How To Start Studying Korean
Hello Hello and welcome to my blog. I have been studying Korean for a few months now and thought that it would be a great idea to write about my progress and provide useful tips to other people who study this beautiful language. To be honest I never thought that one day I would be studying Korean ( just because..) but here we are. Kpop and K-dramas encouraged me to continue studying this beautiful language. Was is the characters? the pronunciation? or RM's beautiful smile that kept me on studying? who knows haha. What actually made me start studying this language was a couple of videos that I watched on Youtube of English teachers teaching English (duh) in South Korea. The stories that they were telling and places that they were showing really made me interested in South Korea and its culture.
Nowadays there are so many resources online and while that could be a blessing it can become a bit frustrating. Where should you begin? that's an excellent question.
From what I've noticed most Asian language resources use romanization. I understand why they do it but it is not very beneficial. It might seem to help you read the words quickly at the beginning of your language learning journey but it is not very accurate. It is very hard to put a sound into words and yes foreigners are not expected to have a perfect pronunciation right from the beginning but being pretty close to the actual pronunciation is way better than being able to read the word quickly.
So what should you do instead? Learn Hangeul. It will speed up the learning process since you'll be able to read right from the beginning. Oh and don't worry! it's pretty easy to study. Here are a few useful links:
Korean101
GO! Billy Korean
LazyLisa
How To study Korean
Don't forget to study the order of strokes. On the Korean From Zero website, you'll be able to learn how to write the characters correctly. Not only that but the website also offers free grammar lessons as well as useful tips about the culture.
After learning the alphabet I would recommend focussing on simple and basic vocabulary that you're likely to hear or see often. There are lists called "FrequencyLists" that could inspire you to create your own lists. In addition, there are of course Kpop songs and K-dramas. Study books are a great option as well because when you're given a list of vocabulary, you get to practice it while reading the chapter. It's known that books might be a bit expensive sometimes, or you might not want to commit right away so don't worry, I got you. Here's a list of free resources that could help you build your vocabulary AND help you with basic Grammar!!
How To Study Korean is a wonderful website. In total there are 6 units and 141 lessons.At the beginning of each lesson, you're introduced to the vocabulary that is going to be used in the lesson and then you learn grammar points. The explanations are so simple and pretty easy to understand. There are also videos that you could find on the website's channel that provide a great practice. There are dictation and sentence practice videos. You can download a pdf file for every lesson.
Talk To Me In Korean. If you haven't heard about this website, then I'm not sure what you've been doing. It is such a popular resource among people who study Korean that it would have been weird for me to not include it in this post. The website has a store where you can find various books that can help you improve your speaking, writing, and listening skills but ALSO it offers free grammar lessons. There are 6 level and each level contains 20+ lessons. You can download a pdf and an audio file for every lesson.
Coursera. This website offers many video courses that educate you on different topics, help you improve your creative skills and teach you languages. Right now there are two courses available: "First Step Korean" and "Learn To Speak Korean 1". I highly recommend to check them out since they are great for beginners and for those who want a quick review on basic grammar points.
Learn Korean Language . The lessons offered on this website are specifically for beginners. They are great because they are short but still very beneficial since they introduce the basics to beginners. There is a new version of the website that is called Learn Korean Now. The website is not free but affordable (costs 4.99$ per month or 39.99$ per year) and there's a 7 days trial.
I think that I'll end the post here because I don't want it to be too long. I'll be sure to add new resources when I come across them. I hope it helped you and thank you for reading!!
Good luck with your studies:)