Dun dun dun… the most awaited TOPIK Result

After waiting for more than one month, I finally got my TOPIK results and it was disappointing. Well it wasn’t that bad because I did pass level 1. I was aiming for level 2 but I think I’m 22 points short and I also need 1 more point for writing. I’m not really sure of my math so whatever. Haha!  Here I’ll just share it with you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was really sad yesterday because I just declined a job offer for another job that I like better but I’m still not sure of getting. The company president did email that they’re considering me for the position which was the reason why I declined the offer that I already have. Added to that is the disappointment that I did not pass level 2 which meant that I won’t be able to take Intermediate Korean and has to repeat Elem 2 because I wasn’t able to finish the class . I’m not sure if I really want to do that. I’m kind of tired of traveling to BGC because I despise riding MRT for being so congested. Plus, even if I didn’t finish the class, I actually know all the grammar points for Elem 2 so it might be useless to re-enroll just  for the purpose of advancing to Intermediate without a TOPIK level 2 certificate. I also don’t want another Elem 2 book, but if I do re-enroll, I could use the book for a give away or something.

Oh! I also have some good news for you guys! I’ve been searching for another school that offers conversational Korean so I can practice my speaking and listening skills. I haven’t find one yet, but I did find some other interesting schools in the Metro which you guys might like. I’m gonna post them here once I get the rates per hour. I know I always say that I’m gonna post something, but this one’s for real, promise!

And if you know some language schools offering conversational classes or a Korean BPO program, please inform me. I know Berlitz and The Bridge has BPO partners, but if you’re gonna enroll as an individual, I think it’s too expensive. ENLI also has BPO programs, but I have yet to receive a reply with regards to their Korean BPO program if they do have one… they have classes in Japanese and some European languages for around 30, 000 pesos more or less. They also have some promos so you could get it half the price depending on the number of hours. This is for the fluency program so don’t be too shocked about the fee. For the standard ones you could check out my previous blogs about Korean schools in Manila. You can find the link on the right side  or click here.

Also, if you’re a language school in the Philippines  that’s interested to promote your school, you can comment below and I’d look into it and possibly include you in my next blog post. I’m looking for language schools and not agency-types that’s teaching Korean for factory workers, but I might do a separate post for factory workers or those seeking work in Korea so you might as well comment below. Please just inform me if you’re one of those agency types. Thanks and I do hope to hear from you guys! 🙂

P.S. There are some people who contact me via Facebook which I don’t really mind, but it’s kind of creepy since I didn’t share my Facebook here… anyway, your messages goes to my other inbox so if you have urgent questions, just please comment below. Or you can continue messaging me on Facebook as well as I’ve made it a habit to check my other inbox anyway… but it’s creepy you know. Haha!

 

 

 

 

My 34th TOPIK Experience and New KCC classes

Yesterday I finally took the 34th TOPIK exam. I thought it would be easy, but I felt that it was more difficult than the previous tests. There were about 6 questions per part that I couldn’t understand. I was hoping to pass TOPIK level 2, but I’m not really sure now. I guess I just have to wait until May 30 for the result. Please pray for me! Ahahaha! I really did my best and there’s nothing more that I could do except to expand my vocabulary so even if I retake the exam, I feel that the results will be the same.

Anyway, I was able to answer the essay question which was about travelling. It was kind of timely because I just came straight from an outing. I didn’t even sleep. I made a few mistakes though because I’m worried of the time. 😦

I also saw some of my classmates there. My E1 classmates were friendlier than my E2 classmates for some reason. They invited me to hang out but like I said, I haven’t slept so I passed.

By the way, I saw some exam takers reviewing EPS TOPIK which is different from TOPIK. You take EPS fron POEA and the fee is 1000 plus. So for my readers who plan to work in Korea, better take EPS TOPIK this June or July. I’m not sure when exactly but you can check from the POEA site.

I also have some news for those who wants to study Korean at KCC. They now offer intensive Korean which is like E1 and E2 combined. Classes are four times a week. It’s good for students taking summer vacation. They are also offering business Korean once a week. I’m not sure what they’ll be teaching though. If you know, please share it with us. 🙂

KCC also has this K-CLIP program for university students who wants to study and travel in Korea for 2weeks. The fee is 1000USD exclusive of airfare. Check out their website for more info and good luck if you decided to apply.

How I Started Learning Foreign Languages

안녕 여러분! I’m studying some vocabulary words at the moment as well as some old grammar patterns that I couldn’t remember. I’m sure you have also been frustrated by these recurring words and grammar patterns… they keep popping up and you’ve noted them before but alas you still can’t remember them. I was planning to do a blog on how I deal with these things, but since I keep having these problems myself, I’m probably not qualified to give you advice. Instead, what I’m going to share with you is how I remembered my first few words and grammar patterns… how I started learning foreign languages.

If you’re a follower of my blog, you know that I started by self studying how to read and write characters. Well, aside from remembering basic greetings and phrases that is. To remember them I kept writing Japanese and Korean characters on pieces of paper. I also read short stories. I couldn’t understand anything at all, but I read them so I could remember and practice pronunciation.

Next, I bought dictionaries, phrase books and text books. Nowadays, you could just search in the internet or download an app. Anyway, I tried learning sentence order and basic grammar pattern, but I couldn’t advance by myself. There were things that I was not sure of and needed help with. Sometimes I was just lazy.

Then, I took lessons. I think it’s important to take lessons to have a strong foundation of the basics of the language. It’s not impossible to study on your own with all the free resources available now, but if you’re in school, you are forced to learn and remember things. Your teacher will be there to make sure you understand the nuances of the language. This was how I got all my basics down. A lesson costs around 2000 – 4000 for some languages, and around 8000 – 10000 for others like Japanese. If you are really determined and have the  spare money, why not enroll.

After you’ve got the basics down and decided not to re-enroll, you can just study on your own because you now know how the language works. You can understand its irregularities and what not. As for me, when there’s something that I couldn’t understand I could just search in the internet and easily understand with a few explanation. My only problem is remembering them since I am not forced to make sentences or converse in the language.

Now after taking classes, I still can’t say that I’m already fluent, but I can really see my progress. If you read my previous blogs, I couldn’t even understand TOPIK before, but now I’ve been answering a lot of mock tests with few mistakes. I can also read some manhwas and have simple conversations with my Korean friends in their language.

I want to tell you, before all this, I was really frustrated and I felt that learning another language was near impossible. I did not know where to start or if I was doing things right.  Now, I don’t care where I start. I just practice whenever I can, pick up something new through reading and watching stuff… I just keep learning.

Overall, the most important thing that can really help in your study is to get a strong grasp of the basics of the language and to keep practicing whenever you can.

E-books and more at 국립국어원

Only eight days to go before the 34th TOPIK, I’m so excited! Two days ago I did part I of the 32nd TOPIK for my preparation but I kind of got bored from practicing so I’ve been searching for Korean children story books. I know http://kids.korean.go.kr/from hangukdrama’s post here, and I’ve seen those children’s books before too but I can’t find them now. I only see downloadable mp3s. I couldn’t understand what’s written in there so I just downloaded one and it’s a story about a kid who wants to show or maybe draw a picture of a puppy with his parents and brother, but they’re all busy. I’m not sure if I really got it right, but that’s what I understood. Anyway I think this might be good for intermediate listening practice so if you want to try just click on the first box 1) 유아 자료 and then there’ll be a list of Korean titles with a save icon, that’s the mp3.

Stil looking for books I went to 국립국어원, I couldn’t understand a thing but by clicking here and there I found lots of good stuff.

First in the navigation bar hover over 자료실  and look for 전자책. Here you will find some e-books, some look like textbooks for learning Korean and some are story books. There are only 14 available now.

Again in the navigation bar hover over 배움 마당, click 한국어 교재. Here you will find more e-books.

Still under  배움 마당, click 두근두근 한국어. This is a show where you learn Korean through dramas and K-pop. Our teacher made us watch this along with Let’s Speak Korean in school. The show is in Korean but there’s an English subtitle.

There were other stuff like courses in other countries and translation materials, but I don’t understand most of them so I don’t think that they will be that useful for now.

Well, I hope you got my instructions and be able to find these awesome stuff as well.

 

Work in Korea: Korean Language Trainee

I’ve been jobless for four months now because our office relocated and I wanted some time off work to study Korean. Right now, I’m preparing for TOPIK while looking for a job where I can practice and use my Korean skills. So while doing that I found this job ad, Korean Language Trainee and want to share it with people who’re looking for work in Korea.

I’ve heard of Asphodel before, but I’ve never been to their school. I think their lessons are structured for EPS TOPIK/ KLT, so if you want to work in Korea, why not grab this chance. You’re required to pass this EPS TOPIK to be able to work in Korea anyway. Just a warning though Asphodel is not listed as an agency in POEA so I’m not sure if they can send you to work in Korea. Maybe they just teach Korean and is affiliated with an agency.

If you have more info, please don’t hesitate to comment below as I’m also interested in their intermediate and advanced classes. Thanks. 🙂

 

TOPIK Review: Progress Update

Hello everyone. I haven’t been blogging for a month and a half because I’ve been sick again. I also stopped going to school for my Korean class but it’s okay, I’ve been self studying and I don’t really find new (beginner) grammar difficult now thanks to TTMIK and other helpful sites. I’ll make a post about those helpful sites and resources later. Hehe! For now I’ll update you regarding my TOPIK review.

So mostly, I’ve been posting status updates on Facebook in Korean for my Korean friends to correct. They say that I’m more fluent now, but when I did the 33rd TOPIK for practice, I found that my weakest area is still writing. I can write essays but fill in the blanks confuses me. I just don’t know what they expect you to write. Aside from that I understood most TOPIK questions and only got 4-5 mistakes for each part, with the exception of writing.

As for grammar, I’ve been reading manhwas and if there’s some things that I couldn’t understand, that’s the time that I will learn new grammar. I’ll search over the internet and check sample sentences. I also learn new vocabulary this way.

Hmmm… I just realized that all the grammar that I know are in the beginner TOPIK level. I didn’t learn them for TOPIK though, that’s just the way the books we use at school are tailored. And here I thought I’m somehow at the lower intermediate level.

Anyway, I’ve been watching Running Man to practice my listening ability. I can pick up a few words here and there but sadly, I still can’t watch Korean shows without subs. They talk too fast. I’m okay with the TOPIK beginner audio though.

Oh! I want to share this playlist with you because this is something I understand with just more than a little effort. Maybe it will help you in your listening practice too. 🙂

So that’s it for my progress update. From here on I plan to do a lot of self studying since I’ve got all the basics down now. Some grammar are still confusing for me especially if they look similar with others or has the same usage as others, but I think I’m at a point where studying at school is no longer necessary. It feels like I’m no longer a kid (in learning Korean), I’m an adult now. Haha!

Lastly, before I forget, I want to thank all of you for continuing to visit my blog even though I’ve been gone for a short a while. Thanks everyone!! 🙂

TOPIK Review Day 3: 짧은 글을 쓰기

I finally decided to get this TOPIK essay over with and wrote my first 300 words essay in Korean. The question is “What is your hobby?”

제 취미는 외국어 배우기입니다. 외국어 배우기는 정말 재미있다고 생각합니다. 어릴 때부터 일본  노래를 좋아하지만, 의미를 이해 할 수 없었습니다. 그래서 대학교에서 저는 일본어를 2년 동안 공부했습니다. 일본어를 공부하면서 저희 반 친구가 스페인어나 프랑스어를 공부하는 것을 보고 저도 다른 외국어를 배우면 재미있겠다고 생각했습니다. 그래서 반 친구와 같이 독일어 수업에도 참석했습니다. 그리고 대학교를 졸업한 후에는 한국어를 공부하고 있습니다. 지금은 8개월째 한국어를 공부합니다. 한국어 배우기가 너무 어렵고 시간이 많이 필요하지만 아주 재미있습니다.

I got the wrong parts corrected by my teacher. If you want to practice reading and comprehension, you can try and figure out what I was blabbing about here.

And as usual, I made a recording for you to listen to.

 

 

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Korean Learning App: Hello Talk

I discovered a language learning app where you can chat with a native of the language you’re learning. It’s called Hello Talk and you can download it through Google Play or Apps Store. The interface is similar to WeChat, you can send text messages, images or record your voice. After registration, you have to indicate your native language and the language you’re learning then the app will load suggestions for you. Of course I chose Korean and I’ve been chatting with Koreans all day. I just love this app so much.

By the way, you can only chose one language but you can go back to your profile and change it later. Once you found a language partner, you can add them or just immediately message them. If you couldn’t understand your language partner’s message you can translate it to your native language by pressing hold. Watch their promotional video and check it out yourself. ^^

 

It’s very helpful right. So what are you waiting for? Download it now!  Click here to go to their site.ㅋㅋㅋㅋ

Classroom Expressions

I just came home from my Korean class and I noticed that I’m the only person who is always late. I’m just five to ten minutes late, but everyone always arrive ahead of time and it makes me feel guilty or conscious, I don’t know which. It’s not that I’m purposely being late, I wake up at 6:00am and leave the house around 7:00am to 7:30am. My usual problems is that trains are always full so I’ll wait for three to four trains to pass by. I’ll try harder to come in on time from now on!

Anyway, the reason why I told you this is because when I arrived at our classroom, somebody else was occupying my chair so I had to move to the other side of the room for an empty seat. I was the only person in that whole column and I was at the very end. Grrr! Next time I’ll come earlier and take my original seat!! Today, I was all alone and had no seatmate ㅠㅠ… well, only until another late person came in and sat in front of me.

So on the good side, the person in front of me who also had no seatmate became my practice partner. Her Korean is better than mine so she asked me questions in Korean and I’m so happy that I could understand and answer her that I feel like dying. I’ll teach you that expression in Korean because I also learned that today. Haha! 진짜 행복해서 죽겠어 means I’m really happy I could die.

For a better explanation watch this:

Another expression that I’d like to share with you today is 자, 주목하세요 which means pay attention. My teacher always say this and at first I thought she was saying 참, which made no sense. I mean why would she say 참 when she’s opening a new topic. I didn’t know 주목하세요 until now so it never occurred to me that she’s saying 자, 주목하세요.

I found more classroom expressions here so if you’re curious about an expression that your teacher always say or if you just want to learn these expressions, check it out! 오늘은 이걸로 끝입니다. That’s all for today!

TOPIK Review Day 2: 쓰기, 듣기, 읽기

Studying for TOPIK is so exhausting. ㅠㅠ… I continued answering the practice test and though I was happy with my progress yesterday, I feel kind of down today.

I only got 10 points in the writing practice, and only because of multiple choice. Actually it’s three to four points per question but I didn’t bother checking the points per question. It doesn’t change the fact that I only got 10 questions right. I skipped the essay part too. Sigh. I have to practice a lot from now.

After writing comes listening. I got 17 out of 30 mostly from guessing. There were parts where you have to answer two questions and even though I wasn’t able to catch the whole audio, I didn’t repeat it because I want to feel like I’m taking the real test.

The reading part was easier, but when it came to understanding instructions like a wanted ad or an announcement, I just couldn’t get it. After that, long dialogues followed, and I finally gave up on it.  I might continue later after I’ve rested.

Now I realized that aside from speaking, I also need to improve my writing and listening skills.

I really thought that I’ve improved a lot and yet there are still so many things that I couldn’t understand. 그래서 지금 부터  많은 연습합니다!! 화이팅!!!