한국어 공책

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.)

I had a realization today while reading 반쪽 마법.

I was trying to decide if "20세끼" would be Sino-Korean numbers or pure Korean numbers. And it occurred to me that in the books I've been reading, pure Korean words are spelled out but Sino-Korean words use numerals, even if the numeral is the first thing in the sentence. "1초..." "말 한 마리..."

"[Good Man], it seems like Sino-Korean numbers use digits, and pure Korean numbers are written out."

"Yes."

"Seriously? Did I just figure that out?"

"Yes."

The reason this is so exciting to me is because when I decided to read 1,000,000 characters of Korean, I did so to increase my passive vocabulary, naturally learn some grammar, and enjoy the language—and it's working.

For example, one of the first random words I encountered when I was reading the Pippi series was "식인종" (cannibal tribe). I was reading a book about Obama a few weeks ago, and the word reappeared.

I also learned "palm tree" from Pippi (야자나무) and it came up in Half Magic. I learned "magic" (마법) from Half Magic and then a student at school gave me "마법사의 돌" (hint: she gave me the first Harry Potter book).

And the grammar realization today was not forced or searched for or even something I actively wondered about. It came about from a very natural place. It came about from using and enjoying the language.

The books I struggled to read in January and February are coming in handy in December. It really is...magic.

533,300

단어들을 배웠다:
거미줄
알주머니
헛간
빙글빙글 돌다
품평회장

299,050

1월7일: 빨간 머리 앤 (만화) ~20,400
2워9일: 내 이름은 삐삐 롱스타킹 ~50,800
2월21일: 꼬 마백만장자 삐삐 ~ 49,000
3월8일: 삐삐는 어른이 되기 싫어 ~41,700
3월17일: 이 솝 이야기 ~47,900
3월21일: 비 밀의 화원 (만화) ~9,850
4월4일: 비밀의 화원 ~52,900
4월13일:안데르센 동화 ~26,500

총: 299,050 자소

단어들을 배웠다:
이목구비 (耳目口鼻)

(Cross-posted on Korean blog.)

I'm not sure why I chose "Read 1,000,000 Jaso" as a new year's goal this year, but I am happy that it gave me a push to really read in Korean.

I have studied, to varying degrees, Swedish and Spanish. Although I am apparently competent in Spanish due to my college studies (ha!), I have never read a book in Spanish. I tried reading a few books in Swedish, but I got caught up in all of the words I didn't know. I would stop at every unknown word and look it up in a dictionary. Bad idea. It was time consuming, discouraging, and boring. I subscribed to the idea (probably influenced by the never-ending intensive reading done in Spanish class!) that I had to understand every word.

Of course, this was untrue.

When we planned to go to Korea, I decided to ramp up my study efforts, primarily by building my vocabulary base and writing. The studying improved my Korean (or perhaps just my confidence?), but a side effect that I wasn't expecting was that not studying Korean at least a little bit every day felt...strange. Now doing something in Korean daily is a habit.

Around the beginning of the year I read about a project to read one million words in a foreign language over on Language Fixation. I thought, 'Well, I can do that. It'll be a challenge though.' I had been reading a bit and my speed was slowly picking up. I knew that committing to that much Korean reading was meant excluding most fun reading in English for the year, but I wanted to try it. I hoped that reading would increase my vocabulary, my comfort with Korean, and my understanding of Korean grammar.

I immediately realized that Koreans are loosey-goosey with spacing and I wasn't sure how to count a word. Good Man told me in Korean each character is counted rather than each word. I decided it was fair to go for 1,000,000 characters.

Part of taking on the challenge of reading 1,000,000 characters in a year was to see if the old saws I rattle off to my students are true. "The best way to improve your reading is to read at home daily for at least thirty minutes." "You should be making pictures in your head as you read." My grad school profs told me that, and Fountas and Pinnell said it, so it must be true, right? Another teacher line? "We learn to read so we can read to learn."

When I started reading extensively in Korean, I carried my intensive-reading habits with me. I would get frustrated when I couldn't understand a sentence or paragraph perfectly. Finally, I realized that I had to relax and just read.

Practicing reading near-daily led to a cascading series of events.

• Fluency. When I first started reading more (before I started the challenge), I read so slowly. I was embarrassed by how often I was reading syllable by syllable. (I do remember when I was reading Korean letter-by-letter, so I'll give myself some credit!) But after some practice I start reading full words. And eventually phrases came.

• Endurance. At first I could only read for 10 or 15 minutes at a time and then my brain would turn off. Now I can read for extended periods of time. More than thirty minutes, if I wish.

• Self-Correcting. I started correcting misunderstandings. I'd read something, realize it made no sense, glance back and correct myself.

• Visualization. At some point, pictures started forming in my head instead of English. I remember realizing I was making pictures in my head after reading Korean. I was so excited.

• Predicting. Soon I started making predictions as I was reading. I could often figure out what word would come next. Pippi would 외치다. She always does, that Pippi!

• Vocabulary. I am figuring out words from context. Words with multiple meanings? I used to run through the meanings in my head. Now I can usually predict or figure those out from context, too.

• Grammar. I hated studying grammar in school and couldn't tell the difference between a verb and a noun until I was a sophomore (seriously), but I usually knew what sounded right—probably because I read so much. I don't enjoy memorizing grammar rules in Korean either, but I'm starting to get a better sense of what to say, when. I can more easily pick out the parts of speech in a Korean sentence. Using the topic/object/topic markers is getting easier.

• Thinking in Korean. This one is coming along slowly. Sometimes my predictions or thoughts are in English, but sometimes they're in Korean. With more and more practice, this will come, too!

And this is where the allure comes from. I don't recall learning to read in English. I just recall devouring books. Now I am learning how to read all over again. And it's fun!

There is a deep sense of excitement and joy that comes with understanding a passage immediately. I am excited when I figure out a word in context and then see it in other contexts that prove I was right. I love finding a word in a book I just picked up for the first time—a word that I just learned from my previously read book! Most of the books I picked up in Korea are favorites from my childhood. Even so, these books spark something some magic inside of me. Part of this could be rereading the books as an adult, but I think more of the magic comes from discovering a new word or way to phrase something in an old favorite. 아바마마 is so much more delightful than "my Father, the King!"

I have read seven books in Korean so far this year. Now I feel like I can continue to tell my students that reading books for fun daily improves your reading. It's absolutely true.