My Favorite Korean-Learning Resources

These days I am trying to spend a few minutes each day practicing my Korean. I haven't given up! Here's a quick rundown of the books and tools that I am using. First, I should tell you my goals for Korean. My main goal is to be able to talk with my husband and my in-laws around the house and when we visit extended family in Korea. When I lived in Korea, I got pretty good at getting around town, ordering food, and basically surviving as an expat. But now, I want to be able to hold longer conversations. My secondary goal is to be able to watch Korean variety shows and dramas without English subtitles. One goal is practical and one is fun!
Fluent Forever by Gabriel WynerThis is the book that reignited my belief that I am capable of learning Korean! While living in Korea, I was a bit disappointed that I didn't make more progress, because I expected immersion to work like magic. Well, spoiler alert, it didn't! I don't think my actual Korean skill progressed at all. Then after returning to the US, I picked up Fluent Forever from the library. Yes, I still use the library and I love it!
I learned so much from this book about the best way to capitalize on the science of memory. Using the methods in this book, I think my Korean has improved a ton! The main lessons I learned were...
1) Stop translating! The goal of fluency is to think in another language. All of my flashcards use pictures to convey a meaning instead of English words.
2) Use spaced repetition (see Anki below).
3) It is good to make mistakes (see Seongmin and my in-laws below).

AnkiIn Fluent Forever, Gabriel Wyner discusses this free flashcard program. I gave it a try and it is now my main tool for Korean learning. I make my own flashcards, because the process of making them is part of the learning. I use them for vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar. Right now I only have to review for 5-10 minutes each day and I try to add 10 vocabulary words a day. Since I'm pretty busy right now, I feel like this is a totally manageable time commitment, and I don't feel like my learning has halted. The magically part of Anki is that it uses spaced repetition. Gabriel Wyner says that spaced repetition, which is where you review a piece of information at increasing intervals, is like programing it into your brain.
Today I am making a flashcard for 우체국 = post office. If I review it today and mark that I remembered it, Anki will make it "due" tomorrow. If I remember it tomorrow, Anki will make it due 2 days after that. Then 4 days, and so on. The interval increases because my memory improves each time I see it and remember it.

Top 1500 WordsThis is a Korean frequency dictionary that I bought in Korea, but didn't use much until I started using Anki. I love that it is split up by word type, and it includes the Chinese characters and even sample sentences! I'm working my way through this book to focus on learning the most-used Korean vocabulary. One key tip that I learned from Fluent Forever is that you shouldn't learn all words in one category at a time, like colors or words related to family. If you do, it is very likely that you won't be able to remember individual words outside of that context. That is also why I don't review flashcards in a predictable order. I tis important to me that I'm learning the most-used words because my goal with Korean is to be able to hold my own in Korean conversation.

Seongmin and my in-lawsI would be remiss if I didn't mention that my family is a HUGE help to me in my Korean study. Seongmin patiently answers my questions and listens to me stumble along new grammar. My mother-in-law text messages me in Korean, and whenever we are together, both of my in-laws speak to me in Korean. I feel very blessed by their encouragement, especially because they are the reason that I continue this journey.

Talk To Me In Korean (TTMIK)If there were a TTMIK for every language, everyone would learn Korean! These great people make videos, podcasts, ebooks, and more! I am up to Level 4 of their main curriculum and I'm also listening to the natural Korean "podcast" style series called "Iyagi". I have a few of their books too. One that I'm loving right now is "My Weekly Vocabulary". When we lived in Korea, we even attended the grand opening of their cafe! I religiously watch their videos and take notes of new vocabulary to add to my flashcards. And some videos I just watch for fun!

How To Study Korean.comWhenever I am confused about a grammar point, I turn to this website. There are >100 Korean lessons that go into extreme detail and explain things in a way that a native English speaker can understand. I have tried to go through it in order, but there is so much information in each lesson that I get overwhelmed! It is an excellent resource, and I've decided to use it as a reference rather than a textbook that must be read cover to cover.

Lang-8This is an AMAZING website that allows you to upload any text for native speakers to correct. You also correct "journal entries" in your native language to get your entries to the top of the pile. Free writing is a great way to identify holes in vocabulary and grammar concepts, and this website is perfect for that!

LinksDaum Korean-English Dictionary
Forvo Pronunciation Dictionary


There are so many amazing resources out there for language learners, I sometimes get overwhelmed by all the options! If you are learning a language and have any suggestions, please let me know!

Reunited!

By God's grace, we made it through this year of separation and are finally living together in Tacoma, Washington! One of our dear friends, a sister by virtue of also being an army wife, gave us this pair of Korean wedding ducks when we left Korea. In traditional Korean weddings, the groom gave the bride's parents a pair of ducks or geese to symbolize lifelong commitment because these birds mate for life.

These wooden ducks have the same meaning, and our friend gave them to us knowing that we would be separated for a time. I took mine to Kansas City and Seong kept his in our home in Washington. We have been waiting, working hard on our own, and traveling a lot to be together as much as possible during this year. Well, now these ducks are safely reunited, and so are we.

Back in Korea? Spring Break 2016

Seeing was stationed in Korea again! This time it was for 3 months, and I missed him so much! So, I skipped a few classes to take an extended spring break trip. Here the fun activities we fit in between Seong working and our laying around the hotel!

- Movies and shopping. Typical date stuff.
- Eating out at our favorite restaurants.
- Trip to Gyeongju: We went on a historically-important 2-day getaway to the capital of the kingdom of Silla, which was the main kingdom on the peninsula of Korea from 57 BC to 935 AD. We traveled by train and stayed overnight at the Kolon hotel (hehe). The first day we walked to Bulguksa, a famous temple, and then took a night bus tour to Cheomseongdae observatory and Wolji, a historical palace. The next day, we took a longer day bus tour back to Wolji, Bunhwatgsa pagoda (the oldest Silla pagoda), and the Daerungwon tombs. The tours were completely in Korean, but they had short videos on the bus in English too! I would highly recommend Gyeongju City Bus Tours, especially if you are traveling with a Korean who can translate the important points ;).
- Visiting with family! It was so wonderful to see our cousins again. We went to the park, ate black bean noodles, and met the newest member of the family! You can see our family members in the slide show, including our cousin Tae-jun and his girlfriend, and our cute young cousins performing to the KT Wizards (baseball team) theme song.
- I spent time with my sweet friend Grace. We used to live in the same apartment building with Grace and her family, and her friendship means so much to me. We went to the 고속터미널 (Express Bus Terminal) for shopping and sushi.
- We took the English-language 비원 (Secret Garden) walking tour at 창덕궁 (Changdeokgung Palace). Our Korean hanbok-wearing tour guide gave us excellent and funny information about the garden, which was a private respite for the royal family of the Joseon dynasty.

I hope you enjoy the slideshow! I recommend watching in high-definition :)

Merry Christmas 2015

It has been a long time since I posted on here, but I have been posting on Instagram. Since last checking in, I successfully completed another semester of Pharmacy school and Seong was accepted to an online Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner program. Right now it feels like we are being pulled in different directions, but we take every opportunity to be together. Our hope is that we will be able to settle down in a few years, but right now we are relying on God for the big picture and our daily lives.

Wasn't our tree so cute? It's our first real tree, so we had tons of fun picking out the gold and red ornaments and finding a topper. At first I thought the bird was strange, but Seong reminded me that the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus "like a dove", so I thought that was cool. Anyway, we don't have very many Christmas traditions, except Christmas cookies!
In the middle of December, the ladies in my family got together to make cookies to last through the season. It's our tradition to make certain cookies, including Russian Tea Balls, Struffoli, Cartellate, Pecan Cracker Cookies, and Tassies. This year we tried to make some of them with natural sweeteners, and were very successful with the Russian Tea Balls and Tassies! Instead of cracker cookies, we just made candied pecans. But we just couldn't alter the Italian fried dough cookies at all, although we did use slightly different ingredients for the honey glaze. We used doTerra Wild Orange essential oil instead of orange peels and some delicious honey from Seong's grandma in Korea! 할머니, 감사합니다!



Oh my, they were so yummy. Our standard Christmas season breakfast became eggs, coffee, and cookies!
For Christmas this year, we stayed in our home in Washington, and were so blessed to have Seong's parents join us! Never were there more relaxing days. We ate such delicious, homemade Korean food!

I hope you too had a fantastic holiday season! Now it's back to the grind.

먹방 (Mukbang) Monday: Seattle 짜장면

In case you haven't realized by now, we love new places! Now that we are stationed in Washington, we are thrilled to explore the Seattle/Tacoma area. There is a large Korean population, so we got a chance to satisfy our food cravings at this Korean-Chinese restaurant. There were so many yummy-looking options, it was hard to decide where to eat!


Check out this 짜장면(jjajangmyun) and 탕수육(tangsuyook)! There is a lot of variability in the preparation of 짜장면, and it seems to me like everyone has a different recipe that they think is the "right" way to make it. From the levels of sweet, salty, and tangy to the thickness of the sauce or type of noodles used, each bowl is unique. We prefer chunky veggies and tangy sauce with thick noodles! As for 탕수육, the frying is really hard to do at home, so it is a special treat to eat it at a restaurant.
That's all for this short mukbang!

P.S. The "About Us" is updated to reflect the fact that we don't live in Korea anymore :).

Road Trip to Washington

Brace yourself for a ton of pictures from our road trip to our new home! Seong's parents helped us move Seong's car and stuff from St.Louis all the way to Tacoma, Washington. We decided to make a vacation out of it and stopped along the way in Kansas City MO, North Platte NE, Yellowstone National Park, and Spokane WA. I had never been west of Kansas, so we really took some time to enjoy God's creation. The views, the mountains, the clouds, the babbling brooks, and the sunsets were incredible! I especially loved the thermal features in Yellowstone, where heated mineral water steams or bubbles up out of the ground leaving beautiful mineral formations and the smell of sulfur in the air. The "boiling river", where hot mineral water meets a cold stream, was like a natural hot tub! I highly recommend checking it out if you go to Yellowstone - which everyone should.
We entertained ourselves while driving by listening to an audiobook, Anne of Green Gables, and the podcasts Radio Lab and Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, and by snacking on cookies and beef jerky. At every stop we tried to swim, take walks, and get a lot of sleep! We drove 2,100 miles, but it didn't feel so bad. The 30 hours were split up over 6 days, so we got lots of fun out of the trip, as you can see below.





















And we finally made it! I remember this moment, feeling that we had come to the place that God had set for us to be. I hope you feel that sometime too.