Journal: Back in the Saddle

I've been really self-conscious about getting back into learning Korean. It's scary to think I may have lost a lot of my proficiency via my momentum break, but there's no version of being afraid that'll alleviate that and so I'm pressing on. 

Today my goal is to get reacquainted, revisit some old lessons and see how I feel. Let's try it. (7:00am)

Constructions
 저눈 한극 사람입니다 - I am Korean
여자아이 - girl (woman child)
그 남자는 중극 사람입니다 - That man is Chinese
사람은 한극 사람입니다 - That person is Korean

Vocab
한극 - Korean (person)
미극 - American (person)
중극 - Chinese (person)
사람 - person
남자 - man 
여자 - woman
아이 - child
사람 - family?
이 - this
그 - that
저 - that..over there

Particles
은/는 -  introduce noun/pronoun as the topic of a sentence, show emphasis, show contrast | use eun if the preceding noun ends in a consonant, else use neun

Journal Notes
7:25am - I'm feeling surprised that relearning is relatively easy and that my mouth has retained a lot of the shapes and my brain has retained a lot of how to read 한글, though it is taking some reacclimating to bring it all back to the foreground. This is good, though! This feels good. It's going to be slower than I liked, but faster than I feared.  

7:32am - Okay, I think I'm going to call it here. That was two units of structure I just went over and it isn't fast, but it does represent five individual lessons. I think half an hour a day is a good pace to relearn. I might reduce it once I get back up to speed, maybe focus on retention? I'm not sure. I know people have complained about Lingodeer because they say, "at a certain point I spend a lot of time practicing vocab rather than learning new things." But I think that's probably a matter of not using the language? Whereas I have plenty of places to employ it in my daily life and I'm just trying to make up ground and then make a lot more to get to the place I can use it more regularly. 

Notes: Hangul and Numbers

 한글
ㄱ - (기역) Light "g" or "k," even lighter at the end
ㄴ - (니은) "n" sound
ㄷ - (디귿) light "d" or "t" sound
ㄹ - (리을) light "l" or rolling "r"
ㅁ - (미음) "m" sound
ㅂ - (비읍) light "b" or "p," lighter at the end
ㅅ - (시읏) light "s," "sh" before I and Y vowels
ㅇ - (이응) silent or "ng"
ㅈ - (지읒) light "j" between vowels, "ch" at the beginning
ㅊ - (치읓) "cha"
ㅎ - (히읗) "h" sound
ㅋ - (키읔) aspirated ㄱ, always "k" sound
ㅌ - (티읕) aspirated ㄷ, always "t" sound
ㅍ - (피읖) aspirated ㅂ, always "p" sound
ㅏ - "a" sound 
ㅓ - "ea" O shape, A in Awe
ㅗ - "o"
ㅜ - "oo"
ㅡ - "eu" short u, back of mouth
ㅐ - "ae" rising inflection (toDAY)
ㅔ - "eh" flat inflection (meh)

bold letters make a soft "th" at the end of syllables

Note: ㅈ,ㅊ, and ㅅ have alternate depictions in handwriting to make writing them easier

These are the same strokes, but arranged in a pattern that requires less precision (i.e. the strokes that form the upside down v shape needn't meet precisely at the point of intersection, but rather near the center of the stroke. I am unclear if the precision bit is intentional, though I recognize this as a side effect that makes their formation easier to recognize/comprehend)

Journal Note: In general, the handwriting of letters is a less rigid interpretation as far as I can tell. That isn't to say the handwriting I've seen is messy or anything of the like, but rather I wonder, if I were to write as all of these guides tell me, my handwriting might appear more computerized/printed/digital than fluent writers. At any rate, writing is far from my primary concern here, hence my shift to a digital space being a viable alternative. 

Native Numbers - Usage: Counting Things (Exceptions: Months, Time)
1 하나
2 둘
3 셋
4 넷
5 다섯
6 여섯
7 일곱
8 여덟
9 아홉
10 열
20 스물 
30 서른
40 머흔
50 쇤
60 예순
70 일흔
80 여든
90 아흔

Combining: You simply account for the tens place name (ten, thirty, etc) then append the 1's place (twenty-ONE)

Examples:
15 - 열다섯
21 - 스물하나
53 - 쉰셋
79 - 일흔어흔

Special Rules: 1-4 and 20 change forms when counting 
1 한
2 두
3 세
4 네
20 스무

Sino-Korean Numbers, Usage: date, days, years, months, money, phone numbers
1 일
2 이
3 삼
4 사
5 오
6 육
7 필
8 팔
9 수
10 십
0 영
100 백
1,000 펀
10,000 만
100,000,000 억

Examples: 
20 - 이십 (2 10s)
21 - 이십일 (2 10s + 1)
100,000 - 십만 10 10,000s
1,000,000 - 백만 100 10,000s

Note: 10,000 is a defined constant in the same way that 10, 100, and 1,000 are. So is 100,000,000, which seems like a high constant, though theories suggest that this is common because it's the unit most applicable when buying housing. 

Journal Note: This took about an hour to transcribe off of my handwritten notes, but it was a great opportunity to refamiliarize myself with this material. A large part of this was double checking pronunciation and spelling since my handwriting is a little messy and also I needed to relearn the logic behind it all. I think this was fairly comprehensive! Now I have something to refer to easily when I need to practice.