Monthly Goal: Mine the ‘ㄷ’ section of the dictionary and continue to read daily.
Today’s Study: Reading from ‘K-IFRS 회계원리’ (K-IFRS Accounting Principles).
I haven’t started on the dictionary mining yet, but kept up with my accounting reading over the weekend.
This weekend I met a Korean who had grown up in Kuwait and not received any of her education in Korea. She spoke Korean quickly, but would insert English words when she didn’t know the Korean equivalent. She also didn’t catch what other people were saying sometimes because she didn’t know the vocabulary. She told me that her e-mails are funny to read because she has horrible spelling in Korean too.
I suppose that even if one’s parents are Korean there is no guarantee of native-level fluency. Practice on all of the different skills are required if one wants to get to that level. One day I plan to get there, and I’m prepared to put in the practice.
That sounds a lot like me and other Koreans I know. I’m Korean but was born and raised in America. My pronunciation is fine, I intuitively understand a lot of the grammar, and what I know I can speak fluently. But I think my vocabulary probably lies between 1000 and 1500 words, and there’s lots of other things here and there that I don’t know. I’m just now starting to really work on my Korean, and I’m also planning on one day getting to “native-level”. Good luck!
Glad to hear you’re excited about improving your Korean. Good luck with your studies!
GoldFibre,
From your thorough experience, what strategies do you suggest a beginner learner use in order to get to the level of Korean you’re at now?
This is a very common story. I know a girl who grew up here in California in a Spanish-speaking home. She speaks rapid, native-sounding Spanish, yet has a incredibly small vocabulary and can’t spell for the life of her (she once took a Spanish class for an easy GPA booster, only to end up nearly failing because of her reading/writing problems). To natives she just doesn’t sound… native.