I set myself a goal of learning as much Korean as I could - limited to only the plane ride over. I put a couple of phrasebook-type audio courses on my phone, and listened to them all about a dozen times. The in-flight movies all had Korean options, so I saw some scenes of Star Wars, Cars, and Zootopia dubbed excellently.
It wasn't enough. After coming off the plane I retained only the simplest phrases, and couldn't really put any words together. Scared to use the language with strangers, I shied away from a lot of interactions. I was also almost entirely illiterate. If I did this again, I'd use the lengthy plane time to follow a much more structured course, because simply listening to and trying to memorize phrases just didn't work for me. The Korean alphabet is very easy to pick up, too. In the few hours I saw it around me in Seoul, I could begin to piece together the pronunciations of different words. I should have focused on learning to read along with the phrases.
Someday I'll come back here and give the language the attention it deserves. Till then, though, I'm moving on to languages I feel more prepared for, though only time will tell if I really am.
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