TTMIK Challenge

 So I started buckling down on my Korean studies. Since I am a self learner for all the languages I study, I have a set of things I know work for me. If these are helpful to you, let me know! I learn by ear but Korean has proven harder than expected.I mainly use the website TTMIK (Talk to Me in Korean) and I really love their site. It is user-friendly, has a ton of great content, and is completely free! There are ways to contribute, such as buying textbooks and ebooks, and I recently bought a book from them, so I will review that once I've had the chance to delve into it.On their curriculum page, they have 9 levels of grammar points. Each level has 30 lessons including audio and PDFs of the example sentences. It's all color-coded and I can use them at work if I have free time or go over them at night when I get home. In order to keep track of what I am learning and how much I am progressing, I decided to make this chart so that I can color in lessons once I have reviewed or mastered them. This gives me a lot more peace of mind knowing which ones I have already covered, and sometimes I like to mark which lessons are good to come back to later on.It is so satisfying being able to cross off a lesson, so I try to do at least three a day. Watching dramas and TV shows without subtitles is doable, but sometimes I get frustrated that I don't know how to express myself because I don't have a big vocabulary, and there are sooo many verb endings and grammar points I need to remember when talking to my boyfriend and my friends in Korean.I try not to get discouraged. I read today that it's better to study 30 minutes a day than 2 hours a day, because you are more likely to forget what you learned otherwise.I am also using Memrise to retain vocab words, and when watching dramas or listening to audio, I make myself repeat sentences over and over in different ways to help speaking come more naturally. As an English teacher, I know a lot of tools that work for my students and I know the biggest part is making it fun for myself and not giving up or getting discouraged. I hope to make strides in Korean before I go back in December but my biggest goal is to be able to be comfortable speaking the language and getting around Korea alone within the next year. I am already feeling more confident than when I started studying again (for the first time in four years) in May. I have a long way to go but I won't give up and neither should you!I am watching I Can Hear Your Voice and it's an interesting drama so far. The language is sometimes hard when it comes to legal terms, but listening wise, it's great practice.Tell me how you study and what successes or frustrations have you come up against in the comments!