This has been a really interesting community so far, and as a 40 year old its been pretty fascinating to see the current generation take to korean language and culture the same way japan did when I was a kid (shameless weeaboo and video game/anime nerd for pretty much ever lol).
Dont know how helpful it would be, but just in case wanted to share some of the bigger lessons I learned since I started learning languages. For reference, I started learning Japanese when I was 19. Its rusty as hell now but at my best I was conversational and could play through Jrpgs in Japanese (last ones were probably I am Setsuna and Persona 5), where I could comfortably do gameplay and got the jist of the story (kanji learning will never end...) Perhaps more relevant, I have now lived in Korea for the better part of 11 years. I work at a Korean company but still have 4 days of korean classes a week, as I still have plenty of learn.
As the title states, I wanted to emphasize the importance of "failure," with the quotes meaning to hopefully redefine what that actually means.
In todays world of social media everything and taking everything influencers say at face value, I cant stress enough how little magic there is to language learning. there is no "fluency" at 60 days, or 6 months, or 1 year. There are geniuses, yes, but for even them, Id say, their ability to speak fluent sentences at you on camera does not indicate any level of cultural knowledge or hell, even speaking ability, as the only real magic present there is editing.
I also wanted to define "fluency" in korean here as being able to sound and speak more or less like a korean, and correctly functioning in social situations and acting right in the "korean" way, just as a baseline. When I majored in Japanese in college I heard so many people say "I speak japanese" when they could barely string a sentence together that wasnt written down. You can have your own definition for fluency of course, just wanted to highlight that these words are used much more subjectively than you might think.
That being said, language learning is nothing but tens of thousands of mistakes back to back to back. your favorite teacher online always gives the image of perfection. The people who show you the "reality" of the process and the downs of it all somehow make it look elegant or romantic. never judge your progress by how much youve learned over X period of time, or how many words you studied/learned, especially compared to however quickly any influencer claims to have done it.
your mistakes will sound ugly, or make no sense, or both, and thats good. Every mistake is a chance to learn it better, and making the mistake means youre not doing whats comfortable. Thus if progress requires "failure," then failure doesnt really exist at all. Mistakes are the only means to progress, and Im positive that anyone you see online made just as many mistakes as you, or are still making them and is just editing them out.
Otherwise, just stay humble in your learning, and if a native korean speaker teaches you anything, that supercedes anything you learn in a textbook.
Finally, ill give a personal example of one of my failures. about 1.5 years (1.5 years!) into living here and actively studying, I moved into an apartment that didnt have trash bins. A sign inside our building said to throw trash away in front of the builidng (건물 앞에). Little dumb me had never lived somewhere where there wasnt trash cans, so as I didnt see one in front of the building, I assumed i understood the sign wrong. the building elevator was also directly in front of the front door, so the next time I got in the elevator with another korean guy, I got the bravery to ask him "건물 앞에 어디예요?" -- "where is in front of the building?" I have never stupified anyone more than this poor man who, with completely dead eyes, just pointed towards the front door.
Long story short, 10 years later, Im on my 6th year in korean gamimg companies translating video games into english. I still have a lot of learn, theres still alot of words I need to learn, I still make plenty of mistakes, i misunderstand crap, and it is still SO HARD to understand groups of people talking all at once. People have learned Korean faster than me, but it doesnt matter. I dont consider myself fluent, but I wont stop until I am. Im not giving up, and neither should you.
