I think living abroad is the key to mastering the target language.

Until recently, because I have encountered numerous people who had over 2 years of experience of living in a English-speaking country but had disappointing linguistic skills, I have not been entirely convinced of the soundness of living abroad for language learning. Apart from the reason, I had another one that convinced me of the effectiveness of language learning without living abroad, for which I have luckily met a few non-native English speakers in Korea who had excellent English skills analogous to people who have lived abroad for around 10 years.  

However, I have almost abandoned the thoughts about that after learning some lessons from hands-on experience. First, all the brilliant English speakers I have met devoted themselves to trying to master the language without being involved in routine activity, such as working, socializing. And a few of them did not first start learning English after passing a critical period, at around 12-13, but had been involuntarily exposed to English learning environment at young age. With their passions and persistence in English, if they had had the opportunity of learning English abroad, they could have saved an awful lot of time and effort in English learning. As you may know, most ordinary people do not have that much time, are not determined to get a mastery of English, and even seem content with their English by others' sugarcoating compliments.(I regard them as rather backhanded compliments these days since I am clearly aware of my English level. That's why I rarely compliment someone's Korean skills and dumb down myself). The second reason I am going to recount is the primary factor that made me firmly believe that living in Korea cannot be the way of getting a mastery of English.

In every learning, as you take its awareness to the next step, you would most likely to experience frustrations from being dispatched by ever-stronger foes that have never cropped up in a previous lower stage. The slightest fraction of your confidence obtained from the last stage soon disappears. If so, most chuck their learning in frustration and only a few keep moving forward. I belong to the latter case. Even though I ran into many hurdles in the way of studying maths and science, I have always dreamed and finally applied to graduate schools in the United States in order to hone my engineering skills. And speaking of English, my problem with that played a major role in the decision. Rather than letting myself give up learning English deeply, I have chosen to fight against the formidable obstacle.

In any roll-playing game, which requires the player to gain enough Exp by killing monsters or completing quests to reach the next level, leveling characters from low level up to middle level can be readily achieved by sparing their players’ free time. It does not require much effort and time to reach, say, from A1 to low C1 in CEFR or 100 in TOEFL. However, in order to level them up to a higher level, which is equivalent to high C1 or C2 or 115 in TOEFL, each level above a certain point can be reached by investing as much effort and time combined, for leveling up to that level from scratch.  

I cannot obviously spend all the given time on English learning, and I can confidently say that I am trying my best to use English as much as possible on a daily basis. However, It seems that I keep bumping into obstacles that can be easily overcome with a relatively small amount of effort and time once I start living in a English-speaking country.

For example, what bothers me the most is that I cannot express my opinions in English as freely as I can in Korean in grave discussion, debate, and even argument. When I can easily notice some weak points I can effectively attack, and when I have enough ideas about defensing my opinion against opponents, I have to be willing to allocate many portions of my intellectual power to organizing cohesive structures with grammatically right sentences and understanding what people say. If those ran in Korean, instead of dispersing my limited mental capacity into several areas, I would just be able to solely spend all my energy on organizing thoughts and finish the session much more easily and fast. 

If I get defeated by the lack of my brain power, I would just accept it. But If I get dispatched because of the lack of my linguistic skills, I would be so shamed and exasperated.

Instead of playing with low-level players killing weak monsters at a novice-only field, which could be same as learning English in Korea except studying intensively at interpreter training academy, I would like to enjoy favors of high-level players at a field where boss monsters appear. Plus, I would be happy to meet people there who are willing to keep pointing out my Konglish, and learn a bunch of culture-related expressions/words - knock on wood - that are hard to come across in Korea.

A piece of writing about recent thoughts

Recently, I have been putting much effort into trying to really hit the nail on the head when it comes to planning my future. I had realized that none of my plans for the future are set in stone. It is not until recently that I have begun to delve deeply into myself.

Once I finally move out of my parents house, after a quarter of my life living together, nothing will be ready and waiting in the way I have taken it for granted. Numerous terrible bills to be paid await me come payday. Everyday I must serve myself food and nutritional supplements that my mom used to serve, and innumerable household affairs that I should be in charge of.

Apart from all those things, I am dreading the first plan I have decided on myself, graduate school. After having returned to my school three years ago, I had met with a new professor in my undergraduate department. It turned out to be a stroke of luck that I had not been placed in classified into one of the other departments in my second year, where all freshmen scrambled to get with high marks. The new professor played a crucial role in for helping me to decided on the plan, so he acted as a tipping point to me.

Currently, I am about to experience another tipping point which will impact my entire life. For all I know, I did not choose to apply to graduate programs based on others' advice. Some blindly believe that getting a masters or PhD degree will get them a long way, because in that way they have the edge over their counterparts in a fierce competition. Similarly, many people around my age do not seem to think about whether what they do now is truly useful for fit for purpose down the road.

So, I am taking everyone's advice about graduate programs with a grain pinch of salt. I indeed want to advance my critical thinking and problem solving skills through rigorous academic training, and hope to exploit them when I am at the height of my career.

[noun] is not set in stone / no [noun]s are set in stone.

a long piece of writing to arrange my thoughts.

When I first stumbled across a post about learning English, I was truly pleased with the possibility that I would finally be able to acquire useful information on the language learning methodology. The author of the post expounded how he had studied English for the first two years in high school in the United States. Very impressive! He emphasized the importance of rigid discipline and painful rote-memorization that many other language instructors and learners would not agree with. To be honest, I furrowed my brow when he went on with the perspective and exclaimed "Suck it up! You soft shack of shit".

Having said that, I did not have any negative opinions of him in general until I continued to read through all his threads below the post, where he spoke against other readers' comments. Preposterous! I was disappointed in him. He may have tried to sound logical to debate against them, but to my eyes, using my reasoning, it did not work that way, and the worst of all he committed was an ad hominem attack. Before encountering his illogical and absurd threads, I believe I would have had a fairly good opinion of him, because he achieved native-like fluency and accuracy with massive efforts. Some have pointed out that, perhaps because of no proper training on critical thinking growing up, he must have difficulty sorting through foregoing issues and effectively refuting arguments.

I would go so far as to say that they are right about him in general. From the heated debate, if I may quote one of the commenter's, "I have noticed that high scoring by learning with rote masquerades as critical thinking when examination is a benchmark." It applies to his case. He insisted on an over-hyped importance of rote-memorization. However, it is worthwhile to note that he is currently a lawyer by profession in the United States, which requires logical thinking skills as well as oral fluency. Provided that the he might have improved a lot on his critical thinking and debate skills since the posts from five years ago, his achievement of a quality occupation makes sense. He is obviously not a slacker nor an unintelligent person, but a persistent hard-worker like any other Asians, being good enough to succeed at such an occupation. He must have put as much, if not a lot more, effort into passing a bar examination to be qualified for practicing law.

The epitome of success in the eyes of Korean culture, where hard work and accomplishment are not always equal to meaning or reasoning; his example, which I did not expect to come across, solidified my firm dedication to achieving excellent critical thinking, debate, and problem solving skills. My self-training for those skills is currently in the pipeline and there is till a long way to go, but it is definitely happening, albeit at glacial speed.  SpeakingAddressing from my experience, many Korean students learn and study for the most part for the sake of tests, not for truly honing skills which could be applicable somewhere down the road. I dare say that there is a valid correlation - although there are a great number of other factors too - between the lack of those skills and the fact that we have not received a single Fields Medal - a prize awarded to mathematicians below 40 who have developed a brilliant theorem - despite the fact considering that  every year promising Korean high-schoolers rock International Mathematical or Physical Olympiads. As you know, many Westerners have a tendency to perceive Koreans as having the edge over them in Maths. (I hate this comment personally.)

Even a Vietnamese mathematician whose country is barren of any mathematical foundation has had the honor of receiving had the honor to receive a Fields Medal. Of course, I have no intention of disparaging to disparage the fact that no single scholar has ever received any kind of major prizes; Fields Medal, Nobel Prizes, and so on. I admire many Korean scholars and professors who are working diligently, sacrificing their personal time and even their health. However, in general, many who were promising and brilliant students back in high school later end up being ordinary people because of their lack of essential skills, which are required when confronted with an unusual task.

It would be a bit off-topic, but we can readily observe a phenomena from the English field. I should admit that it is somewhat different to that of Maths and Science, because most Koreans have low expectations and confidence in English. What is far, far, far worse is that English is considered awfully boring and even a giant hurdle in the way of for hisa prospective life. The majority of Koreans assume they are terrible underdogs in English learning, not to mention the more impressive achievement of Itaewon-level fluency. (Itaewon is a unique multicultural district of Seoul where the US Armed Forces establishment once existed. Some residents and businessmen therefore managed to achieve a certain level of fluency, being able to have a small talk with soldiers in English.)

Then from the Westerners' point of view, which appreciates practicality and efficiency, "What the hell do Koreans study English for? Are they some sort of idiots embedded with zombie mindsets?"

 No-brainer! We know the answers, there actually are many. One of them is that English skills or the mere scores of English tests function as the indication of how well they can work, and even how good they are in nature. Again, preposterous! In the 90's when there were very few fluent - if not mediocre-level relative to today's Koreans - English speakers in Korea, they were like God. A degree from the US top university worked as a radiant free pass ticket for professorship at any Korean university. Furthermore, a person who scored over 900 in that period could pick and choose where to work at. However, the baseless unconditional favor is tapering off because people have learned from hands-on experience that their prejudice is wrong, and hilariously the lucky generation knows what they are.

Of all other reasons for studying English, the one I want to put forward is that many Koreans do not have their own solid philosophy, or in a plain term, an understanding of what they truly want in their life. They have been raised to resemble a very standard form considered to be the exemplar of satisfying life, instead of thinking about themselves using the aforementioned essential skills; studying hard and achieving perfect scores, entering into medical school (or, if their scores are not high enough at the college entrance exam, the top 3 departments are: mechanical engineering, chemical engineering, and electrical engineering), getting married, and buying a decent house as well as a luxurious car. They just follow what others do without their own thoughts.

I am not saying the fact route they are willing to walk is something bad. If that is what they want after in-depth consideration, it is definitely fine. My long-term life plan also for many parts (for the most part)in many ways overlaps with it. If they are really determined to live a satisfying life - not live a lie- they would find a way to make it happen whatsoever. If a job they are looking forward to requires a minimum score in an English proficiency test, they would go for it. However, there are still a lot of jobs that do not need scores in any sort of examination; in that case, it would be much easier. They are free from the treat of dreadful English devils. They can pour all their energy into something they truly adore.

Nevertheless, I cannot confidently say that I know what I want in my life. I have recently learned a priceless lesson: that my life deserves more than following through a standard model set up by others. To raise the chance, three skills - critical thinking, debate, and problem solving skills - are the key to living in this dynamic, fluctuating, unpredictable, complex world.

Bring it on!

I remember back in the day - after my military service done in 2011 - when I was so passionate about studying English, I was obsessed with everything about English. I was blinded, for all intents and purposes, but not by physical attacks from strangers. I was blinded by the sheer glory of the new linguistic flow that was flooded right into deep inside my brain. To gratify my insatiable desire for English, I think I did everything I was able to obtain: listening to Podcast all day long even during a short break at work, watching a massive number of movies and dramas, communicating with penpals that I met on InterPals, and so on. But I could not get enough of any of them.

What the heck had happened to me back then? Where did the interest in English come from? And why have I been sticking at this level in the way I don’t think I have ever reached fluency?

For the first and second questions, I am clearly aware of the answer and can say it in confidence, humiliation. When I first started off to Europe by myself, I wanted to enjoy the last month of having complete freedom before enlisting in the army. But what was awaiting there was quite far from what I expected. Since I barely spoke English and sort of refused other people’s welcome because of the lack of my English, I could not fully enjoy the trip and was frustrated in myself. It made me think that maybe I should come back here again, with better commands of English. After my military service done, I landed a job to make money for traveling and English-studying. And then I began searching for valuable information on English studying tips and followed what I thought would be applicable and useful to me. Aside from sleep and work, I studied English 8 hours a day like a psychic, like speaking to myself in public and focusing too much on podcasts that I was almost hit by a car. With accumulated knowledge and countless practice on my English skills, I had a lot of fun on my second trip to Europe. 

As for the last question, still not near to the level that I can be satisfied with, I think I lost or am still losing what I used to have in my mind which made me feel alive. After the successful Euro trip and throughout years of tiresome school life, I got distracted and all my passion of English shifted into somewhere else. Although I was at a fairly luck situation where I had an American girlfriend and some English speaking friends, it rarely helped improve my English. The problem with having an English-speaking girlfriend is that I am not saying I approached to her to take advantage of her but I became so lazy with self-study on English. This case can be the proof of the fact that merely going to a country where a target language is spoken cannot be an answer to its improvement. 

For the time being, I have a lot of free time by August and am not under a lot of stress anymore. “7 months”, the length of this period could be seen where long or short depending on my viewpoint. I want to get back what I am missing now. Until the beginning of master’s course in the US in August, I want to improve my pronunciation and intonation, speaking and writing skills. And I yearn for deeper conversation with my new English-speaking girlfriend on any topics of interest. I know when “want” takes over “needs” on a certain task, the person can change completely and leap onto a far higher level. Keep your fingers crossed!