Unlike Japanese I have very little practice or ability to speak Korean. Of course I kind of figured it would be difficult, and I still haven’t really mastered Japanese yet… but… well… I’ll get to it on both accounts. Learning languages is important, and I need to push myself to learn things you know?
Risiel has taken a fondness to a few Korean artists (group and solo) as well as some Chinese groups and a few Japanese groups. While Kat is learning Chinese through school, I didn’t get the chance at a young age to take that, though I did get Japanese! Which means it’s a little more difficult for me to get there. Still, I’ve recently developed a fondness for 2NE1 and want to be able to sing their songs. So learning Korean is going to happen for me… one way or another!
Yet again, I was able to use Rocket Languages Korean to work on learning this language. I was given the Korean Premium 1-8 modules in order to facilitate this review. Basically, I was allowed to use it free of charge for my opinion.
It was harder than I imagined, and I imagined it to be pretty difficult. I’d still say Kat has it worse off than me in her study of Chinese though! Even though her grasp is pretty good so far.
Now… seeing Korean words written out in roman characters pretty much makes my heart sink to my stomach and my tongue tie in knots and attempt to climb down into my stomach as well. There appear to be so many letters that I don’t really heard being pronounced the way my brain is trying to tell me they should be pronounced. So.. it’s kind of scary.
When I listened to the first lesson on learning Korean I felt my insides freeze. There was… no way I was ever going to speak it. They were speaking WAY too fast for me to get this at all.
Sadly, Korean is taking me a fair bit longer to get the hang of compared to Japanese. The language isn’t as simple when written out in roman characters, and it leaves me still pretty nervous to see it written out.
I think for my brain to get some of the words, I am going to have to make them a little more spaced out.
Even something simple like Anyounghaseyo makes me flinch. As my eyes and brain get stuck with the consonants and even though I can SAY the word, seeing it written out makes my tongue freeze. An young hase yo, much more manageable for me. Then again, I’ve had to do this with some Japanese words that are longer looking when written out in roman characters too. So I shouldn’t be too worried about my mental abilities.
I will still say I think the speakers are just going way too fast for the audio lessons. If they take into account beginners, they should be speaking a bit more slowly. So we can get a better grasp on the language. I’ve had to repeat one phrase five plus times just to figure out how ONE single word is pronounced due to the speed the speaker is in.
Overall? It’s going to take me a LOT longer to get Korean down to even the level I had Japanese down to in a couple of months. It’ll likely take me about 3x longer for Korean than Japanese. Just because my brain is struggling with me for pronunciation and it’s a harder (for me!) language. Though I am confident that with using Rocket Languages Korean premium I’ll get there even if at the start it seemed darn near impossible. It has helped me though, I’m getting more confident at my pronunciation and I’m enjoying trying to sing along to 2NE1’s “Come Back Home.”
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