Goal Update: Speaking Korean

-by Matt Leedham

Apparently, to learn a new language, you need to listen a lot and speak a lot in that language.

Duh, right? Not exactly genius thinking, I suppose, but it became abundantly clear to me last weekend at the beach.

As a refresher, I set a BIG personal goal for myself earlier this year. I set out to be conversational in Korean by October 1, 2011. You can read more about what conversational means to me and why I chose this goal by clicking here. Then you can read about what a difficult time I was having a few months ago with learning Korean by clicking here.

Over the last two months, I have been listening to CD’s on the Korean language by Pimsleur. They rock. I tried Rosetta Stone, but it just wasn’t for me. Pimsleur has very quickly accelerated my learning of Korean.

Ideally, I would listen to 30 minutes since that’s how long each lesson is. It’s perfect in the car to and from the office, but I’ll admit, I have not been keeping pace. I’ve gotten up to lesson 6. That’s 20% of the way through Phase 1, and there are three phases. Time to ramp it up!

When I learn a new phrase, I often say it to my very patient wife who will either applaud me for nailing it, or give me some instruction on how to change the emphasis or pronunciation of a syllable. So far, so good!

Last weekend my wife and I went to Bethany Beach, DE for four days, accompanied by her sister and husband, and my wife’s parents. My parents-in-law speak English fairly well, but they are much more comfortable in their native tongue, particularly when speaking with their daughters. So, as the only non-Korean in the group, I listened to a lot of Korean conversations all weekend.

What amazed me is that I started picking up little words here and there in their conversation. Words that I had never heard them say before, but that I had been learning on my language CD’s. And when I recognized a word, I would shout out the only phrase I knew that contained that word.

Example:
I heard the word “lunch” one day in the family conversation. I immediately shouted out, “have you eaten lunch? I won’t be having any!”

Then everyone would laugh because while what I said was tangentially related to their conversation, it was totally incongruent to what they were talking about.

But this was great. It sparked the conversation. It would often lead to my in-laws sharing what they were actually saying. And it made me much more comfortable to speak Korean to them.

When walking off the beach one day, I heard someone say the phrase, “where is...?” I asked, “did you just ask where something is? I thought I heard that.” Everyone was very proud that I was picking up words and it continued to inspire me to try to speak more.

Then I would shout out “where is Shichung Park?” And everyone would laugh. That’s the expression I learned from the CD’s, but it makes no sense to be asking where a park in Seoul is when you’re at the beach in Delaware.

It’s slow going, but becoming more and more fun. The more I can speak the words and phrases in a real environment, the quicker I am learning.

How does this relate something you’re learning? Are you just packing away knowledge in your head, or are you getting out there and using what you’ve learned? You will speed up the learning process exponentially if you dare to practice what you’ve learned. Onward!

The Price You Pay For Success

-by Matt Leedham

“The price for anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.”
- Henry David Thoreau

It can be difficult when you are in the “swamp.” That’s the place of origin of something unfamiliar or new. The “swamp” is the place you start when working toward a new goal. It’s a place of murky water, muddy ground, and a quagmire of resistance.

I’m currently in the swamp.

As our regular readers may recall, I set a fairly aggressive goal a few months ago. I committed, publically to the world, that I would be conversational in Korean by October of 2011. As most of you know, or might conclude, I’m not Korean. I have no previous knowledge of Korean other than “hello” and “thank you.” To be conversational was quite the mammoth goal to set.

As it turns out, learning Korean is not easy. Crazy, right?!

It’s true. It’s difficult, and here’s why:

1. The alphabet is not Roman/Latin – it consists of symbols entirely unique to the Western world.
2. The Korean language is known as an SOV language (Subject Object Verb), which is essentially the opposite of English. Meaning, each sentence is spoken “backwards.”
3. There is a particular syllable in Korean that is almost unpronounceable. Seriously, it’s insanely difficult for Americans to pronounce.

As a competitive person that is a self-described high-achiever, not being good at something is very difficult to accept. But as it turns out, you must first be terrible at something before you can be good at it. Here’s a quote from Jaime’s post a few months ago about failing without giving up:

“Here’s the thing – you have to suck first before you get to be good at something. There is no cheat code in life. There is no movie montage through the difficult training that happens first. You literally have to slog through each and every day of being bad at something in order to get good at it.”

In fact, we know that there are no prodigies either. It’s not like it’s possible to be awesome at Korean right away, and I just don’t have the talent. No, even the most talented language learner needs to walk the long path of learning.

The problem lies in my ego. It’s embarrassing to be so terrible at something. I want to impress people with my skills but I just sound ridiculous now. Ego can hold you back in so many ways. It’s another form of judgment. I’m judging the process, I’m judging myself, and I’m judging what others will think of me.

I’ve learned that the quicker I can release those judgments the easier and more enjoyable learning a new skill becomes. I can be proud of my (incremental) progress, and I can appreciate the process of learning because it is so difficult.

In six months when I am actually speaking Korean, I will learn to appreciate this even more. I can tell the story of my “movie montage” through the difficult times. But only I will know how difficult it was and how much focus I needed to slowly become better and better.

Being bad at something is uncomfortable. Failure is uncomfortable. But successful people learn to become very comfortable at this stage. It’s their persistence that is the only difference between ultimate success and failure.

A Big New Goal

- by Matt Leedham

Last night my brother and I were driving to Yechon in Annandale to have dinner with my wife’s cousins, who have quickly adopted me as one of their own (shout out to the Chungs, the Kimms, the Paes and Mr. Park!). My brother looked at me and said, “so, have you ever thought about learning Korean?”

I really wished he hadn’t asked that. The truth is, yes I have thought about it. And yes, it’s on my 101 list (similar to a bucket list but without the morbid reference). Until that moment, I had successfully tucked the goal of learning Korean deep down into oblivion. I want to learn Korean, but the thought of what it would take to do so makes me quickly focus on other goals in my life.

But it’s time to walk the walk on this one. I can’t honestly write, coach, and teach about achieving difficult goals if I’m not going to get out there and practice what I preach. In fact, just two days ago, I wrote about The Biggest Loser and how the successful competitors are able to shift the context to something bigger than themselves. They are able to focus on “the why” of the goal – the real reason you are committed to something.

So here we go…

(A Big New Goal)

The Goal: Be conversational in Korean by October 1, 2011. Conversational = Ability to greet, chit chat, order food, and ask/understand/answer basic questions.

The Why: 1) It would mean a great deal to me and my wife if I were able to converse more freely with her parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles. 2) It would mean a great deal to me and my wife to be able to raise our future children in a bi-lingual household. 3) Learning Korean would allow me to achieve something I have doubted I could achieve for many years. 4) We are planning a 3-week trip to Korea with my in-laws in October 2011, which would be a great capstone to a year of learning the language.

Material Obstacles: 1) Time. Let’s be honest – I’m going to need a lot of it. But just like anything else, you make time for what’s important. 2) Money. Language software, text books, and courses are not cheap.

Emotional Obstacles: “I’m not good at learning languages.” I studied Spanish for years in high school and college, and am okay on vocabulary and basic conversational stuff, but never really picked up proper grammar (which is very similar to English, so I’m not sure what that says about me…). Negative self-talk will not help, but I’m going to need some cheerleaders in my corner to make it through this.

Resources: My resources seem endless on support – I’ve got at least 10 family members that will help me along. I’ve got a wife that will happily talk to me in Korean as much as I want (and endlessly watch Korean movies and dramas with me should that be helpful). However, resources in language instruction seem limited. I do have an old text book that was given to me by an owner of a language center in DC. I’ll have to reach out to my network on this.

Network: My network is fairly extensive, but not among language instructors. From what I can gather from 6 years of knowing my father-in-law, the Korean community stays well connected. Whatever I ask of him (e.g. a handyman, a mechanic, a doctor, a hot air balloon driver in Alaska), he always seems to “have a guy.” He always knows someone with that specific expertise. So, perhaps I just need to reach out.

That’s it. I’m doing it. I’ve said it.

Can you help me?