#am i legit attempting to write in past tense for the first time in 3 years? yes absolutely

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this is turning out way longer than planned (like every other fic TwT) so have just a snippet instead

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Language learning (Korean)

I have been in Korea for 6 months. I was attending a Korean language institute under a scholarship programme and attempted the TOPIK exam for the very first time in January (68th TOPIK exam). In this post, I will list some books which I’ve found helpful and some methods that worked well for me throughout my time learning the Korean language. However, this post is really intended for recording the exam prep process before TOPIK. 

According to many Korean language teachers and other students who have done the TOPIK exam before, the January exam - which only takes place within South Korea - is the easiest exam. I have no idea how that works and I am not sure how true that is. I’ve done past year papers too and it didn’t feel significantly easier to me but I suppose that is just a personal thing. I lacked the self-confidence and was pretty sure I’d only score a level 3 or 4. 

To my surprise, I actually scored a level 6 albeit I only made past the mark by 3 points. I am not writing this so that I can brag about it because I do not think that I am at a native speaker level and mind you, the level 6 benchmark states that a level 6 fluency does not equate to native speaker level. I am writing this post simply to keep an actual record and share this (in case it is helpful to anyone studying the language - any language). 

Plenty of people say that I have an advantage for being fluent in both Mandarin and English. I must say that it helps because there are many loanwords in the Korean language which are basically English written in hangul. Simple example: 아이디어 = idea. The Korean language also has its foundations rooted in Hanja (or Hanzi) which is the Chinese character. I would not say it is exactly the same as modern Chinese language has changed drastically but it does help to know Hanja to some extent. I do not think it will severely impede your Korean language learning process even if you do not know Hanja well. 

 Due to some personal reasons, I could not fully focus on exam preparations until the final 1-2 weeks right before the exam. I’ve found several books to be extremely helpful, which I will list below (with its book cover). And I will also mention methods that worked for me. 

Before coming to Korea, I’ve never attended any classes or tutoring sessions. My entire experience of learning the language consisted of self-taught processes that included a lot of TV-watching and some consistent grammar workbook practices that helped lay down the groundwork. I must warn you that I struggled a lot with many fundamental grammatical mistakes that the teachers frowned upon because I made those mistakes unknowingly and no one was there to correct me before they solidified. 

1. QUICK FIX FOR COMMON GRAMMAR MISTAKES

As mentioned, fundamental grammatical mistakes can severely impact your exam as it might make an impression that your understanding of the Korean language is weak. At least that was the opinion. I had about 2 weeks to fix that and this book helped tremendously. Would have been better if I had actually attempted to find this book earlier before. It’s a copy worth keeping as it has very intricate explanations that helps distinguish the grammatical forms that you might find confusing. You do not necessarily have to work through the book in chronological order. I certainly did not have the luxury of time to do that. I would like to believe that I managed to fix some serious flaws I had made far too often. 

And I must admit that I did not even know certain differences between present and past tenses because they sound exactly the same to my ears. As I’ve mentioned briefly, I learned mostly by watching TV. (I’m really talking about those 은/는). It was a real mess, my basics. If you need an emergency quick fix for the same problem, you will need this. 

2. TOPIK WRITING (#53 AND #54)

TOPIK writing is perhaps one of the most daunting section in the entire exam. Needless to say, practice is essential to improving writing skills in any language. Most TOPIK books are slightly lacking in this sense, at least to my personal preference. They have lists of terms that are useful for vocabulary building that would be useful for the reading and listening section but it might not be sufficient for the writing section where commonly used phrases might be more useful. 

(*this is really a personal opinion because I did not like any of the word lists in several TOPIK books I’ve looked at. However, it doesn’t mean I’ve actually worked through several copies of TOPIK books before the exam. It might be just equally useful and what I did might have just been overkill.) 

This book, apparently, is designed to help non-Korean speakers improve their writing skills in university settings, i.e. writing reports or essays as a university student in a Korean university. Coincidentally, the chapters are neatly divided into several topics/formats that will be useful for TOPIK prep. E.g. describing a graph or a set of data, etc. This is mainly for question 53. As for question 54, the possible selection of subject for a 700-word essay is vast. It can range from very subjective questions like what a person (or people in general) thinks of happiness to how does regret impact a person, etc. The purpose of this essay is not to hear your personal opinion although it would still be your opinion. What you are expected is to map out a general essay in relation to the subject matter and you must do so logically. Rather than, “I personally think that I would...” it is more of an essay stating “The purpose of A is XYZ. However, it can also be 123.” You can probably discuss alternatives and several concepts but your very own opinion can only be reserved as a small portion of the essay. You may choose to include it by tucking it somewhere in the conclusion of your essay. Again, I take no credit for this tip. I’ve heard this from various sources although none is verified as proven. It did work for me, I suppose. 

3. WATCH TV WITH PURPOSE 

This method makes up the bulk of my Korean language learning process. However, I did not just watch TV without putting in a little effort at times. I do not have a pen and paper with me every single time I watch TV but I do it from time to time. I’ve begun doing this since approximately 5-7 years ago where I take out a notebook and jot down terms or phrases I hear while watching TV and then look them up in the dictionary. I did this while preparing for the exam too specifically by watching the news or talk shows on economic/social issues. Those that discuss policies and politics will help too. I haven’t necessarily seen the questions to be impossibly difficult to the point where you’re expected to know highly specific terms although I would say confidently that knowing those terms could score you some points. 

It sounds nerdy and might even sound like a chore to some but it definitely helps when learning words from textbooks or word lists are out of context and far more tedious. This method applies in watching almost all genres of dramas, variety shows and talk shows + news programmes. I wouldn’t say that I’d remember every word I’ve written down somewhere in my notebook but it’s a far more active method. 

This method is called “immersion” (click on this link for a more detailed explanation) and here, I’m specifically laying down a detailed method of how I made it work for me and how it has helped me. The same works for songs by looking at the lyrics (in Korean) and picking up terms, words or phrases. It is always best to look up in the dictionary because you do not want to make common mistakes or write down slangs in your exams. There are also certain common mistakes Koreans make and it may be common enough to be understandable by all Koreans however, you might still lose some marks for not learning the language in its proper form. One major downside to this method is most certainly the main aspect in Korean language where there can be major differences between the written (문어) and oral form (구어). Certain types of grammars are specifically used in oral forms and would be an indication of your lack of formal learning. Thus, here I must say, this method cannot be relied on entirely. It should be complimented with some process of formal learning through books and perhaps online lectures. Or even make a simple search of the grammar form in question. 

4. ESSENTIAL RESOURCES FROM VERY LEGIT SOURCES 

The National Institute for Korean Language has a very holistic website which students of Korean language education and Korean language teachers use very often. I took this tip from them. 

국립국어원 - where it has almost everything. This is the main site. 

And more specifically, 

한국어교수학습샘터 where you will have sections on grammar, common expressions, conjugation, etc. 

Although these are all in Korean, they are useful to a great extent and especially for higher level learners. There are also many instances where higher level learners become confused with basic level grammar. These are resources that will be valuable for fixing those problems too (as it was for me). For a rogue learner like me, you might face similar problems (or not) and these were all various methods I’ve found useful for learning and fixing repeated mistakes. 

________________________________________________________

I hope this helps. I’m not sure if it’s significantly different from other language learners but these are things that worked for me. I’ve always wanted to make a written record of my learning methods and this is it. At the same time, I hope it will prove useful to someone who might be preparing for the exam. 

[catladybookclub-blog]

NaNoWriMo 2017: I DID IT!!!

Your girl has disappeared, but I'm back!  My absence isn't due to a lack of great books...in fact, I hit 100 books on my annual reading list just before November rolled around, which is nuts to me, because this is probably my fourth time attempting to read 100 books in a year's time.  Usually I peter out around 70 books, so it feels great to finally break into 3 digit numbers!

And of all years to hit 100, I honestly never would have guessed 2017 would be the one.  My year started out pretty rocky and continued on in similar fashion.  Since January, my dad's suffered a stroke and gone through a major heart surgery, I lost the job I had for almost three years and had to scramble to pick up those pieces, my husband and I moved and most likely will be moving again within the next couple of months, we struggled financially more than ever, and needless to say, the combo of those things wreaked havoc on my mental health at times.  Not to mention, every day the news and social media is rife with so much garbage that makes me want to tear my face off.  There are so many days when I'd rather just hide under my covers with all the cats, pretending I'm a cat, too.

I hit 100 books around Halloween, and am currently sitting at a happy 108 on my Goodreads tracker.  I have a few more books on my list, but then I plan to write a 2017 wrap-up blog post detailing all my favorites...and I promise it'll be posted before 2018!  Swear!

But I digress.

Today I actually wanted to follow up on a project I last wrote about here, which is the beast that was #NaNoWriMo2017.  That's right, I attempted writing a novel for the first time ever.

To recap, nanowrimo.org is a website/community of writers striving to write 50,000 words during the month of November every year.  I learned about Nano from watching people like John Green and Kristina Horner on YouTube, then decided around this time last year that I'd attempt Nano in 2017.  I started to prep early, nailing down a plot to work on sometime over the summer.  By August, I started my storyboards, character development, and initial outlines.  I re-read Stephen King's On Writing for like the zillionth time along with a handful of other instructional books.  I participated on Nanowrimo's amazing forums, meeting and interacting with other writers for the first time since I was a student.

And also?  I was scared shitless.  

My entire life, I've been a writer, but these blog posts are honestly the longest pieces I'd ever written up until November.  In high school, I wrote for the school newspaper and was obsessed with becoming the next Sylvia Plath, sharing my poetry at student workshops and such, but that was kinda where it started and ended.  I'd tell myself and everyone else that as much as I'd love to write a whole book, I just couldn't imagine being so disciplined to get through anything longer than a couple pages.  I'm that person that can edit one little ten line poem three hundred times before I'm happy with it, so the thought of slogging through an entire novel edit was a scary and exhausting thought.

Despite my pessimism, I still wanted to try my hand at Nanowrimo.  I figured that even if a novel wasn't born at the end of November, maybe I could at least kickstart my writing habits by forcing myself to write every day.  So I went for it, and I'm here to tell you a bit about my experience.

Remember the little black and white bookshelf I shared here in October, that I wanted to color in each day to represent how many words I wrote?  Here’s what it looks like today...

With the exception of one night of sheer laziness and another in excruciating migraine pain, I wrote every single day in November, averaging about 2000 words/day.  My grand total was just under 60k and guess what else?  Somewhere, buried beneath poorly constructed dialogue, a slew of awkward teenage characters, and a million fictional diary entries, is my first YA novel.

I did it!!!  

What they say about first drafts, and about writing in general, is true.  No first draft will be perfect, or even good...and that's okay.  It's all about putting one word on paper, and following it with more words.  Some of it will make sense and some of it will be utter gobbledygook.  What's important is that you're writing.  The juices are flowing, neurons are firing, and habits are being formed.

God knows my first draft is pretty awful.  I wrote lots of trash that won't exist (hopefully) in the final draft.  I wrote out of order, in different tenses, from different characters' points of view, not knowing where any of it would land.  TBH, I'm still not 100% sure what the finished product will be, but that's not the point.  What matters is the fact that I have a gold mine of material to shape, mine, and sort through during the editing process.  I've fallen so in love with my characters, and in the midst of all the garbage, there are little gems already surfacing--scenes I wrote that legit made me swoon as I wrote them.  I got actual butterflies writing a particular scene with my book's OTP.  I dreamt about another important scene on multiple occasions, coming up with unconscious edits and changes.  There were times that my characters felt so alive, it was like they were directing me through the story rather than the reverse.  And that's honestly kinda magical.

So at the end of the day, the process was more valuable than I could have ever imagined.  I guess in a weird way it seals my belief that reading and writing are part of me, in my DNA just as deep as blood and bones and guts.  During one of the shittiest years of my life, the reading and writing--and the goals I set for myself regarding each--didn't serve as another set of obstacles to survive.  They served as my lifelines, my rewards for making it through another day, and much-needed therapy, time and again.

I'm not a horn-tooter, but I'll make the exception here, because I just accomplished a goal probably 25 years in the making.  I learned a ton, improved my writing habits, and was able to set a bunch of new goals.  I'm even considering doing a bit of vlogging next year during November just to share my organization methods and prep ideas, plus to keep a daily account of how the project is moving along.  I kept a journal for my first Nano attempt, but got so addicted to watching Nano vlogs on YouTube, I've been toying with filming (at least parts of) my experience next year.  

Anywho.  That's another thought for another time.  I'll end things here, but thanks so much for reading and make sure to follow this blog if you enjoy my content.  I'll be posting my 2017 reading wrap up very soon, and I can't wait to share all my favorite discoveries from the past 365 days!

[recentanimenews]

FEATURE: "Mass Effect: Andromeda" Review

Before we begin, fair warning: I am a massive, unapologetically biased Mass Effect fanboy. It's easily my favorite new game franchise in a long while, and I've spent more time playing and replaying the original trilogy than I care to admit. I have very strong opinions on its world, its story (I legit liked ME3's ending, but I'll discuss that in the comments), and had very high expectations for Mass Effect: Andromeda, the newest chapter in BioWare's space opera RPG. Were those expectations met? Well... yes and no. Let's start from the top:

    Sometime during the events of Mass Effect 2, four massive ark ships, each carrying 50,000 individuals from representative races of our galaxy, departs for the distant Andromeda Galaxy, 2.5 million light years away. 600 years pass, and the crew of the human ark Hyperion reaches Andromeda, and things go immediately wrong. The promised "garden world" humanity was supposed to colonize is an uninhabitable hellscape, the first aliens they meet say hello with gunfire, and nobody has any clue where the turian, salarian, or asari arks are. From here, it's up to you, the human Pathfinder, to make things right.

    Instead of the entire Milky Way Galaxy from the previous games, Andromeda focuses on one section, the Heleus Cluster, and two new races: the vicious, militaristic kett and the family-oriented angara, who've been stuck fighting the kett for longer than they can remember. Like past games, there are plenty of political entanglements to navigate, like rogue angara who (thanks to the kett) distrust all aliens, humans who want to say "screw the rules" go all Mad Max in this new galaxy, and of course, all the racial tensions from the Milky Way rearing their ugly heads all over again. It's smaller, but feels more intimate--I did miss how special humanity wasn't in the original Mass Effect and getting to learn about all these new, different races, but appreciated how Andromeda very specifically focused on handling the conflict between the angara and the kett.

    Putting things bluntly, much of your time in Andromeda is going to be spent doing the same things you did in the previous trilogy: negotiate tense situations, survive double and triple crosses, take sides in a gang war, and help your nakama crew with their personal quests. Between all the big choices and the main quest of finding new homes for 200,000 displaced Milky Way immigrants, there are plenty of smaller, personal errands to take on: get a movie night together for your ship, find the perfect ingredients to create booze, help a particularly doofy colonist find a career path (and not get killed in the process), and of course, try to hook up with everyone that gives you the dialogue option. It's a Mass Effect game, and it's all familiar to a point. It's not all dead-serious survival stress, though, and I really appreciate Andromeda's lighter, more adventurous tone.

    As opposed to the huge, sprawling cast we'd grown fond of (to varying degrees) over the initial trilogy, Andromeda starts small, with six squad members and a handful of crewmembers on your new ship, the Tempest. You've got your standard pair of human starting partners, like "I'm really not mad at you, I promise" Cora Harper and "I keep forgetting where I left my shirt" Liam Costa, a grizzled old krogan, a very business-first turian, and an asari Zooey Deschanel. The most interesting new face is Jaal, a member of the new angara race, and getting to know this new alien species on a personal level and earning his trust really adds to the feeling of being a total stranger in this galaxy. Rather than being tied down by "Paragon" or "Renegade" options and limiting responses based on your level, you can choose between Professional, Casual, Emotional, or Logical responses (with the occasional "Impulsive" interrupt) to determine your character's reputation, and a very clear Romantic option during dialogue whenever you feel the need to hit on Space Antonio Banderas Reyes.

    The biggest changes come on the other side of the action-RPG coin: the combat. As mentioned in my preview a few weeks back, combat is faster, more streamlined, and expects you to be faster on the draw and smarter with your ability use. Enemy AI isn't the smartest, but the fact that they hit harder and always, always have the numbers advantage make you want to end fights as quickly as possible. Instead of being locked into one class like Soldier or Vanguard for the entire game, you're encouraged to have a mixture of combat, biotic, and tech abilities, and switch classes ("Profiles") as needed for your playstyle or different situations. I ended up favoring the Explorer Profile, which is a perfect balance between the three, and provides strong bonuses across the board, but dedicated individual skillsets like Engineer and Adept gave huge bonuses to specific biotic or tech loadouts. You're given full freedom to build your character's abilities the way you want, and with no level cap (and the usual medbay respec option), you don't have to stress over being stuck with upgrades that aren't working out.

    That freedom extends to item creation as well--the sheer amount of junk you collect can seem daunting, but the game's crafting system will cause you to burn through it pretty quickly to create new, better weapons. If you spent a lot of time playing Mass Effect 3's multiplayer, you'll be right at home putting together your kit, weapons, armor, vehicle and all--I'm a big fan of the new melee weapons, like the asari and kett swords. Building planets' livability also allows you to customize what bonuses you get, like regular credit and resource packages, as well as upgrading your APEX strike team.

    Feeling a lot like Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker's Extra Ops, your APEX teams can be called in to take care of side missions while you're playing the main story. Teams have different perks affecting their chances of mission success, and completing these missions earns you more credits, resources, and occasional weapon and armor drops. Some missions can also be played by you, and that's where Andromeda's addicting multiplayer mode comes in. Just like Mass Effect 3, you'll work together with other players and hold off waves of enemies, but this time you won't need to touch multiplayer to finish the main story (but you'll be missing out-it's fun). While there are a few missing classes (sadly, no more volus adepts), I was able to unlock a few more good ones after only playing a few matches--I'll be coming back pretty regularly to Andromeda's multiplayer just for how damn fun it is to run people over with a krogan.

    But even with all the cool new stuff, there's a lot of problems with Andromeda, and not all of them can be fixed with a day-one patch. Character animations are unsteady and jittery, with characters popping into movements or just twitching for no reason during cutscenes. At one point, my Ryder was flirting with Cora, and his head started slowly turning 180 degrees before immediately snapping back to normal, just like I do when talking to women in real life. In a few instances, enemies got stuck in level architecture, completely catching me by surprise when a door started shooting at me. Other enemies wouldn't even respond, just standing in an idle animation while I ran up and punched them repeatedly. In one particularly infuriating issue, a quest update wouldn't trigger, but showed the next step available. When I finished that step, the last one still showed, and blocked me from further progress in the quest.

    Andromeda's issues run deeper than just technical screwups. While the overall story is cool, moment-to-moment writing can run from bland to trying-too-hard-to-be-Joss-Whedon dumb. Some characters will constantly speak like they're trying to be the coolest person in the room (hi Liam), and when dealing with more minor technical flaws like characters not even looking at the people they're talking to (just in their general direction), it can really break that feeling of immersion. Back on the characters, there are a few truly tone-deaf attempts to be inclusive and show a better future--the intent is there, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired. The new, villainous kett--and their dickhead leader the Archon--are more annoying than threatening until the game's halfway point, but I can't stop thinking of the Archon as Sarris from Galaxy Quest.

  "YOOOOOU AAAAARE OOOOOUR LAST HOPE"

  Even with all that, though, I can't say I had a bad time with Andromeda--at all, really. It's funny how the game's launch kind of parallels the game's story: after a long wait, we're finally here, and nothing's the way it should be. Everything's going wrong, it's not quite matching up to how we expected, and there are a lot of good reasons to be pissed off. Thankfully, sticking with it doesn't just open the door to a rich, fantastic adventure. Mass Effect: Andromeda brings us new friends, new memories, and--most importantly--a new home.

  REVIEW ROUNDUP

+ Brings you right back to that familiar Mass Effect sweet spot between in-depth roleplay and satisfying action

+ Lots to do across a half-dozen hub worlds and your ship, that never feels like busywork or filler

+ Aims for a lighter tone and mostly succeeds, making its emotional moments stand out more clearly

+ Faster, more intense combat is a step up from previous games

+ "Tone Wheel" adds more flexibility and better roleplay options compared to binary "Paragon/Renegade" responses

+ Fun, addicting multiplayer is also 100% separate from the story mode

+/- Lighter tone does come with some less-than-hilarious attempts at humor and quirkiness, but your mileage may vary

- Constant technical glitches and errors, likely due to me playing a pre-release build, but I'm surprised it's this broken

- Inconsistent UX decisions: why can I equip something from a chest, but not from my inventory?

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com