My Language Learning These Days + December Goals

Can you believe 2021 is almost over? It’s hard to believe we’re already a week into the last month of the year.

A few days ago I posted a video on my YouTube channel just giving an update on my November language learning progress and my goals for the last month of the year, and I thought I’d post it here as well for any readers curious about my language learning these days.

Happy holidays!

Talking To My Boss In Korean

One of the aspects of working at an English hagwon that I wondered about before coming to Korea was how I would get along with my boss. I’ve heard of bosses treating their foreign teachers unfairly before, so I was a little nervous going into this job, but so far my bosses have been very nice. Communicating with them has been an interesting situation, though.

A husband and wife team run the hagwon that I work at. I believe the husband officially has the title of “director”, but the wife seems to be the one who’s really in charge. The husband has his own office, and the wife has a desk in the Korean teachers’ office, where she oversees their work and handles most of the issues that arise concerning the classes. For most of the day, the husband sits downstairs on the fourth floor and oversees the students who need to retake their daily tests due to low scores, while the wife oversees operations on the main floor upstairs.

Exploring E-World — Daegu’s Theme Park

A few weeks ago, I went to E-World with my friend Christa, and it was a great experience. For everyone who lives in or visits Daegu, I recommend going to E-World as a part of your trip if you enjoy theme parks. This post features the best of the attractions that we rode, as well as adventures speaking to random Korean children. Stay tuned!

High Pressure Listening Dysfunction: Daegu Edition

I would say that overall, my listening skills in Korean are pretty good. The past two years of my closest friends being Korean naturally boosted my listening skills, as I was surrounded by Korean for at least part of the day almost every day. I would listen to my friends gossip, banter, argue about a variety of things, and for the most part I would always know at least the general topic they were talking about, and often I would understand almost everything being said, minus a word here or there.

The Overwhelming Pressure of a Compliment

I’m a perfectionist. When I do something, I like to do it well, and if possible, I want to be the best. This drive is what allowed me to power through grad school and my thesis, and it also makes me fiercely competitive, even when I’m just hanging out playing bowling or ping pong with my friends. If I’m having an off day and can’t perform well, it’s hard for me to have fun, even if I’m just playing a meaningless game.

Korean Speaking Encounters — Korean Conversation Cafe

Followers of this blog will probably know that for several years now, one of my biggest goals has been to improve my Korean speaking skills. Every year I list it as one of my main goals, and every year I still feel nervous and insecure about my Korean speaking.

Over the past year, I’ve actually improved my Korean speaking quite a bit. Finally! After years of wishing for improvement, starting last fall, I’ve actually been taking steps to practice speaking Korean. I wish I could take the credit and say that I just woke up suddenly motivated to start speaking to my friends in Korean, but that’s not what happened.

Goals for 2019

Here we are, almost 3 weeks into the new year, and I’m just now getting around to posting my goals for the rest of the upcoming year. I’m finally emerging from the stressful, procrastination-driven thesis-writing vortex that I’ve been in for the past month (although it’s not quite over yet), and I can finally start focusing more on other things, like my language learning goals for the upcoming year.

Progress Report: 2018 in Review

What a year!  It’s hard to believe that another year has already flown by, but here we stand at the beginning of 2019.  Before I set my goals for the upcoming year, it’s time to look back at my goals for the previous year and see how I managed to do.

Korean Speaking Encounters — My New Part Time Job

For as long as I’ve been learning Korean, I’ve had the goal of improving my Korean speaking skills.  Unfortunately, even though I’ve made a considerable number of Korean friends and hang out with them pretty much every day, I’ve fallen into the dreadful habit of speaking 95% English to them and only rarely throwing a few Korean phrases into the mix.  The main reason for this is that I’m shy by nature and I’m terrified of making mistakes in front of them.  I realize it’s silly to be anxious and embarrassed of making mistakes in front of my friends, especially since they make mistakes in English all the time and it’s no big deal, but what can I say?  It’s just an unfortunate character trait that I have to overcome.

Since I’m embarrassed in front of my friends, you can probably guess that I definitely don’t speak Korean to random strangers — at least, I didn’t use to.  That’s changed a bit in the past few weeks.

Language Goals for 2018

It’s already a week into the new year, but I’m just now getting around to posting my language learning goals for 2018.  Even though I mentioned in my last post that my goals tend to change a lot throughout the year and that’s why I didn’t meet my original goals for 2017, I still enjoy the process of setting goals.  It’s fun to have something to work towards throughout the year, and I enjoy looking back through old posts and seeing what goals were important to me in times past.

That said, here are my goals for the remaining 51 weeks of the year: