How to Learn Korean: The Basics for Beginners
If you’re interested in learning the Korean language, you’ve come to the right place. In this article, we’ll cover how to learn Korean online and offline, with or without a tutor, and where to find help if you need it. And as a bonus, we’ll show you some of the most interesting Korean phrases that you can use around town!
- How to Learn Korean: Online Resources
- How to Learn Korean: Language Learning Apps
- How to Learn Korean: Offline Resources
- Interesting Facts About Korea And The Korean Language
Conclusion: If you’re interested in learning the Korean language, there are a lot of great resources at your disposal today!
How to Learn Korean: Online Resources
A language doesn’t
necessarily need vocabulary to be fun; in fact, many languages are notoriously
difficult to learn. But Korean is not like other languages in that it requires
immersion in the language, and it forces you to learn grammar and vocabulary in
a unique way. And because the Korean language is a political rather than a
scientific language — there’s no use of words like “the” or “theirs” — many
words have a political connotation. For example, the word for mother is 마기
(dangjeol), which means “motherland”. And as you can imagine, that word means a
lot to anyone who has lost or is cared for by one.
Because of that
political connotation, words for year, month, day, and season are also
thoroughly created and vary from region to region — sometimes depending on the
people who lived in that region just hundreds or thousands of years ago. That
does not mean they’re meaningless, but every time you see a new word for the
month, you have to learn it for the first time. If that’s not fun, what is?
Learning the Korean
language is a unique experience in that you’ll be learning words from a diverse
group of people — and trying to mimic the way they speak. Language learners all
over the world have mastered Korean, and it’s poised to become the
international language of the future. But if you want to make the language stick
around for at least another hundred years, you have to master another set of
words: slang.
If you’ve listened to
K-Pop or anything popular in South Korea for any length of time, you know that
slang words will always dominate your vocabulary. Examples of popular slang
words are 보다 (bom 고), 오던 (kaesang), and 위�니 (yolgi).
How to Learn Korean: Language
Learning Apps
There are a few apps I
recommend when learning a language:
- DuoLingo – DuoLingo is a great app to learn a new language in a fun way. You can learn languages for free and it has a lot of native speakers to correct you. It’s also great for learning grammar.
- Memrise Korean -This is the most recent and best app I use when learning Korean online. It’s also a really great tool for listening to native recordings (which I really want to save for later!).
- GoodClub – GoodClub is a much better option because it’s much more focused on learning, instead of making the learning process complicated. Plus, it doesn’t charge any money!
You can also learn a
language through video tutorials, like Korean TV shows and movies. You can
purchase a few different services and get access to different types of videos.
You can also use Memrise or Duolingo to download lessons for offline usage.
Although online classes are allowed, many students prefer learning with videos
over attempts at filling in blank bubbles on a screen. Worth mentioning again
is that even if you’re not able to make free videos, another service offers
high-quality clips of famous Korean movies for a pretty penny (for those that
are willing to pay).
If the Korean language
is a challenge for you, finding a reliable Korean tutor is an absolute
necessity. Even if you’re confident you can learn the language on your own,
enrolling in a real tutor school can really put your skills to the test and
make you more confident as a result. Here, we’ll go over where to find the
right one, tips on how to properly study with them, and how to go about finding
tuition that fits your budget.
How to
Learn Korean: Offline Resources
The biggest reason you
get stuck in the beginning is because you don’t have a lot of resources to
study Korean. I’m going to share with you some of my favorite offline resources
so you can keep studying Korean, even during times when you don’t have internet.
First, let’s talk
about a few online resources that can help you learn Korean. There are most
definitely more, so if I omitted any questions, please let me know in the
comment section.
WordReference is the most popular resource in Korea. You can
use this app to input Korean words into your dictionaries. Once you do, you can
search for related words that you’ve learned, creating flash cards for your
daily study sessions.
It’ll also let you
search for Korean words in your native language, so you can use it to learn
vocabulary and grammar in English (or other languages). You can login with your
Google, Facebook, or Microsoft account to save your word lists.
If you’re looking for
apps that can also help you learn English, Korean, and Thai, I recommend using Memrise. It’s free, has tons of flash
cards, has a high quality student interface, and is 100% sponsored by Google.
Learning the Korean
alphabet is a long and complicated process. But putting it all in practice is
pretty straightforward.
Every day, you should
write out the number — 1, 9, or 180 — and write the pronunciation of the
letter. For example, if you want to write the number 4, you should write the
letter J (찌) in the octosyllabic script.
Then, you should look
it up in a dictionary. Another word for this is looking up the definition (verb
and adjective). Most Korean dictionaries will keep a definition and links to
more information. And remember to keep the sentences together so you can mix
words.
Interesting Facts about Korea and the
Korean Language
If you're thinking of
moving to Korea or learning Korean, be sure to check out these interesting
facts about Korea and the Korean language.
Korean (한까프")
is a South Korean language spoken by over 67.5 million people in South Korea,
with over 2.5 million living in Japan. The Korean language is the sixth most
spoken language in the world.
Since the early years
of colonization, the Korean Peninsula has been divided among the three
countries, North, Northeast, and South. The majority of people in the Northeast
are from China, the second-most populous country in the World, who migrated to
the Korean Peninsula to escape persecution in China.
The people who make up
the majority of South Korea’s population are from the Korean Peninsula and its
surrounding regions, individuals from China born and raised in the Korean
Peninsula, and North Korean defectors.
Korean is nowadays
considered a “dialect”, a group of related languages, unlike the original
languages of Northeast or South. Hence, learners of Korean literature, like Kim
Eun-sook (전브년), will also read and write in the Sinitic
script, thus falling under the category of “dialect”. In addition to this, many
college students learn Korean as a second language.
Through its political
division, the Korean language has come to its current form, which is quite
unique in the world. The Korean language has taken off in the last decade and
it’s now one of the fastest growing languages in the world. If you’re
interested in learning Korean, there are a lot of great resources at your
disposal today!
To help you get started, here are a
few of my favourite Korean resources:
YouTube: If you’ve
never learned Korean you’re missing out on a lot of great content. The videos
I’ve linked are only some of the many that you can find on YouTube. In general,
Korean people love learning and watching videos– it’s seen as a “good way to
spend your time” in the country.
Youtube has a content
creator community that is great for learning Korean. You can find top Korean
YouTubers sharing their YouTube videos in Korean or English. Known as “K-Pop”,
there are over 28,000 videos uploaded daily in the language. With online
learning tools like Memrise, you can have a Korean-speaking environment in your
own home.
Some of the most popular
YouTube channels to start with are Naver TV (a cable TV network), Sandeul, and
Soompi.
As noted, YouTube is a
great learning tool for the language. Just like any other language, YouTube has
a grammar system and a grammar unit (정홥). Just like studying any other language, you
can study grammar rules and conjugation in a YouTube video. Most of the videos
on YouTube are in Korean, however, you can also find videos in English and
people sharing videos in both Korean and English. You can search for videos based
on the languages they’re being shown in and the results are presented in a
handy chart to the right.
Google Drive: There is
a Google Drive Chrome extension just for learning Korean, but a PDF reader is
also available so you can scan and write Korean text on-the-fly without the
need for a dictionary.
Translation Service:
If you’re looking for a translator, there really isn’t a better place to start
than a local Korean-speaking company who offers online translation services.
Visit Our YouTube channel
for more information about how to learn Korean fast.
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