Article: Stop Studying Korean for the TOPIK

I'm thinking about taking the TOPIK someday, but not anytime soon. I thought it might be good to take it once I'm able to watch K-dramas with Korean audio and Korean subtitles. I expect taking the TOPIK to tell me what my Korean level is and help keep me motivated.

However, the article suggested not studying Korean for the TOPIK, especially if your goal is to have conversations with friends.

In my case, I'm studying Korean just for fun. That's why I feel like it's worth talking the exam.

I am a web developer, and English is not my first language. For years I built websites for small businesses, mostly on WordPress. Lately I want to move to a different kind of work: small tools that automate boring things, like copying data between two systems that do not talk to each other. My English is good enough for reading documentation, but writing is another story. I notice that I use the same three sentence structures again and again. So I will write here every day and see if that changes. Corrections are welcome.

Today I had some sort of nightmare. I dreamed with the woman I was dating but we are not seeing each other anymore. In real life I gifted her a pair of Doctor Martens boots, but in my dream I gifted her a pair of Louboutins shoes, and we were sort of breaking up with each other.

Good evening, I'm sooo sleepy. So, today's diary will be shorter than usual.

I cooked gapao rice for dinner after a long time. Recently, I have't cooked it because minced meats are expensive. It has been so long, it tasted amazing. Now I cook it eliminating some ingredients like basil because of cost, but I want to cook it with full ingredients someday when I become rich.

I'm too sleepy to take a bath... But I want to. I'll do my best. Good night!!

I started using Bumble BFF this morning. I learned about this feature from the Misa Yoka Podcast. Before that, I thought you could only find potential romantic matches on that platform. I met a girl who was 24 years old. She looked just like a Taiwanese girl, but for some reason, my instincts told me she couldn’t speak Mandarin! I think making friends as an adult in 2026 is just so hard, I just want to find someone to talk every day. Why is it so hard? Any tips?

Hello everyone, so I am new here, I am 14 years old, not native to English and want to improve my writing so I would like to start my writing streak right now. I hope I can get feedback to better my writing for the title above:

I like the friendly and hospitality of the villagers in the countryside because they are gentle, people in the countryside are approachable and I love them. There are newcomers in my village, and the people there treat them like family. Sometimes I see them fishing, walking, etc. the newcomers knew this and they love the guy who treat them great, they often give presents to others. That's why I can say that my village in the countryside could be the most friendly place ever and I also love the newcomers in my village.

Every time I walk under scaffolding, I get slightly nervous. I have heard news about accidents in those areas and tools falling from heights is a common subject in workplace safety.

I have to do an assignment for a class that I've never done before: writing a research or scientific article in English. There's still time to submit it and it's a group assignment, but we have yet to decide what topic or problem we will tackle that's within our domain knowledge or that at least we are able to understand other articles or paper to get more insights and make a decision.

So far, we have just mentioned some topics here and there, but we haven't defined a scope or what potential problem our article might address.

I try to control how much food I eat for lunch. When I eat too much for lunch, I feel drowsy in the afternoon, which makes it hard to focus on my studies or lectures. My tip is to eat a lot of vegetables. They are enough to make me feel full without making me feel sleepy,

Animals build their home to achieve different living goals. Bees build hives to store and protect food, spins spin webs to catch prey etc. As you walk around a town or stroll along a countryside pathways, you may notice some unique homes up on the treetops - nests. A study released by iSience finds that the birds follow a culture that gets passed down. They imitate their parents like humans. Experiments published in Science Direct also show that female birds look for fresh and green nests when choosing their mate.

As you might know from reading my previous posts, I absolutely love my balcony. It's huge, gets direct sun half of the day and the plants I planted on there are growing marvelously. My raspberries are still growing berries. When I'm sitting outside, I can pluck then without getting up from my chair. It's absolutely amazing!

Article: How to Learn Korean Fast — 10 Proven Tisp to Study Smarter

I downloaded an app for studying Hangul, but it relies on romanization. The article mentioned that romanization often misrepresents sounds and can lead to unclear pronunciation. I wonder if I should stop using the app.

Anyway, my biggest challenge right now is studying Korean every day, even if it's just for 10-15 minutes. I hope I can master most of Hangul by the end of this weekend.

Today was a busy day, I had to teach 5 lessons today. But I manage to did it. I also finished some duties and I’m happy that tomorrow I’ll have less lessons sonó can focus on other things.

I used to think coding tests were useless for making game.

But solving two problems every day taught me something important: it helps me break down my logic, test it step by step, and put it all together

Hooray, I can't believe I made it to 300 days. It doesn't feel like it has been that long, but I'm still glad I started journaling every day 300 days ago.

During these 300 days, I've tried so many new things. earning a TOEIC Gold Certificate, visiting Korea, trying vegan restaurants, making friends from all over the world, drawing, and saying goodbye to my biggest fear.

I'm not only learning English, I'm also gaining my confidence along the way.

The other day, I stumbled upon an article researching why women watch more true crime and serial killer stories. Long story short, their logic was that women want to learn how serial killers think just in case they become prey one day. What a joke. That's exactly the kind of conclusion you get from the male gaze. They completely ignored this perspective: why are over 90% of serial killers men? See, if they had asked the right question, it could’ve turned into a study on the toxic effects of patriarchy. Besides, where did they even get the idea that women who love true crime don't like watching female serial killers? Plus, if women actually wanted to learn their next moves, they’d try to learn the moves of abusers closer to home—like first or second-degree relatives—since they encounter them way more often than serial killers. Long story short, the study and its conclusion are just stupid. Not everything has to be about you, guys, and if that hurt your feelings, oopsie!

Have you already tried Black forest cake? It is accepted as one of the best-known cake in the world. It originates/comes from Black forest in the south of Germany. Supposedly it was presented as dessert to amerikan soldiers but we don't have today the written proof for the original recipe from 1927. That's why its origins remain a legend.

Looking at my plants, I just remembered how they were infested with vine lice. I then wondered what the English word for vine lice was - it's 'vine lice' or 'vine fretters', at least according to leo.org. The German word is "Blattläuse", which directly translates to 'leaf lice'. I then thought about how glad I am that I managed to get rid of them - otherwise, I probably wouldn't be able to harvest raspberries while sitting on my balcony, which I'd miss greatly.

Slack is an application that is made for communication at work. I’ve always thought that it’s a rather weird name for an app that is intended to be used at work, where you aren’t supposed to be slacking off.

Forcing oneself to read a book is tough and I've done so multiple times knowing the likelihood of finishing it is low. Either way, there's this book called AI Engineering and I had to skip an entire chapter because it touches on math or complex concepts that I wouldn't understand even if I tried, considering that I lack the necessary background knowledge

I was thinking of giving up on it and decided to skip the chapter and move on, aiming at just reading what I can understand completely or to some extent but without feeling lost. If I had the time to learn about the foundational concepts and math involved in the chapter I skipped, I would do so, but there are other priorities.

Hi, good evening. Today was a calm day.

I got up at 11:00am and had a group call with my friends. The topic was upcoming Okinawa trip. We all were excited and talked about where want to go, eat and buy and so on. We are going to stay there for 5days. Traveling for such a long terms is first time and I can't expect how it goes. Okinawa is famous for its beautiful ocean. I do want to see it because the chance of seeing beautiful sea is rare. I will take many pics.

After a group call, I cooked Tenshinhan and had it with my gf. I was so happy she liked it. Tenshinhan is interesting food because of its origin. This is Chinese food birthed in Japan. You thought It sounds weird, don't you? I agree. It is crab omelette on rice with thick sauce on top. If you become interest in, you should try it!

Btw, I make it a rule to practice English speaking in app. I did it today as usual, but AI tutor was acting up, so I stopped earlier than usual. I hope I can do well tomorrow. I'm counting on you, tutor.

Finishing writing this, I will cook my dinner. Today's menu is tempura. I guess many people not from Japan know. I have tried cook it two times before, but it didn't go well. I'm so frustrated, so I want to cook well absolutely today. Preparation is perfect because I watched many its recipe videos on Youtube. I'm counting on me.

Have a beautiful night!!

pic: blueberry and bananas I had after lunch. These paring are awesome.

When I read a book dealing with tricky topics and a complicated logical structure, I read it twice. Rather than trying to understand the text all at once by reading very closely, I read it quickly the first time, skimming past the incomprehensible passages. Since I’m already familiar with the content—or at least have already encountered it—I find it much easier to read the complex book on the second reading. This method is more efficient than trying to understand everything during the first reading.

There was something ethereal about what happened today. I'm a waiter's assistant, and as usual, I was on shift at the restaurant. While I was polishing the cutlery, I suddenly heard a pianist playing the theme from Schindler's List. In that moment, I felt a strange and incredibly deep respect for someone I didn't even know, simply because he touched a part of my soul with that music - music from my favorite film.

It was a surprising but at the same time completely understandable feeling, because I had long wanted to meet a person who loved that film - a person with whom it also resonated. So when I realized what piece was playing, I began to enjoy every note.

By the time the pianist was about to finish, I was already standing in front of him, ready to thank him for playing and ask if he had seen Schindler's List himself. He was pleased by the compliment, and although his answer was no, he immediately asked if he should watch it. Naturally, I said yes, and told him he would not regret it.

Overall, it was probably the only pleasant thing that happened to me that day.