Although logging daily progress is a great way to stay motivated, I am ready for a shift. I still intend to mine the entire Korean dictionary and become a good writer of han-geul, but just without the daily blog and probably a bit slower. I’ll keep updating the progress bars on the side of the page and probably write monthly updates, but that’s about it.

So a lot of my free time is spent working on Objective-C now. This is the programming language used to make applications for the iPhone and iPad. I know programming fundamentals, so I’m just getting used to the unique features of this particular language before I start working on something. I think that more than wanting to program anything I want to go through the process of managing a project efficiently. If I make anything interesting I’ll be sure to share it here as well.

As far as Korean goes, I’m basically an aural sponge and pick up new words and phrases each day through chatting with people. My speaking has improved remarkably over the last couple months and although I do get mixed up once in a while, it’s usually because I’m simply speaking too fast. Of course there are still some holes in my vocabulary and idioms I’m not familiar with. I’ll pick those up in time and one day have perfect Korean.

Today’s Study: None.

This weekend I wasn’t very diligent. Luckily my weekends are filled with speaking Korean, so I still maintain everything I’ve learned even if I don’t make time for the active study.

Today’s Study: Vocabulary mining from the dictionary.

I didn’t have time today in the morning for my reading, but should be back at it tomorrow. I intended to do 20 pages of dictionary mining, but the section I’m in was really really dense, which made it take longer than normal.

Today’s Study: Vocabulary mining from the dictionary and reading from ‘K-IFRS 회계원리’ (K-IFRS Accounting Principles).

Although I’m gaining loads of passive vocabulary from my dictionary mining, I don’t usually know if a word is commonly used or not just from the definition and examples. So although I normally don’t use my girlfriend as a Korean teacher, every once in a while I will ask if a word is something she is familiar with or not. If I’m feeling clever I will just try to use the word in context and see if she knows what the heck I’m talking about. Sometimes that gets me into trouble though, like when I called her a ‘깔치’ (Dictionary entry: 깔치 [여자 애인] <俗> a gal; <美俗> a chick; a girl friend.) and then found out that the meaning was closer to ‘bitch.’ Still, the more vivid a memory you have of a word, the more likely you are to remember it, so I’m definitely not forgetting ‘깔치!’

Today’s Study: Vocabulary mining from the dictionary and reading from ‘K-IFRS 회계원리’ (K-IFRS Accounting Principles).

Today is the Lunar (Chinese) New Year, which is a big deal in Korea. I’m not sure what kind of festivities they are having over there, but over here I received my first new year money. In order to get it you need to bow down in front of an older relative and wish them a happy new year. Guys bow down and put their hands on the floor and then their head to the back of their hands. Girls are presumably wearing a han-bok (which has a skirt), so they just kneel down and don’t put their heads all the way to the floor.

The Korean New Year Greeting

Apparantly this makes the older person feel pretty good, so they will give you some words of advice and then a little money as a gift. I think the money-giving part is not typically done into one’s late twenties, but since I hadn’t done the greeting before I think they wanted to make it special for me!

Today’s Study: Vocabulary mining from the dictionary and reading from ‘K-IFRS 회계원리’ (K-IFRS Accounting Principles).

I did double my usual and mined twenty pages from the dictionary today. Also, since there isn’t much new vocabulary in my accounting book, I’ve been reading double my usual each morning for a few days. I’m thinking that once I finish reading the book I’ll go back and do the exercises, which should push some of these words into my active vocabulary.

Today’s Study: Vocabulary mining from the dictionary and reading from ‘K-IFRS 회계원리’ (K-IFRS Accounting Principles).

I did a measley two pages of dictionary mining this weekend, which puts me behind schedule for my goal. I will have to try to make it up somehow.

Today’s Study: Vocabulary mining from the dictionary and reading from ‘K-IFRS 회계원리’ (K-IFRS Accounting Principles).

All of the sudden today there were a lot of new words in both my reading and my dictionary mining. The SRS input took longer than normal, so there was no chance of doing 20 pages instead of 10 out of the dictionary. I suppose I need to temper my expectations or try to adjust my schedule to have more study time for a few days.

Today’s Study: Vocabulary mining from the dictionary and reading from ‘K-IFRS 회계원리’ (K-IFRS Accounting Principles).

Yesterday I glanced at a magazine that seemed interesting from a language learning perspective.

a bilingual magazine

The magazine is bilingual, with the same content on facing pages. There are many bilingual magazines, menus and pamphlets in Kuwait, but normally all of the English pages are together first and the Arabic pages come afterwards (depending on which direction you read I suppose). But with this magazine, someone studying one of these languages would have a nice reference while they were reading, even though the content isn’t laid out in the exact same format.

Today’s Study: Vocabulary mining from the dictionary and reading from ‘K-IFRS 회계원리’ (K-IFRS Accounting Principles).

I did 10 pages from the dictionary today and it was pretty easy. I’m thinking on the days when I get enough time I will do 20 pages out of the dictionary. Since this section is so long, if I really want to finish it within the month I will have to put in a bit of overtime!

The new vocabulary from my K-IFRS book has really slown down. I read about 10 pages each day and I have come across less than one word per page for several days now. From reading this book I’ve come to learn that accounting textbooks are just as dry in Korean than they are in English. There are a few interesting sections though where they give some real world examples or talk about the history of a particular topic. I’m not really bored with the book yet, so I’m going to stick with it for now.