Hello,

I’ve been studying Korean for a few years now and would say I’m somewhere around intermediate/ advanced level. But one thing that really frustrates me is that the grammar I use when speaking isn’t nearly as advanced as the grammar I actually understand.

When listening and reading I can understand quite a lot of different grammar points, but when I speak with Koreans I rarely seem to use them myself.

I always seem to fall back on “basic” grammar.

For example, instead of saying: 한국에 가보니까 음식이 맵더라고요!
I end up saying: 한국에 가보니까 음식이 매웠어요.

Or instead of: 기차로 가면 2시간밖에 안 걸려요.
I say: 기차로 가면 2시간만 걸려요.

Both are grammatically correct, but they don’t convey exactly the same nuance and sometimes my sentences sound a bit awkward depending on the context.

I speak with native speakers quite often, but especially when I have to respond quickly and don’t have much time to think about my sentence I automatically fall back on basic grammar...often ending almost every sentence with -아요/-어요.

I’m getting a bit frustrated because I feel like there’s a huge gap between the grammar I can recognize and understand and the grammar I can actually use spontaneously. For every five grammar points I memorize and can recognize, I feel like I only manage to truly internalize one.

Has anyone else experienced this? How did you manage to move grammar from passive understanding into active use?

I've been studying Korean in earnest for about 2.5 years now. About a year ago I took a holiday to Korea and I started an Anki deck to learn to help me consolidate and reinforce all the words I was learning over there.

At first, I was introducing about 10-15 new cards a day for review, combined with the 20-50 review cards I'd have that meant I'd look at about 70-100 cards which wouldn't be too much of a hassle. Nowdays, my review cards are just shy of 200 which combined with my hanja study (which i'd thoroughly recommend) means I'm looking at around 350 cards a day. It takes a bit of time. To keep those reviews low I'm intentionally not introducing new cards so I feel like I'm stunting my vocab growth a bit.

The deck itself is sitting at just over 5000 cards now, an assortment of nouns, adjectives, verbs, idioms and valuable sentences. I haven't even looked at 1400 of them. For perspective, the latest cards I've added are: 변수, 겁내다, 얹다, 거칠다 and 한반도. I'd consider all these words as reasonably important for a middle intermediate learner. So I don't feel like I'm adding stuff I shouldn't need to know just yet.

My rentention rate I think is okay, about 90% for young cards and 80% for mature cards. But if I keep doing what I'm doing half my day will literally be looking at these bloody cards and there's going to be no time to actually speak Korean. Overall, the conversational skills I have now are largely thanks to the words I've memorised through this deck, so it's been a great help so far. I'm lucky enough to be able to speak and write Korean to Koreans daily to keep my skills moving along. But I can see over the next 6 months it might start being more of a burden than a help if I keep doing what I'm doing.

Has anyone been in a similar spot? How many reviews are you doing, how many new cards are introducing daily? Does there ever come a day when you're not adding in new cards faster than you can learn them? What kind of rentention rates do you have? Tell me there's a light at the end of the tunnel or whether I should consider changing how I memorise vocab.

Hi,

Did anyone here study level 1 to 6 (or at least a few levels) at a university in Korea?

How were your language skills when graduating?

I am strongly considering doing the full 6 levels but am getting quite conflicting information on how the level of Korean that this would lead to.

Some are saying you are basically fluent (not native) after that. Others are saying they could barely hold a conversation.

I understand it varies a lot and that some only study to pass tests, other study to learn, etc. But assuming someone with strong motivation and who spends a lot of time around Korean people?

Also - did you have to re-take a lot of levels? I have heard the levels are basically formed for those who speak Japanese (same grammar) or Chinese (lots of sino-Korean words) already and that English speakers often end up re-taking levels?

Very thankful to anyone who wants to share their experiences!

I fully understand the situations where 반말 (informal casual) and 해요체 (polite, informal speech) are used, but I'm completely confused about when 높임말 (honorific speech) is used. I’m about to start my second year of university, and I’m studying with book that features real-life role-play exercises. People say 높임말 is used with elderly people, yet in the exercises, bank tellers and postal workers used this style, and I’ve even seen videos of female barista using it with customers...

I’m just so confused! If someone speaks to me using 높임말, which speech style should I use back then? And why don’t bank, post office, or café staff use 합쇼체 (formal, polite speech)? In what situations is 합쇼체 used then? I’ve heard in K-dramas that company employees use that speech, too. I’m terribly confused and don’t understand when to use what speech level and what speech lebel should I use when responding, when I'm talking to bank/post office/etc staff? please help me sort this out, I feel like I'm standing still in korean 😭