How I Reached Intermediate Korean TOPIK 3 in One Year And I Dont Even Like Studying Languages

If somebody would come to me and ask me for the quickest way to learn a language, I would say When I first came to Korea, I could barely introduce my own name in Korean and one year later I got topic level 3 and I do not like studying languages. Before I came here, I honestly thought it would be almost easy and because of that in the beginning when I did arrive here Well, I did not study much But at one point I did realize that topic level 3 would be much harder to get than I first thought. For comparison I took like the level 2 test online and I got almost no mistakes And then I tried for level 3 and I couldn't even answer the first question. Because of that I realized I would really have to change my methods, my study methods, to achieve this goal I came to Korea with the Global Korean Scholarship and one requirement of the scholarship is that first you have to go to language school And you have to get topic level 3 to start your main studies afterwards So in case you're also on the GKS scholarship or you just learn Korean for fun Or you want to learn any other language really from beginner to intermediate at a kind of fast pace Today I want to share all the things I've learned that worked really well for me, things that were the hardest part or made my process slower than it needed to be and then I will also be sharing the things I would do differently if I would have to start learning Korean all over again For me, I think there were three different things that helped me improve the most and the first one I think will be a little bit annoying to hear and that is that after the first excitement about learning a new language slowly washes off I think in the beginning stage of learning a language you learn the fastest if the learning is a little bit boring And what I mean by that is that repetition is the thing that will help you improve the most So what I would start doing at one point was that I would listen to the same 10 short stories in the mornings where I would brush my teeth where I would do my makeup while I was on my way to language school and I didn't necessarily understand everything but just listening to them every day Helped me to at one point become so familiar with them that I would understand every single word And if you understand every single word of a text that is I think when you truly start to learn it And I would do the same thing with the texts we had in writing and I would look up every single vocabulary that I don't Know I wouldn't necessarily write it down and then repeat it But I would look it up so that I understand the whole text and only then I would go to the next page And then I would do the same thing the next day and I can tell you that once you look up the same Vocabulary for like the fourth time you start getting so annoyed by yourself that you keep forgetting the same word That your brain will start remembering it and of course in the beginning when you only start out You don't have a lot to choose from like what material you can pick because you just don't understand that much But once you progress to a certain state this method becomes way more fun as well So for example at one point I picked up my favorite book the little prince and I read through that book now in korean Probably I want to say at least six times or if you're like me and you really like korean dramas and movies You can also pick up the scripts from the drama So in there you can see you have like the lines that are in the dramas And I think that is a great way to study as well. If you are like me and you like film I mean I study filmmaking. So this is double studying for me on one hand I learned korean and on the other hand I learned about script writing so perfect The second tip that I can give is that if you can find someone who also studies at the same time with you So to have a study partner basically because once I started really putting a lot more time into studying I had a friend with me and we would quite often sit together in the library until like 2 a.m I don't think i've ever studied that much for anything in my life And that just made it so much better because not only if you have a question You can ask each other and try to figure it out together But especially if you don't really enjoy it like me suffering together just makes it so much easier So whenever I can I meet with friends in cafes and we study together or there are also especially if you are in korea Lots of study groups you can join and that just makes it a little bit more enjoyable in my opinion And then for my last point what is something where I really noticed my korean improving is something that I picked out from my language classes and it is a method that I Really really hated in the beginning and still do and that is to memorize small speeches So starting from level two, we had to give short one minute speeches, which then later turned to three minute speeches Yeah, it was very I want to say annoying because it was difficult in the beginning to memorize those speeches But you did notice that you would find your sentence patterns that worked well for you that you could remember and then use Easier in everyday life as well and then later once we got to the higher levels We had to do 10 to 15 minute presentations and that was a lot more work obviously to memorize But you also get more payout out of it So if somebody would come to me and ask me for the quickest way to learn a language I would say every week pick a topic that you really like ask if it's like under the same topic umbrella For example for me it would be I like filmmaking and then one week I pick a certain movie the next week I pick a director and then on this topic you make a small presentation Even if you don't present it to anybody even if it's just for yourself you memorize the whole script and you say it out loud until you can do it relatively fluently and You will improve very quickly if you keep repeating that pattern Now I have like a little bonus tip if you don't just want to learn korean But you specifically want to study for a topic because that's not necessarily the same everyday Korean is quite different from the korean used in the topic So you have to prepare separately for that as well. The biggest help to passing topic is online You can go to a website where you can take online topic mock tests And these mock tests are actual previous topic tests So what I would do is I would do the tests and sometimes it is really good to sit down and really go through the whole test as if it's an actual topic test because for one you get used to the structure and you also get used to for how long you have to be Concentrated because the topic test is quite long actually And then the other thing that I did is to really go through the test and basically what I did with my school books was to understand every single word because also vocabulary is Repetitive in those topic tests and then the second tip I can give you is Find a really good topic book that you like and then just stick with it So for me, I looked online and I found this one which I got and I like it a lot This one helped me a lot in getting topic level three But everybody has a different book that they work with very well A friend of mine had a different book for every section of the topic test So reading listening and writing so it really depends on what type of learner you are And now I quickly want to talk about what I think is the hardest part in learning a new language And what was the biggest reason why I learned korean slower than quite a few of my friends and there has nothing to do with grammar vocabulary or pronunciation But it is the fear of making mistakes and it sounds really cliche but I would find myself a lot not speaking korean because I Didn't want to sound dumb that in itself is a strange thought looking at it from the outside because you're learning a new language That alone already proves that you put a lot of time into studying but there is something that feels embarrassing about not being able to speak properly probably because we kind of connect not being able to speak to Small children and then you feel like you're five years old again And then you also have situations where you have a certain thought or opinion on a matter and you just cannot articulate that thought properly And at one point I was like if I cannot give you my actual honest opinion I'd rather just not give it to you at all because I cannot Nuance what i'm saying and I noticed in some of my friends who did not have this fear of making mistakes that they would Speak a lot more from the beginning and they would make a lot of mistakes But very quickly they would improve and make way less mistakes than I would be doing Studying korean by yourself reading and listening and writing and then actual speaking to people Is a skill set that you also need to separately learn and practice. So I highly highly advise you to just Let go of that if somebody would come to you and they are trying to learn your language You would not judge them for making mistakes. So why are you judging yourself? So now for the last part of the video Which is if I would go back in time and I would have to start learning korean all over again What are the three things I would do differently and number one would definitely be to start studying earlier preferably even before I came to korea because In my head I was like, oh I come to this country and I am here to learn the language. So I will be in the library from morning till evening, but i'm also in a new country I'm halfway across the globe. There are things I want to do places. I want to see I had everything on my mind But studying so if I would have come to korea already knowing At least some basic korean that would have definitely made the whole process quite a bit easier Number two is that I would try to put more time into active studying compared to passive studying And that was again my false assumption that I thought I would almost acquire korean Just by living in korea and I would do a lot of studying as I would call it by watching korean dramas At least for me. I do not learn that way so I would put more time into actively sitting down and doing concentrated sessions or you're Watching your favorite kdrama, but you try to really understand everything They say in one scene and then you watch that scene over and over again until you do and then lastly I think it's also important to try not to compare yourself to others and their pace of learning because as I said earlier I was in language school surrounded by other people and some of them learned way quicker than I did and that was really Demotivating because I felt like i'm falling behind and it would almost seem like Learning a language comes easier to some people than others and that is also just true Some people for one enjoy learning languages and then also just have a little bit of a talent for it So learning a language is such an individual learning curve that comparison really is not gonna help you Instead your goal should be to just always get a little bit better than you were previously and that way you will make progress And no time and then you do not need to compare yourself to others because you will be happy with your own results And that is the best thing that can happen Anyways, so yeah going from total beginner to intermediate in one year while not easy is definitely possible So just in case you also come to korea on the gks scholarship and that is something you're worried about I can tell you Don't be just don't make the same mistakes. I did and you will have no problem and you will have a lot of fun Hopefully studying a new language So yeah I hope this video will be a little bit helpful for your language learning journey and subscribe if you want to know more about Language learning living in korea the gks scholarship or anything else and yeah, I will see you again next week. Bye. Bye