Amanda Takes Off...

The blue mountains are what they are,
So are the green waters.
The mountains and rivers are what they are.
Why should I, who live with them, be just what I am?

I want a life as real as theirs
Because I am a part of the universe, too.

--Kim In-Hu, adapted by Virginia Olsen Baron in Sunset in a Spider Web: Poetry of Ancient Korea

청산도 절로절로, 녹수도 절로절로,
산 절로 수 절로, 산수간에 나도 절로,
그 중에 절로 자란 몸이 늙기도 절로 하리라.

--김인후 (1510-1560)

Good Man informs me that 절로절로 is a word that's no longer in use. According to a blog I found, it means "naturally."

This year I resolved to read 1,000,000 characters in Korean. This year was the first time I was successful at any of my Korean resolutions.

However the reading goal went completely off-track during the summer. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve I read over 350,000 characters.

Due to pressure from Mark and Diana, I also did NaNoWriMo in November and managed to succeed at writing 50K words.

During the summer, I buckled down and finished a cross-stitch project I started in December 1998. I needed to finish one-quarter of the stitching, all of the back-stitching, beading, and metallic stitching on top. It took twelve years to do ~60% of the project and then only a few months to do the last 40%.

All of this is to say that it seems like when I give myself tough, short-term goals, I'm very stubborn and I succeed.

I have only one resolution for the year: study Korean for 500 hours.

That works out to an average of 83 minutes a day, which is more than I'm doing now, but less than I was doing per day on my mad dash to reach 1,000,000.

Anything I'm actively involved in "counts." For example, a one-hour drama counts for one hour, but only if I'm only focusing on it. That means I can't pull my "oh, I'll half listen to this show while playing an online game" thing.

Every month I’m going to choose one area to focus my studies on. (That doesn't mean it's the only thing I'll do that month.) I’m not going to lay them all out in January, I’m just going to decide each month where I need and/or want to go with my Korean studies.

I do have some loose ideas for what I want to get done this year in Korean.

* Learn 100 Hanja characters.
* Increase my listening comprehension.
* Study my grammar books. (I usually hate grammar, but I've passively consumed a lot of new grammar patterns through all of my reading and now want to sort out my thoughts.)
* Continue to read in Korean.
* Get back on track with my flashcards.

Readers, I'm open to any ideas.

(Cross posted.)

"You could become a diplomat," Good Man said, "and you already have a Korean name, just like 심은경."

"장미란, but I need my own last name. What's the least common last name in Korean?"

"씨."

"How do you know that?" I asked him.

"I read it in a book several years ago."

"Amanda Seed? Seed Beautiful Orchid? Awesome. I could be Amanda Ssi-ssi," I said, referring to the Korean -씨 honorific. (No, it's not usually used with full names, but rather with first names. I was just joking around.)

I thought for a moment. "What about 권?" 권 is the counter word used for counting books. "I can be Amanda Book Counter!"

"That's not what that means," Good Man said.

"'Don't you get it?'" I said, using Good Man's pet phrase. "I counted all my characters this year. I counted books. I am a book counter! 권!"

Good Man shook his head, "That sounds Chinese. You are not Chinese."

"I'm not Korean either," I said.

"You are more Korean than me."

I read almost 50 books in Korean this year. Most were books that I would've had access to in English. In fact, many of them were books I've read in English.

Interestingly, I found that reading books I've read in English was both easier and harder than blind reading in Korean. It was easier because I had some background knowledge, but it was harder because I tended to think in English while reading those books. I tended to remember big moments from the books in English in my head, and then I'd search for them in Korean in the books. It became a bit distracting.

But I bought so many books that were translations from English because I wasn't sure what I wanted to read in Korean. When I was in Korea last year, I couldn't read enough to figure out what I wanted to read!

The library books from my co-worker's daughter have been a godsend! Those books expanded my horizons and allowed me to take reading risks with no financial risk.

At least ten of the books I read were ones I would not have had access to in English. If I count the Kare First Love manga series (would I would not have read in English, but enjoyed reading in Korean), I read more than twenty books I wouldn't've been able to read in English.

English is such an international language that it's easy to think that we have access to enough books to read. And perhaps we do. Still, there is something magical about getting access to a whole other language-worth of books.

I read several awesome picture books that are only available in Korean, including one about a man who sucked up his wife in the vacuum cleaner. (Seriously. It was awesome.) I learned about the moon rabbits because I could read about them in Korean.

I ended up reading some propaganda that I borrowed from the gu office in Seoul when Good Man and I were registering our marriage. I learned "nuclear weapon" from that book and figured out a lot of political words from context.

I enjoyed the book about the third grade boy who was growing up (I'm Not a Kid Anymore) because it was such a Korean book.

Although I ended up throwing Body across the room, I am still amazed that I was able to read a book for Korean adults in Korean.

Now that I can truly read native content in Korean, it makes me even hungrier for the language!

(Cross posted.)

So. I read one million characters in Korean this year. Did it do anything? Was it worth my time or was it a complete waste of time?

Before I start though, I want to point out that knowing the Korean alphabet is not knowing how to read in Korean. I have heard more than one expat claim they can "read Korean" because they know the alphabet. Some expats use that as a weird defense mechanism. "I don't have to study Korean! I can read!" Knowing the alphabet is not reading Korean. That's why I used to clarify "I can read Korean but don't have the vocabulary needed to understand it." I've never seen anyone claim they can read Spanish just because Spanish uses a Latin-based alphabet.

My goal this year was to truly be able to read in Korean. I didn't care about the level, but I wanted to be reading, not calling out words.

When I read in English, my eye glides, I repair misunderstandings, and I enjoy the story. That's what I wanted to do in Korean. I also wanted to read like I did when I was a kid: voraciously, ignoring what I didn't understand.

Have I learned how to read?

I remember my first full day in Korea I sounded out “Cocoa Balls” cereal. When I first learned Korean, I had to read each letter, and then form each character, and finally...maybe...form...the...word.

After a while, after a lot of practice (sitting on the subway, street signs seen through the bus, walking around my apartment—I am a natural reader, I have to read things around me), I quit reading letter-by-letter and started reading character-by-character (syllable-by-syllable).

In January, excluding some extremely common words, I was still mostly reading syllable-by-syllable. I clearly remember doing so because it made reading a lot of text on a page (like in the Pippi books) tough. I'd lose track of the end of the beginning of the sentence by the time I got to the end of the sentence.

Now, however, my eyes tend to glide. If the text is too hard, I get caught up in unknown words, and that stops me, just like in English.

Generally speaking, I recognize whole words and phrases now. And like in English, my eyes slide over the word, looking for anchor letters. For verbs, I'll pick up a few characters and/or letters to nail down the word and simply skip to the end of the word to find out the conjugation.

It reminds me of very young children learning to read. First they sound out "c-a-r-p-e-t," and then "car-pet" and finally good readers recognize and know "carpet" when they see it.

I've read so much Korean now that I am getting better at making predictions. I can predict a general idea (sometimes in English, sometimes in Korean, sometimes in mental images&mdashlthat's my best description) or even the next word or phrase. 깜짝? Next up is 놀라—whichever ending they want.

Now, I also recognize when I misread or misunderstood something. I go back, re-read, and correct misunderstandings. I knew I'd reached another level in Korean when I was finding typos and errors in Korean!

In January, I was mentally translating most sentences. Now I've gotten much better at understanding the gist of the story without translating. In January, I'd get so lost I'd look at an English translation to keep myself on track as needed. Now? I don't need it.

There was one full page in the Obama book I read that I simply didn't understand. I knew it was about a bug pounding against the sides of the glass jar, but I didn't get what the point of it was. I figured it must not be too important to the storyline and went on with my life. And although it came up at the end of the book again, I was able to enjoy the book without understanding that part. And that's OK.

There are still times I ask Good Man for help, but often it's to make sure I understand a plot twist.

It's a good feeling.

So. Can I read? I think I can now claim that I can read in Korean. I might be reading at a fourth grade level, but I'm reading!

(Cross-posted to 한국어 공책.)