Retro Learns Korean: I read 50 Korean books in 2021

Last year I made a post called 'I read 61 Korean books in 2020' in which I covered which books I read, my thoughts on reading for language learning and what I was expecting would happen over the next year. Overall I am definitely impressed with what I've achieved and I will cover that later, as you may notice the quantity of books is slightly lower this year.

Year, books, highlighted words, characters(in 10 thousands)

Firstly, I'll comment on how my expectations from the previous post stacked up to how the year played out. Initally I started by saying I would resubscribe to ridiselect and read some fantasy novels written by 이영도, which I did to a degree.

I was expecting to spend much more time reading more of his works but I ended up just reading one 'universes' series and moved on to reading some 'book 1's of webnovels due to finding out that the fantasy series often go on sale for 50% off. This way I could find out more series that I wanted to read in the future and purchase them if they ever were on sale.

I also commented about how I believed I would come across more new words because I was soon to finish a long series. Well this was somewhat correct and there was a slight jump in new words after I had finished 바바리안 퀘스트, although I am quite surprised as this year has ended up with the amount of new words being quite small per book.

I'm yet to decide whether this is a good thing or not 'progressing' in the language is not as evident as the number of new words is much lower. However I am still getting exposure to tonnes of phrases and sentences continually every day. Hopefully this will eventually lead to Korean feeling completely natural.

There were a couple expectations that I completely had not just failed to meet but also had completely forgotten about. The amount of Korean I am watching and listening to has reduced drastically since I started full time employment in June. So my goal of being able to listen more and watch more subtitled content has completely fallen by the wayside.

I have been listening to music whenever I possibly can but I really need to force myself to watch something in lieu of listening to music before bed. I have much less motivation to sit and watch Korean shows than I had before starting work but I think it's partly down to being tired and having much more random thoughts in my head.

I mentioned that I had starting doing a bit of Italian reading and I have a bunch of Italian books to read. Like the listening and watching, it's very difficult for me to find time to fit in any reading in Italian. I mainly am able to complete my Korean reading on the commute to work and then if I have time just catch up on a few webtoon chapters.

Tracking sheet September 2021

I got to around half way through one of the titles 'Cuore' by De Amicis. While I didn't understand most of it, I was understanding bits and building some vocabulary. One day when I am likely much more comfortable to take days off with Korean I will be able to commit more time to Italian but I am in no rush.

Funnily enough my presumption was that; I would read 50 Korean books in 2021, which somehow I managed to guess exactly. I did expect however that I would read more translated classics which are available on ridiselect however I didn't actually get round to them despite planning some, because as I mentioned above, I ended up reading the webnovels.

What I read in 2021

So one of the biggest differences between 2020 and 2021 was the amount I read in terms of content, I was for the first 2-3 months reading at a similar pace as 2020, although I made up for this about half way through April, when I decided I would just read quicker. I managed to keep up the pace for a while until had started working.

Once I had started working I noticed it was much easier for me to get distracted as I had to be aware of my surrounding a bit more or I had people trying to talk to me on my break. Sometimes I would just start having thoughts interrupt so I would have to reread things or start a page over again cause I got lost.

I think sometime around August I decided to set a goal on how much I was willing to read. I was reading at a pace of around 12,500 characters and hour but I had started to take longer than 2 hours so I dropped it down to 10,000 characters and hour and I use that to decide how long it will take me to read books. My basic calculation is using the number of characters in the book(stated by ridibooks) divided by 20,000 (the number of characters I want to read in a day(approximately 2 hours worth) multiplied by 10,000 (because the number of characters comes a simplified factor of 10,000).

So to start the year I finished book 13 and 14 of 바바리안 퀘스트 which was overall a great story with great characters. I believe just prior to this there was a big hype in the Korean immersion community to read 나는 아직 살아있다, which has quite good reviews on Ridibooks. I had somehow got lucky and purchased it at 50% off and I ended up reading part 1.

It took around 2 months overall, I was a bit disappointed by my pace but I was busy helping fit a kitchen so I was finding it hard to find time to read. I thought the story started off well but becomes quite stale half way through. I'd like to just leave it where the first part ended so I haven't touched part 2 at all.

Books read in June/July

I finished off March by reading two book 1's of webnovels, one a highly rated fantasy webnovel and one a romance. I did this so that I could start April 1st with a brand new series 드래곤 라자 by 이영도, but also so that I could start my ridiselect subscription at the start of the month. It took me a while to read almost 3 months in total.

After I read 튜토리얼이 너무 어렵다 book 1 to finish off June and then continue on with the next set of books in the 드래곤 라자 universe, 퓨처 워커. This one only took a month and a bit as it was much smaller only 4 books instead of 8. I remember that I started work in the final week of June and was finding it harder to concentrate on reading in general so I slowed myself down.

After reading another webnovel book one that is soon to get a drama adaptation 제벌집 막내아들, I finished off the final book in the 드래곤 라자 universe 그림자 자국, which is set in the far future. After this up until October I was reading as many book 1's so that I could decide which series I wanted to read. The main downside of this was that some of them have blended together in my memory and I can't remember which one was good or what exactly happened.

October was filled with a series that was newly released but relatively cheap by the same author as a book I had read in March. Sadly I actually didn't think it was that good but I think it's because the author has a confusing way of progressing the story and it was easy for me to get lost. The best parts were the side stories that were placed throughout the series.

November was once again filled with webnovel book 1's and December has been finished off with a big series by likely the most famous female webnovelist 전민희. 세월의 돌 was written in the late 90's and like her other works is extremely highly rated. I am enjoying the story and I plan to read some of her other works although that may not happen until 2023, depending on sales.

Compared to 2020 I have read almost 2,300,000 more and highlighted 7,000 less words. The progress is extremely consistent and I mostly do enjoy reading the stories. I feel like I've read enough of the book 1's to have a plan of which series I would like to read all the way through. Some are extremely long and I fully realise it will take me many years to actually read all the good series.

If we calculate that I read 2 hours a day then we would come to the figure of 730 hours of just reading books. With a few hours or so of videogames and webtoons it's possible that the overall time reading could be closer to 900 but this post is just to highlight the books read.

Books read in October

Am I good at Korean?

The very humble answer from me is no. I don't feel 'good' or 'fluent' however I do feel more comfortable and I come across less new words. I understand more when listening than I did previously, I think everything is just better because I know more words. One of my biggest issues is just a general lack of output. Not that it's causing me issues but that it's hard to judge my level in any meaningful way because I find it hard to actually find the want or time to do it often.

I think I am at the point where I need to be listening much more. I'm still trying to get to the point where the language feels extremly comfortable but I would say after around 3 years and 2 months of learning Korean through immersion I am still just 'somewhat' comfortable with Korean. In other words I can still feel the gap. I still don't have instant understanding of everything I hear or read. The pace in which I improve is very incrementally small but I still enjoy reading the stories.

My main motivation for continuing is actually just to experience things I would not be able to in English, while still learning/ maintaining the language. I feel like I'm at the point where I would definitely benefit from a visit to Korea just to build up my confidence to output more often. I don't think I am (or will ever be) satisfied with my korean level and I think that's a good thing as it means I am much less likely to stop.

For the past few months to commemorate me hitting 3 years, I have been meaning to record myself reading, as a form of progress update but I just haven't found the time to get round to recording it. It would not take that long but I put a lot of pressure on myself to finish all the activities I want to in Korean, write articles and spend time with friends and family.

If I were to lose my job I think I would get into webtoon translations and see where it can take me. I would definitely like to be able to feel like the skill has benefited my life in some tangible way. As it stands it's merely just a hobby for me to not feel like I'm just wasting my life on videogames and other such activies.

Fire Emblem: three houses screenshot

What's next for 2022?

I have somewhat planned out which books I am going to read over the next year which leaves me with finishing 세월의 돌 and reading 3 other webnovel series, one of which I have been reading the webtoon that started this year. All of this should take me up to September, so I guess I will have to see if any series go on sale throughout the year.

I don't have any crazy plans this time, I am just expecting to read a somewhat similar amount of books, most likely more because they are shorter, and a somewhat similar amount of characters. I am however expecting the words to fall a little bit more but I can imagine most will be in the 20-40 words range and not really drop below that. There are always words I have not seen for a while showing up or just new words in general.

I hope I can find the time to finish all the sitcoms I have lined up as there is literally thousands of hours waiting. I will try to make it so that I force myself to atleast watch 1 episode a day. I really need to get more input from the spoken language. I could also do with listening to more podcasts at work instead of music but the app had starting shutting off after 5 minutes of use stopping me from actually doing it.

This year will mostly be reading webnovels and maybe try to add another 이영도 series to finish off with. If you would like to keep up with what I'm reading you can check the webnovels page or my profile on 소설넷.

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1 comment:

Seoul Mate2 February 2022 at 10:04
Hi Retro,

I have been following your blog and YT channel for quite some time and really admire your dedication to Korean. I have been learning the language for a few years myself and now focus on immersion, especially reading.

When you read, do you save your unknown words in Anki or do you just check the definition and hope to remember it next time?

Many thanks and good luck with your studies.

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