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I finished writing my children's story book in English and now I am going to start translating it into Korean. Because I still don't know everything, I am going to need help from a translator but I am going to try to learn it from native speakers because it will be much more accurate. I have also continued to write more in my final book. My style for writing it is basically what I wrote in my last book; I say the strategy, explain what it means, and then talk about how it helped me or not. I have also started working on an introduction where I talk about what language learning can be like and I tried to make it very straightforward and frank because I feel like lots of people sugarcoat what learning a language is really like. The things that I wrote might be a little too direct and up-front, but I think that that's just the best way to write it because that's how I would have liked to see it when I was looking at other people's ideas for language learning, and since this book/guide is supposed to be for people that are similar to me when it come to learning (or at least learning a language), I am writing it the way thank feel like would have been helpful for me when I was trying to learn. I have also started watching more Ted talks so that I can better learn how they're structured in order to create my presentation.

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This week I started to really work on my main product, which is the language learning guide book. My main strategies/key points so far are:
1.     You don’t have to practice everyday
2. It’s okay to not use your full focus
3. You don’t have to pay money
4. Multiple programs and courses can be both helpful but also harmful
5. Read books
6.     Play games
These are the main points that I have found that are helpful for me, even though no one really talks about them. For my product, I take these strategies and explain how they have helped me. For example, not a lot of people talk about reading books, but I have found it to help a lot with grammar and learning how people actually talk. When you use grammar books, they can only teach you to a certain extent. You're not going to learn the thousands of phrases that you would say in your native language just by studying grammar books that are very generalized. If you want to, one of the best ways is by reading. It is similar to the strategy of watching TV in the language you are trying to learn, but I think that this is more effective. One reason is that I personally prefer reading over TV. Another factor is that it forces you to understand things because with TV, you can easily turn on captions. However, with a book, you would have to look everything up in the dictionary. It can be tedious at first, but that is why you should with start small, simple books, like the children's books that we are given in school when we are still learning to read and to better our language and grammar in English. Then you can slowly move up to higher level books until you can read them as easily or almost as easily as you would read a book in English. You can read your favorite books that have been translated at first to make it easier, but eventually you can find good books that you otherwise might not have read. This way, you learn a language, and you get to read good books.

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This week I started to outline the plot for the children's book that I was thinking of writing for one of my end products. (The other one will be a language learning guide book with the things that I have learned these past few months and where I talk about how I feel about what others recommend for language learning). The children's book that I will write will have English and Korean translations, and I will ask people that speak Korean to double check my grammar. Speaking of people that speak Korean, I have found an Amino (a type of online community) where many Korean people come and help those that are trying to learn Korean. The people on there are very nice and are great at explaining things that you might not be able to understand from a textbook or other source. I have also continued to use Drops to learn vocab and have been listening to the Talk to Me in Korean podcasts because they are my favorite sources; drops for vocab and talk to me in Korean for grammar. I have also started to give Doulingo another chance because now that I can understand some basic Korean, doulingo is actually pretty helpful and I can see connections between how sentences are written and many of the things that I learned in the textbooks make more sense now. One more thing that I have found that is really helpful in learning Korean has been games. There are a lot of matching games and other types as well which not only improve your memory, but also improve your speed.

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I think I may start watching some K-Dramas. I have heard of many people learning a new language just by watching TV series see in that language, whether it's Korean, Spanish, Hindi, English or any other language. Personally, I have actually learned quite a bit of Hindi that way. Also, RM of BTS learned English by watching all the seasons of Friends three times. First with the Korean captions, then with the English captions, and then finally without any captions. I will also try to find a K-Drama and do the same thing: watch it first with English captions, then with Korean ones, and then finally without any captions. Hopefully this, plus the textbook and app practices will allow me to become better at Korean. The only concern I have with this is that I don't really like TV. Sometimes I might start watching a TV series and I'll probably watch the first 5 episodes but then I kind of just stop watching it. It's not that I don't like it, it's just that I don't really have the same interest or excitement for watching it. Because of this, I don't really know how effective watching K-dramas will be because they're really long (like 20 episodes or more that are and hour long) and I can't really understand them either. I will still try though, and maybe I can watch Korean youtubers instead because I like youtube content more. This actually seems like a better idea because the other day I came across a channel that seemed interesting and had good videos and I watched one and I could sort of understand it. The best part of that channel is that there aren't English captions so that will force me to slowly but surely learn what he's saying.

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This week I spent most of my time just learning new vocab and tried learning more grammar. I feel like I'm really good with the vocab because I have good memory and I now know quite a few words in topics such as food, transportation, emotions, shopping, weather, clothes, household items, and more. The main app/source that I use to learn vocab is still drops, and I discovered that if you download the specific drops app for Korean and say that your skill level is intermediate, you get 50 topics unlocked immediately and you don't have to wait to unlock them one by one. My biggest challenge has and continues to be grammar. I think that's because the order in which Korean sentences are put together is completely different from English. For example, if I want to say "There's a mouse in front of the stove" I would say "쥐가 가스레인지 앞에 있어요” which, word by word, translates to "mouse stove in front is". This is just one example of how confusing it can be to learn how to structure sentences, but I think the best way to learn is to just practice. I'm going try do do this by doing more workbook activities and by lislistening mote Talk to Me in Korean podcasts. I finally finished level one and I have retained most of the information, but I think that I will go back and listen to those again while continuing on with new lessons just so make sure that I really know and understand everything because it's all sort of cumulative.

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I started to create a book where I write the strategies that I have come up with, such as playing games while listening to lessons and not practicing everyday. I have also started another word doc where I write down popular language learning strategies and evaluate them. When I evaluate them, I write if I personally like them or not, and why I feel that way. I also add what I think can be done to make that strategy better or more effective. As far as learning Korean, I have continued to use workbooks to learn basic sentence structure and grammar. One book that I really liked is "Read and Speak Korean For Beginners" because our get to learn some basic grammar and it teaches you important phrases like how to get somewhere or introduce yourself or ask where things are. Personally I don’t know if I would ever use that, but it is a great starter and it also gives you confidence. I have also listened to more podcasts from talk to me in Korean and I am taking notes on them. I have learned how to say where things are and how things are related and more about myself like what I do, and what I want to be. I also found an app called BTS Vocab where they take words from BTS songs and quiz you on them. It’s really fun and helpful because I kind of new what words in their songs  meant already because I would see them when I watched lyric videos which contain Hangul, romanization, and English lyrics.

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This week I didn't practice much (as in there were 3-4 days where I didn't do anything at all), but once I started reviewing I realized that taking a break actually helped me remember more. I feel like this would also simulate a situation where I would actually be speaking Korean because I don't actually know when I'll really use it, but I do know that I might not necessarily have been practicing it every day at that time, and at that time I will have to recall things that I learned a long time ago. I also found more websites / programs to learn Korean or blogs that were helpful in just language learning in general. One thing I learned about was the 80/20 method, which states that 80% of what you learn results from 20% of your effort. I am still trying to understand how that can apply to learning a language, but I believe that it sort of means that even if you aren't trying to remember a certain thing you might still remember it. This is definitely true for me because there are a lot of things I remember, like random things that happen in school or books or TV/movies even though I don't necessarily try to remember them. I have also experienced this with learning Spanish and Hindi because sometimes a random word just comes to mind and it gets "stuck" in my head the rest of the day and then whenever I need to use it I can remember it much easier that words that might not necessarily have gotten "stuck" in my head.

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This week I spent about 2-3 hours saving PDFs of all the lessons from Talk to Me in Korean. I did this because it is a lot more helpful to read the PDFs while listening to the podcast/lesson and if i ever want to review something then I can just look at the lesson and review by myself instead of having to listen to the whole 10-15 minute lesson just to look at one thing that I might be confused about. The PDFs also have the Korean words written in Hangul and they have the romanization (the pronunciation written using the English alphabet) as well, which is helpful in remembering how to pronounce words and phrases. I also spent some time looking at strategies that other people recommend for learning a language and how reasonable it is to be able to learn a language in 3-4 months. Many websites do say that it is possible to learn a language that fast, and I feel that I will be able to speak Korean pretty well because of how good I am doing right now, and because of how much exposure I have had to the language. For example, sometimes when I am watching videos of BTS while they are speaking in Korean, I can sort of recognize some phrases, and because of that, along with English subtitles, I can sort of figure out what another thing means. Looking at lyric videos of their songs is also really helpful because you can sort of see how the language is structured and it also really helps with pronunciation because the lyric videos have Hangul, romanization, and translations.

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So this week has been pretty similar to last week because I still use Drops everyday and some other apps if I have time and feel like using them. However, I have started to use Talk to Me in Korean which is a really great app. They have short lessons where the two hosts explain how to properly use certain basic phrase and they give examples of situations where you would use what. It's really great because you don't get too much information at once, and they also have a website where they post PDFs of their lessons that correspond with the verbal lessons so you can go and review at your own pace. Because it's just audio, it can get boring quite easily, but I've discovered that if I play a simple game like "dune" or something else like that, I can concentrate better on the lesson. I think the reason that this happens is because the game keeps my mind occupied, but it's simple enough so that I don't have to think too much about it and I can focus on what they are saying in the lesson. Also, I have started a notebook where I write down the vocab that I learn from Drops but I only write the Korean words, and then later I go in and create a quizlet from them. This way I can review terms easily and by writing it down multiple times it can stay in my head better and it can help me remember more.

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So far I have mostly been learning simple vocabulary using an app called Drops. Everyday for 5 (or more if you get the daily bonus) minutes they help you memorize words based on a certain topic like food, drinks, transportation, etc. I have also downloaded a few other apps like Mondly, Memrise, Doulingo, and Mango. These apps are more centered around phrases that you would be helpful. However, a lot of times they don't necessarily explain the grammar rules and they just give it to you. For example, when I used Doulingo to practice Spanish they would make me conjugate sentences without ever explaining the rules for it, and if I hadn't taken Spanish then I wouldn't have understood any of it, which is happening to me right now with Korean. Another thing that bothers me is that some of the apps teach different things. What I mean by this is that Drops says that "thank you" is “감사합니다” (pronounced gamsahamnida), but Memrise says that it is "goma-woyo". From what I have seen and known, I always thought that it was what Drops said it was, but know I am confused at which word I should use. However, I do like that Memrise has a feature that allows you take pictures of items and it tells you what they are in the language you are learning. Another thing I like is that they have short clips of native speakers saying the vocab they are teaching you. I have also been using a book called Korean From Zero which is really helpful in teaching the rules of Hangul (the Korean alphabet) and what the basic grammar rules are. Overall, I think it's going pretty well because I have a good memory and I will have lots of sources to practice how well I am understanding what I'm learning.