plans'! It's interesting to see how many people spend a lot of time on it as well, and what kind of things they're doing during that time.

I always get 1 hour during weekdays, and aim for 2 or more, and much more than that on weekends, so I think all up, the average week I'll get in about 15+ hours or so. On a week where I'm too busy with everything else, I think I manage to squeeze in about 10. On a really bad, crazy week, I still manage at least 8.

Despite the large amounts of hours, I can't shake this feeling like my progress is inching along incredibly slow - but baby steps are better than no steps at all, like Matthew said, progress is all that matters! XD I am quite disappointed with myself though, for falling so far behind over the past several months, because I look at a few other people who started roughly the same time as me and think to myself "damn, I could have made that much improvement in these months too", when I'm still on square 1. But that is how language learning goes, there is only so far you can go with randomly snatched moments of time. To really make progress, I think you really need to devote more time to it than you do to most other learning pursuits.

The order in which I do things is pretty random, somedays I'll revise and drill in the morning, otherdays I'll do it at night. I just do whatever is most convinent for me at the time, whatever fits best around everything else that I need to get done that day. I go over lists in the shower though XD numbers, objects, random things like that. It's the only time I'm guaranteed to not be interrupted, so it's a pretty useful handful of minutes!

I try to do 4-5 lessons a week (Beginner series), and a few extra of the Newbie series. I then do the lesson review again later that day, and again the next, same with either the few most recent lessons I've worked through, or the ones I struggle on (either in terms of grammar, or even just the vocab!), and every weekend I'll put all the lesson reviews that I've done into my playlist and put them on random, and go through every single one, making notes of the ones I'm rusty or unconfident about, so that I can go back over those lessons.

I also go through my flashcards every couple of days, once again making a note of whatever I was rusty on, so that I can go back over it again if I need to.

I also try to spend a little while each week actually conversing in Korean (albeit just typing), or at least trying to. I'm hugely grateful to 현우씨, he's so patient and encouraging! The other week, when I was reading the thread John made when he was considering giving up, someone (I forget who, sorry!) had posted about their friend who was learning English, and would do their best to talk English even if the sentences were bad or the grammar wrong. That actually really struck a chord with me. Who cares if I look or sound like an idiot and say something all wrong or make no sense at all? I'm learning a language, I'm allowed to talk nonsense XD how else can you learn a language if you don't use it? So now I try my best to just plug on relentlessly with it.

I'm also starting to translate a short little children's story I found on one of the links I was given a few weeks back when I asked about websites/books with stories aimed at young children. Quite a lot of it I don't understand, but I seem to pick up something different every time I work my way through it, so that's proving to be a pretty fun task for me right now.

[gemelluna]

Wow... reading all your posts make me seem like a lazy slothball . Ironically enough, I actually take a Korean class (101 level) at my college, but the amount of time I dedicate to it outside of class only amounts to about 4/5 total per wk.

It may be impart because I'm also taking Chinese (201) which is a time leecher in itself, but I'm learning to juggle with both of them. For Korean I'm currently using Yonsei's textbook for foreigners (though I would strongly NOT recommend it for self-learners because its written almost completely in Korean with little English explanations). And I just recently got started with downloading korean podcasts and such. I've also ordered some other textbooks like Functional Korean and Tuttle's elementary korean so we'll see how those turn out.

[syn70]

Everyday, mostly all day since I am not working.