Thank you for being here! If you are a free subscriber and enjoy this newsletter, I would be grateful if you would consider a paid subscription to support my creative work.
When Jon and I decided to move to Canada together for my Ph.D. program, we agreed on a three-year stint, after which point we would move wherever Jon wanted to go next. Three years is an aggressive, optimistic pace for a Ph.D., but it felt possible given that I was coming in with a Master’s, which my university accepted in full. It also felt like a lot to have Jon put his plans on hold for more than that.
I might have finished in three years, but a well-intentioned research assistant accidentally deleted an entire experiment’s worth of my work and I needed to redo that final experiment to complete the arc of my dissertation. As we approached the three-year mark, I was in an ideal position to negotiate. I had applied for and earned a predoctoral fellowship from the National Institutes of Health during my first year, so I was self-funded. I also was done with all of my coursework and the onerous comprehensive exam, so I was A.B.D. (all but dissertation). I proposed that I would move and work on my dissertation remotely, and travel back to Canada every 4 to 6 weeks to do real-time meetings with my advisor.
My advisor was not thrilled about this arrangement; after all, graduate students often do a lot more than just their own research. They serve as teaching assistants in undergraduate classes, work as lab managers, sit on committees, and contribute to the morale of the department. I would be stepping away from all of the ways I could add value to the department. But Jon and I were married by this point, I was unwilling to do long distance, and it didn’t even cross my mind to not stay true to our agreement. And so, we moved just outside of Washington, D.C. while Jon started graduate school.
I am certain that being free of the aforementioned departmental distractions helped me finish my degree in four years—I have seen firsthand that the process can otherwise drag on for many years. On the other hand, writing a dissertation all day is boring as hell. So, I got access to and swam laps in the incredible University of Maryland pool. I also predicted the future of remote hobbies and learned to bake a shitload of bread. And one of the best things I did was take lessons at the Korean Embassy in D.C.
This class only met once a week but between the in-person classes and homework, the progress was incredible. In just a few months I was able to have simple conversations with, and write letters to, my parents. My dad wasn’t as facile with English as my mom, so it was really wonderful to be able to communicate with him in Korean.
After Jon finished his degree, we moved back to Boston. Life got busy as I started my postdoctoral fellowship and then became a mom. I stopped practicing Korean and pretty much everything I learned fell out of my brain. It wasn’t until last year, when I was in the presence of my mom chatting with Korean friends, that I felt longing and perhaps a dose of self-loathing. I could hear familiar words popping out from their dialog here and there, but I couldn’t understand anything they said. I couldn’t even remember how to say, “Nice to meet you” or “Thank you for visiting my mom.”
When I got home after that visit, I did a quick scan of free Korean language learning apps and started Duolingo. I recently crossed the one-year streak mark and could barely speak or understand Korean.
Obviously, these learning situations are not equivalent. I was devoting about 5 minutes (1 lesson) a day to Duolingo, and an app is no match for in-person conversations. And while I do think the app helped with vocabulary and tuning my ear to the language in general, being presented one-off—sometimes nonsensical—sentences or phrases to speak, read, or listen to with no education on grammatical structure and no broader context is clearly not effective for me.
This experience has been humbling. I often think of my mom, who was born in Japan and thus needed to learn Korean when her family returned to Korea, and then English when she moved to the United States. And in my moments of frustration, I have reminded myself of how many times I have thought—from the parent lens—about the importance of encouraging kids to experience frustration, stretch, problem solve, stick with it, and then move to the other side of frustration to doing something.
About six months ago, knowing then that I wasn’t progressing much with Duolingo, I looked at the library catalog for Korean children’s books and came up empty. Just the other week—as I dwelled in the frustration and problem-solving mode—I looked again and found options! I was shooting in the dark as I put books on hold since the listings did not include much detail and many of the titles online featured the same generic blue cover, but when I received the five books I ordered through the hold system, it was a good reminder to stay humble. Here was the process of winnowing.
Book #1 (blue, bottom right)
Based on the familiarity of the name, I thought ordering a Korean version of The Little Prince would be a charming idea. When the book arrived, I felt optimistic as it is a tiny board book. That said, the book is entirely in Korean, which means I would need to go back and forth between the book and a dictionary for the entire story, which I knew was a step too far beyond my frustration tolerance.
Book #2 (far right)
Given that I couldn’t read the tiny Little Prince board book, the denser book of folktales entirely in Korean was also deemed impossible.
Book #3 (bottom middle)
I felt hopeful when I saw the skinny little early reader book that reminded me of the “I Can Read” and “Step into Reading” picture books that Vi and Laurel learned on—the ones with the big level number in the corner. The book is Level 3 and presumably (from the pictures LOL) about firefighting. But it’s all in Korean and somewhat dense so again, impossible feeling. I did think that perhaps the Level 1 books would be doable, even if they were all in Korean, so I spent 15-20 minutes trying to find the Level 1 books via the library catalog (unsuccessful; the level numbers are not in the titles), general web using the ISBN number of the current book (unsuccessful), and publisher URL (unsuccessful; website defunct). I think the best shot of finding these Level 1 books is to go to the source where I got the Level 3 books through the library hold system—the Brookline Public Library—which I am unlikely to do. Brookline is great but I never find myself in that vicinity.
Book #4 (top left)
Of the five books I ordered through the hold system only one was a basic learning book (vs. stories). I am going to work my way through the Learning Korean book since—on my initial perusal—it already gave me an important structural note about the past tense that is the kind of basic information absent in Duolingo. This book also focuses on everyday communication, so hey, maybe I will finally learn how to say, “Nice to meet you,” and “Thank you for visiting my mom.”
Book #5 (top middle)
With stories, I clearly need books that present both English and Korean. At first blush, the Korean Folktales for Language Learners felt over my head, but it starts easy (the first story is 7 sentences) then moves to more complicated stories so I have started working on this book. I also like that the book supports each story with notes on vocabulary, grammar, cultural descriptions, and more.
And so, I abandoned my Duolingo streak at 374 days and switched to old-school books. It is probably going to take me an entire week to synthesize the first 7-sentence folktale, but I already feel like this approach is sinking in better. And I do believe this is part of the journey of finding purpose—I’m ready to experience frustration, stretch, problem solve, stick with it, and then move to the other side of frustration by doing something.
Hi Christine! Guess I shouldn’t have picked you for my next Duolingo friends quest!! :) I have an idea for you. I have been studying Spanish for about five years now and honestly Duolingo has just become useful again because it is cementing vocabulary and structures that I am learning in other ways. The thing that has been a huge success for me was spending anywhere from one to three hours a week with an instructor directly on a platform called Verbling. I was able to choose an instructor who seemed similar to me demographically and over the past five years we have become close friends and have even met in person a couple of times. so that has been a huge success, but even if I hadn’t gained a friend, the one on one hour of instruction, which I ramp up anytime from once a week to 2-3 times whenever that I know I’ll be having an opportunity to speak Spanish in person coming, has been amazing. I have supplemented that with workbooks and books just like you’re doing but it’s really only fairly recently that I’ve been able to make that kind of progress, and it’s thanks to the forced commitment and being forced to speak in person. It’s not cheap the prices for an hour lesson I think maybe $10 up to I don’t know how far up they go but it is invaluable in terms of actually making progress!
Rael is learning Spanish (intensively, as he does). He has taken Babbel classes, live local classes, done self-study via books and YouTube, listened to music and podcasts, etc etc etc and is now having a great experience with https://www.italki.com/