The Crystal readings reminded me of a fundamental fact: that language is essentially just a collection of sounds that humans assign with meanings in order to communicate. You tend to notice this fact when you repeat a word over and over again, until you begin to notice that it sounds very strange and start to wonder who in the world decided that this specific combination of sounds should mean this idea and so on. But, I don’t think that treating language simply as a collection of raw sounds would help me in my language study, because words are often associated with one another and it would be more efficient to learn related words in groups. Therefore, I think that studying the BYKI lists and Korean Made Simple (KMS) book in focused chunks (e.g. a chapter a week, a list a day) is the best approach for retaining the most information. Fortunately, the KMS book, like many other language textbooks, present new vocabulary in scenarios so that the reader can process a group of words associated with a likely common scenario, which I really appreciate because I want to learn the practical stuff first.
I also appreciate the fact that our ancestors have made communicating easier for us by creating the alphabet and drafting out the fundamental principles of our language. It makes me wonder how they managed to communicate before a formal language system was established. No doubt they thought long and hard about which combination of sounds would both capture a specific meaning and sound pleasant to the ear. But, I also think it’s wise to be open-minded about language and not to overanalyze the rules, because language is constantly evolving and therefore current 'rules' may adopt changes within the next decade.
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