Side note: I recorded this piece as a small bonus. As you’ll notice, I stumbled, mispronounced some words (including one in Korean at the end), and plainly said “Korean” instead of “German.” I chose to leave it as is for today. It’s more authentic and, well, will get me used to putting my crappy voice out there! 😅1
My journey learning Korean has been long and uneven. I’ve had highs higher than mountains and lows lower than the depth of the Earth.
Arriving in Korea less than a year after I began learning it and seeing it actually come to life from my own mouth was a mesmerizing experience. Leaving the country two months later able to hold daily conversations with anybody made me proud.
Then, spending 5 years stuck at the same level crushed my soul. Being told my Korean accent had Japonized while living in Japan was one thing but opening in 2017 a grammar book I used in 2012 and having to look words up was so frustrating I still remember it. Doing the exercises and observing similar mistakes was proof I had not improved.
Or so I thought.
As you know by now, I’ve been focusing on Korean (and German as a second priority) for the past month (and a half?).
My first step into focusing on Korean was through getting more exposure and I began with Webtoons so I’d get some support from the drawings. Now, I have 7 series that come out throughout the week. One of which I’m still 100 chapters behind so I have something to read in between.
I’ll dive a bit more into how those are going further down, but let me say this first: I would have never had the level to read that much Korean a few years ago and would have had to look up many more words.
My level of Korean has gone up.
Somehow.
And I’m psyched about it but it’s also made me realize all the more the countless times I have to look up words or expressions I’ve clearly looked up before.
That’s why today we’ll talk about forgetting. We’ll dive into short-term and long-term memory loss (of languages, alright?) and maybe a bit about kindness along the way. Don’t worry, there’s a reason for that too.
Ready? Let’s roll.
Let’s not confuse feature and bug
I love learning languages but, my god, I absolutely hate forgetting words. I don’t mind looking up words but doing so more than once? To hell with that.
Unfortunately, this has been happening a lot. Not just now but since the beginning. If there’s one thing I dislike about language learning, that’s it.
Isn’t it foolish? Hoping to remember a word I’ve seen once in context and looked up once? I know it is but I can’t help myself. Having to look up words, again and again, makes me feel stupid and is a constant reminder that, despite all the praises I may have received in my life and all the pointless “Wow, you must be a language genius”2 I’ve heard, I’m just another random human with a crappy memory to boast.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m glad I’m a random muggle. I’m sure it’d be boring to be almighty.
But isn’t it what it is to be human? To forget is to be human, right?
There have been countless studies about how memory works and while none has the answer on how to make our memory perfect, they all agree it’s impossible to remember anything with only one pass at it.3
To remember, we have to forget.
That’s what Ebbinghaus’s Forgetting Curve also shows. We forget quickly what we encounter. One more pass makes the memory a tad stronger but we’ll still forget rather quickly. The more passes we make, the more likely we are to remember something.
And so, having to look up new words many times isn’t a bug but a feature of our brain.
It’s not just okay to forget. It’s a requirement.
I had to look up 4 times in 5 days the word 조질 in Korean. Each time I thought it was a noun. Each time I thought “Oh right!” when the dictionary shows it was a conjugated form of 조지다 (to beat someone to a pulp4). Well, guess what, it popped up again today and I recognized it.
Turning forgetting into discovery
Having to look up in the dictionary something I know I’ve seen is already frustrating but there’s something even worse.
The Naver Dictionary I use allows users to save words in their “wordbook.” I have a few separated by topic:
1 per book I read
1 for all Webtoons,
1 for words from Games in general,
1 for Genshin Impact
1 for TOPIK-related studies
1 for anything else
Whenever I consider a word really useful, I save it to one of those lists. Then, there are times I find a new word, want to add it to a list, and get a frustrating asterisk.
Oftentimes, this happens with words I don’t remember ever looking up so these act as clear reminders that I’m not remembering what I chose to consider important.
Now, that’s a problem.
And so I’ve been thinking of ways to consolidate my Korean level as I expand through reading Webtoons/books, listening to audio series5, and playing Genshin Impact in Korean.
And while the experience written right above is hella frustrating, I’ve chosen to turn to a different facet: grammar.
I’ve had the Korean Grammar In Use Intermediate and Advanced books for years (2012 and 2016 respectively). I’ve studied a lot (all?) of the Intermediate one but can’t use every pattern with ease. Because of this, I’ve almost never touched the Advanced one. I’ve been scared of feeling overwhelmed.
Well, on October 1st6, I began going through it.
I noticed there were (at the time) 92 days left in the year… and 82 lessons in the book so I decided to do almost one lesson a day for the rest of the year and Tweet an example sentence on my second account. Since then, I’ve only missed one day7.
At the same time, I’ve been flipping pages of the Intermediate book to review some patterns that feel half-forgotten.
It turns out there are many patterns I vaguely remember seeing in the past but instead of feeling frustrated, I’m seeing this as a challenge and enjoying the discoveries along the way.
It feels new even though it’s not entirely.
It’s fun.
And that’s a good thing.
Self-kindness should have limits
I’ve gone back and forth on self-kindness.
On the one hand, it feels like we should be kind to ourselves since the world won’t always be kind to us. On the other hand, being too kind to ourselves can lead to a lazy life where procrastination overtakes everything.
I’ve had periods of my life when I absolutely hurt myself pushing through hurdles for a goal I wanted. One of those was my first full year of writing (2019) during which I had challenged myself to publish one article a day, despite having a full-time job, girlfriend, friends to see, and—you know—languages to study! It worked but ruined my relationship, made me an inconsistent employee and a rather bad friend, and prevented my languages from really progressing.
On the other hand, I’ve had times when I’ve tried to give myself all the kindness possible. The result? I spent most of my time gaming, wrote less, stopped meditating, and, again, saw friends less often.
Self-kindness is important but it’s important not to let it make us lazy.
When it comes to languages, I consider self-kindness as a crucial part of surviving moments of doubt and in particular the “intermediate plateau.”
Then, if we notice when self-kindness turns into procrastination, we can adapt and push ourselves just enough to start.
Starting is always the hardest part after all.
Next steps
In the last TTT (#4, about habit formation), I talked about making big changes. I originally planned for today’s TTT to be about just that but I’m still playing a bit with the quirks of my current “routine” so I’ll wait a bit more to dive into it.
The short version is:
I’ve become more proactive and I’m happy but there are still parts I need to work on.
And so, I plan on keeping on improving my Korean while reviewing/learning some grammar patterns.
I’m also 25 lessons into a German Assimil book, going back to things I’ve studied before but getting rid of the need to think about “what to do next.” It feels good.
Talking about German, I just saw an ad yesterday about Lingoda’s next sprint happening at the end of the month. If we do their Super Sprint (60 lessons in 60 days), we get a full refund so that’s an amazing deal. I’m not sure yet if I’ll do the Super Sprint but I’m considering doing the standard Sprint (30 lessons in 60 days for half refund).
I’ve heard great things about doing it so it could be a great opportunity!
Btw, I’m not sponsored by them or anything!
Well, that’s it for today so why not leave a comment to share your frustrating experiences with forgetting and how you handle them?
In the meantime, here are a few words I’m glad I learned recently:
Korean
간접흡연 = second-hand smoking
As in 세계 보건 지구의 발표에 의하면 간접흡연으로 매년 60만 명이 사망한다고 한다. (According to a WHO report, 600,000 people die annually from secondhand smoke.)
환율 = exchange rate
Quite surprised I didn’t know this one.
As in 최근 환율이 하락함으로 인해 해외로 나가는 사람들이 늘고 있다. (As a result of the recent decline in the exchange rate, the number of people going abroad is increasing.)
German
Ungefähr = roughly, approximately
As in “Ich brauche ungerfähr anderthalb Sunden” (I need about one hour and a half.)
Sonst = other, else, otherwise
As in “Nein, sonst wäre es keine Überraschung mehr.” (No, otherwise it wouldn’t be a surprise anymore.)
I’ve listened to it 3 times. It only felt alright when I set it to 1.5x speed or more. I highly recommend you do the same so you don’t have to endure this too long 😉
You’d be surprised how often this happens once you spend enough time learning languages… even when you’re not really that good and just stubborn instead.
Well, apart from very impactful experiences, and still, many studies have shown the memory we’ll keep will be distorted and get even more distorted with time.
I know, probably not the most useful expression in daily life but, hey, it pops up a lot in some Webtoons and probably in K-dramas too!
I’m 3 episodes away from the end of the of 내 남편과 결혼해줘 but I’ve already found two or three others to try. More on this later maybe?
Coincidence! I promise!
Two on Twitter though but that’s because there’s a pattern I already knew well and just got too lazy to tweet an example.