As the new year comes around, there may be many more people who are looking to pick up a language as part of their new year's resolutions or new year's goals. If you found this article then most likely you are looking to learn Korean, A language that continues to grow in popularity every year.
If you've just started or are looking to start, then this article will outline the key aspects of language learning and how you can apply them to Korean. Later, I will introduce places where you can find almost any type of Korean content to enjoy.
Whatever your reason for learning Korean, you must understand that learning a language is a long term pursuit. You will have the most success by treating it as a part of your life rather than a skill that you learn. To put it into perspective you will be looking at a minimum of a year to feel like you have a basic understanding and probably around 2-5 years to feel comfortable.
Before we begin I recommend bookmarking my Korean Fluency Path so that you can refer back to it later. It covers the first 2 years of the learning journey. After around 6 months you will likely have graduated from using learner's materials and have moved on to content created for natives.
How to learn a language
Firstly, let's go over the basics of language learning. Anyone who has ever spent a long time learning a language and has at least some self awareness will tell you that the fundamentals of learning a language are very simple. Get input. Input is any form of the language entering your brain.
We can get input through reading books, watching TV shows, listening to podcasts and such acts. Input is generally split into two forms, reading and listening. At this point you may be asking "Can I learn like a child?" Effectively that is what the input will achieve. However although languages are technically just sound, we can use our developed brains to speed up the process of learning by reading the script of the language.
Simply put the more input you get the quicker you will learn. The problem with language learning being so simple, is that people start to over complicate the process. Most advice you will find online about doing x or y, will all be advice that is meant to improve the speed at which you learn. In the end all that matters is how much exposure you are getting to the language, if the advice you are reading does not involve getting input, then it likely will not help you acquire the language.
As a beginner you will find that watching TV shows, Movies, YouTube or any kind of visual content will be much more digestible than pure listening or pure reading. We can use the visual aspect along with the sound to develop our understanding of the language. If available we can use subtitles to help connect the written language with the audio, however just trying to listen to what is being said benefit you greatly.
Watching a lot of media at the beginning along side grammar study will increase the speed at which we will learn words and phrases. The process of learning is done through repetition and connections. Repetition is simple and will easily be done by getting input. Connections however is slightly more complex and can range from the sound of a word to what you could smell at the time you heard it or read it. The more connections you have to a word or phrase the easier it will be to remember and the harder it will be to forget.
Learning Korean
Following the Fluency Path, we can outline some basic steps that we can take to go from knowing nothing to making progress daily. Before you even begin learning how to read the alphabet, 한글(hangeul), you can start watching Korean content with your native language subtitles. While it doesn't seem effective it will still give you an idea of the sounds of the language which is a great start and something I regret not doing. This can be helpful for you to understand which Korean content that you enjoy.
From the first day you can easily learn the alphabet and some basic words. Luckily for us it's one of the easiest writing systems ever conceived and if you continually expose yourself, you can start to recognise all the characters easily in under a week. To help with exposing yourself to vocabulary from the start I recommend using the Anki decks that I have made. Anki is an electronic flashcard system that allows you to deliberately expose yourself to words that you want to learn. If you follow the fluency path you will see the timeline for how far the decks I have made will take you.
Once we have some exposure to the language, have learnt 한글 and set up Anki, we will find that we can go through grammar explanations much easier. I highly recommend Talk to Me in Korean's curriculum as it free to use and has very simple explanations. Another highly recommend resource is Darakwon's Korean Grammar in Use series. The beginner and intermediate books will easily teach you all the commonly used grammar.
While we are going through grammar, we can start using a basic reading book such as the Yonsei Reading series or another university textbook that starts off with extremely simple sentences. It is good to get into the habit of reading for at least 30 minutes daily as it will increase the speed at which you learn and is great for understanding the written form of the language.
After a few months, you should have been able to get through the grammar content and have developed a habit of watching Korean content daily. As you start to study grammar less and less, you will find you have more time free to read and watch content.
If you come across grammar that you have forgotten you can always go back and look it up. Going through the grammar will allow you to expose yourself to what is considered grammar which will make it much easier to find later by going back to where you saw it or by searching for it on google.
Once you reach the point where you are no longer bound by grammar books and are simply exposing yourself to Korean content then everything becomes much simpler as you can just do things that you are interested in while looking up the words you don't know.
For more in-depth explanations please check out these articles:
- How to Start Reading in a Foreign Language
- The Role of Listening in Language Learning
- The Role of Grammar Study in Language Learning
- Watching Media and Using Subtitles to Learn a Language
Free Korean learner's material
First let's cover the free content that is aimed at Korean learners. These are great for getting your foot in the door in the first month or so.
Hangeul
By this you point you can find hundreds of different videos on Youtube and images on google search that it's probably harder not to learn Hangeul. Finding a simple explanation first from a video like this from GoBilly or this from Miss Vicky is a great place to start. My personal favourite but kind of longer is this series from Conversational Korean, that explains compares the consonants in much more depth.
Using the 500 Korean words Anki deck i have made to learn words with sound is a great way to solidify how to read Hangeul. Your reading speed will be slow at first but picks up as you start to read more. The only way to improve at reading is by reading,
Grammar
Hands down the best free resource for learning Korean is Talk to Me in Korean's curriculum. Although I actually believe it could be remade with a better order, going through this will give you most of the basic grammar with simple explanations.
When going through the curriculum I always recommend not wasting time on listening to the podcasts as all the information is available in the text. This will make it much quicker to finish, giving you more time to spend immersing in Korean. If you would like to read my review of the curriculum and some of their paid content check out this article.
Vocabulary
Other than Anki, if you wish to learn vocabulary there are two great apps by the Sejong Hakdang Institute. Both can be found by searching 'Sejong Vocabulary' on your app store. The first is 'Sejong Korean Vocabulary - Beginner/Intermediate' and the second is 'King Sejong Institute News Vocab'. Although the Sejong news app is for advanced users both are great for going through as they have thousands of words with sentences for if you want to do something more active but don't feel like reading.
Paid Korean learner's Material
Grammar
GoBilly also has released his own series of grammar books that are very good at explaining concepts and include a few grammar points that aren't explained very well else where. I have reviewed the first book in the series if you wish to read.
Probably the best Korean grammar books however are Darakwon's Korean Grammar in Use Beginner and Intermediate. These two books cover almost all the commonly used grammar points, with explanations, examples and audio.
The grammar Anki decks that I have made are based on the content in these books. The advanced book is worth looking through but a lot of the grammar is extremely rare and the example sentences are overly difficult so they are easier to learn elsewhere.
Here are the Amazon links:
Vocabulary
2 of my personal favourite books are 2000 Essential Korean Words for Beginners and Intermediate. They give you vocabulary set into themes and an example sentence for each word much like the Sejong apps. The vocabulary Anki decks I have made are based on these books. I am still waiting for an advanced on to be released.
Here are the Amazon links:
Reading
One of the best series for Korean reading is the Yonsei reading books. Although they are hard to find outside of Korea, they can be found via other means. This series is one of the only good graded readers that exists for Korean. You will likely only need up till book 3 as after that you can just move on to native content that you actually enjoy. Check the Fluency Path for more information.
Recently released, Olly Richard's Short stories for Korean learners is a great book for getting into reading. Although the name of the book says for intermediate learners the stories are very much for beginners. All the stories have short simple sentences and lots of repeated words. If you would like to read my review click here.
Amazon link:
Another book I see recommended a lot I actually had bought for me by a friend. Tuttle's Korean stories for language learners gets a good rep but I personally believe it to be not that great as a learning tool. The stories are quite short and seemingly pointless most of the time. However for the price it's a fair amount of content and the stories get gradually longer and longer.
Amazon link:
Content made for natives
If you know a language most likely you know how you like to spend your time. Luckily for us all the content you can think of in your own language is available in Korean. This section is just to give people a helping hand as to where to find the content that they may be interested in. Our aim should be to transition to native content as early as possible and as suggested at the start of this article to be watching Korean media from the get go.
Where to watch
Finding stuff to watch is probably going to be the easiest for most people. Korean dramas and variety shows have become popular worldwide and are all subbed in English within hours of airing on TV. You can easily find recommendations for TV shows and movies to watch with a simple google search. To watch Korean content legally we can use on demand services like SBS VOD that allows us to watch TV shows from even the 90's.
You can load up YouTube and be greeted with thousands of hours of original content on any topic you like. By changing your location to Korea or going to youtube.co.kr, you can access the trending page in Korea which will give you a variety of content made by Korean content creators. One of the best ways to find content is by searching your interests in Korean, no matter how bizarre there will most likely be content.
As a paid option Netflix has been pulling out all the stops lately to acquire the rights to most of the new dramas and TV shows to bring them to foreign audiences. There are some really good shows available with subtitles and even Audio description. By using a VPN we can access the Korean library of content which has most of the popular Korean movies released in high quality with Korean subs.
Where to read
As reading can be more varied and doesn't just equate to books there are a bunch of places to read content that people may not have thought of. Of course we want engaging content that can keep us interested.
One of the easier things to read are Webtoons, the more popular ones are usually translated into English so you can check the translation side by side if you so wish. There are tonnes and tonnes of these being produced daily, the quality of the content can vary but most of the time as a learner you will be there for the Korean not the quality of the story. These are great because they have visuals to go with the reading, almost like a hybrid of reading and watching.
A little harder we have Naver blogs. Once again just thousands of hours of content being uploaded daily, so you can never really finish. Many different topics, effectively it's the YouTube of written content.
Pure reading we have Webnovels. Some are very long spanning over 200 chapters. They're great for reading because they are so long, you can become used to the writer's style and words that they use. Long form content like this is great for learning a language as it's very repetitive and has a long story following a few characters. To find recommendations and reviews check out this site.
Then we have books. Personally I prefer to use Ridibooks, an E-book retailer that has most literature, webnovels, comics and even a subscription service that allows you to read the available books for a monthly fee. Even if you don't feel like spending money there is a lot of content to be had in the previews for books alone.
We can also read news on various sites. My favourite is YTN, most of the articles are short and concise or are just a transcription of an earlier broadcast. You can find all sorts of content here including daily horoscopes. If you are interested in news, they all tend to upload their broadcasts and clips to YouTube, as well as their own site.
Where to listen
Pure listening is one of the hardest parts of language learning, which makes a lot of people avoid it. Until you are at a higher level it can be very difficult to even follow the conversation with zero visual aid.
I've found outside of Korea, it is hard to find a good radio station via the internet and even when you do depending on where you live the radio station is off for most of the day because they are asleep. This is where Podcasts come in handy as most of them are just recorded radio broadcasts, meaning you get to break up the constant talking with music every 10-15 minutes.
Audio books can also be found on the 팟빵 site, however I'm not sure about foreign card payments. There are however a few of the newer books available as audio books on google books. These are especially good for those that have a lot of money stacked up google rewards.
Website to find them all
By using the website korlinks.xyz, We can find links to TV shows, webtoons, manga, cartoons, anime all either in Korean or either translated or subbed into Korean. The reason for this website existing is that the linked sites are constantly being removed so the site needs to be remade with a different suffix.
Final Words
Hopefully I have covered everything in the way of what to do and where you can find the content that you would be interested in. I wish you the best of luck on your Korean learning journey. And remember the key to successfully learning a foreign language is consistency. If you show up every day I'm sure you will have success.
If you have any questions about the process or where to find a certain type of content then please comment below.
For related posts please check out these pages:
- Is Learning Hanja(한자)[漢字] as Korean Learners important?
- How to Start Reading in a Foreign Language
- Anki Decks for Korean Learners
- Talk To Me In Korean Book Review and Thoughts on the Curriculum
- The Role of Listening in Language Learning
- The Role of Grammar Study in Language Learning
- Realistically How Long Does it Take to Learn a Language?
- How to Spend as Much of Your Day as Possible Learning Korean
- How to Type in Korean and How to Practice Typing Faster
- Smartphone Apps For Learning Korean
- How to Use Ridibooks(Korean Ebook Store)
- Using Audio Description for Language Learning
- The Role of Anki in Language Learning
- Talk to Me in Korean Advanced Idiomatic Expressions Reference List
- How to Master the Korean Number Systems
- 7 Reading Tips to Accelerate Your Korean Learning
- Can You Learn Korean from Kpop?
- Tuttle's Korean Stories for Language Learners Review
- The Best Vocabulary Books for Korean
Thank you so much for all the work you've done putting these sources together in one place. I'm just starting to plan out my Korean study journey and was looking for resources for immersion and this blog is fantastic.
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