I read 50 Korean books in 2021

Last year I made a post called 'I read 61 Korean books in 2020' in which I covered which books I read, my thoughts on reading for language learning and what I was expecting would happen over the next year. Overall I am definitely impressed with what I've achieved and I will cover that later, as you may notice the quantity of books is slightly lower this year.

Year, books, highlighted words, characters(in 10 thousands)

Simple 10 minute 떡볶이(Tteokbokki) Recipe

Nostalgia for many Koreans, a great treat for those having a stressful weak at work or school. Doubling as both a street food and a simple meal that people can cook at home. This dish is very far from being considered healthy and is probably best eaten once a month or so.

I have been cooking with this recipe for a few years, occassionally making a few tweaks. I will include the base recipe and some added ingredients you may want to add depending on your tastes. The ingredients listed are for 2 portions. 

Generally for myself I make 1 portion by halving all the ingredients except water which will usually be between 200-300ml. Most of the ingredients may need to be purchased from a specialty korean or asian store. Some may also be available via Amazon which I will leave links on the ingredients.

7 Korean Netflix Show Recommendations

The video above is a little outdated, with this list I will try to keep it updated as I continue to watch more shows and movies that are provided worldwide through Netflix. Personally I prefer movies to to a drama, usually because of the length. I still have a lot to catch up on, so I will only be including shows and movies that I have watched from start to finish.

Netflix has a great line up of international tv shows and movies and this extends to Korean. The content mentioned in this article should be available in every region, so no VPN required. They also all have audio description(음성 설명) and closed captions, which means you can make the most of your time watching.

For each entry I'll try to give a descrpition about the premise and who might enjoy it. You can see the full list of Korean audio content here. and a full list of content with audio description here. I'll start with TV shows first and remember to share your favourites below so others can find content they might enjoy.

SBS VOD: Watch Korean TV Legally Free (No VPN required)

 

This little known website is great for a couple reasons. Generally you'll find to watch any kind of VODs on Korean tv, MBC and KBS both require you to be a resident of Korea or use a VPN. Alternatively you can view some of their content on YouTube but it is usually broken up into multiple episodes or is just short clips, usually they have English subtitles which you might prefer if that's your style.

However as Korean learners we should be striving to break away from the subtitles and watching and listening to content purely receiving input in it's auditory form. You'll find by doing this you will escape the 'needing subtitles' trap. 

The beauty of this site is that it has a huge base of content going all the way back to the 90s. Older shows can often be hard to find in any form, even illegally. With SBS VOD we get a consistent quality with no episodes missing and autoplay, making it easy to get through hundreds of episodes of your favourite shows. Ranging through Comedy, Sports, Dramas and even documentary/factual shows, there is something for everyone.

Link to the homepage

Where to Watch Digimon Series Korean Dub (디지몬 더빙 다시보기 링크집)

This page is a compilation of various pages and webplayers where you can watch the full series in Korean. It's possible that some of the link may cease to work. I will try to keep it as up to date as possible. Some series may not yet have been posted. I'm unsure if there is anywhere to purchase the DVD copies for the dub, so this is the best we have for now.

You shouldn't need to sign in to any accounts to watch anything. Other than the links being dead you may have to deal with low quality sound and video. If there was a place to watch it in higher quality I would point you there. If it becomes available I will update this page accordingly.

Hopefully digimon lovers, Koreans or Korean learners will find this page so we can all enjoy this series together. I don't have the movies yet but I may search for them later and add them to this post.

The Best Vocabulary Books for Korean

What seems to be an overlooked aspect by many language learners, whether they are using classroom methods or immersion methods, here I want to share some books where one can increase their understanding of the language very quickly with very little effort. At the end I will also share some apps that can help beyond the books shown.

You may have heard about study methods such as reading through a frequency list. The main problem with this advice is that frequency lists generally have no structure or example sentences. Some words also have multiple meanings which the frequency list does not usually separate. If you are interested in a frequency list then you can find one here on ko.wiktionary.org 

As you can see if you check the link, it is merely a list of words with no meaning or examples. The advantage of using the books I will recommend in this post is that they all contain much more information about every word and you can quickly go through them. Also I have created Anki decks for them meaning that once you have read them you can use an SRS to remember the vocabulary long term.

Although the Anki decks are free to use, I highly recommend purchasing a copy of the books not just to help support the creators but to give yourself more information about the words included. A quick read through before starting the decks will give you more of an advantage to remembering the words.

Tuttle's Korean Stories for Language Learners Review

By far one of the most popular and recommended books for Korean learners, but does it live up to the hype? Hopefully with this review you can make a more informed decision as to whether this book is for you. The book has 222 pages, 42 stories of varying length and at the time of writing costs $14.53 via Amazon.

The book was initially published in 2018 and has gained huge traction in Korean learning circles due to the appeal of "folktales" and learning through stories being seen as the premier way to learn a language. On top of that it comes with an audio CD or alternatively a free audio download from their website if you purchase the digital version.

Can You Learn Korean from Kpop?

If you're asking this question, then at least you may have some interest in learning Korean, which is a great start, or maybe you're just interesting in finding an answer to the question. Hopefully I will be able to answer both of these.  If you're new to my blog or language learning, it may be worth reading through these three articles when you have finish this post:

• Korean Fluency Path
• Should You Learn Korean?
• Realistically How Long Does it Take to Learn a Language?

There are a few glaringly obvious advantages and disadvantages to using Kpop and by extension music to learn a language. Advantages such as repetitive language, easy to listen repeatedly, enjoyable to listen to. Sadly a lot of these advantages are negated by any lack of effort to search the meaning of the words or effort to learn the language.

In my article 'The Role of Listening in Language Learning', I explain how listening plays two roles. The first to get sounds into your head regardless of whether you know the meaning or not and the second to act as a review to strengthen your memory of words you already know.

We all have movie lines stuck in our head, even ones from childhood. It's very common for humans to repetitively read, watch or listen to content they find enjoyable. There is a sense of comfort, especially for children, who you will find will want to watch the same movie every night or want you to read them the same story over and over.

7 Korean Fantasy Webtoons You Should Read in 2021

If you're not learning Korean and are just looking for webtoon recommendations, I will leave the English names, feel free to skip the intro.

Webtoons are great for those first starting out reading or those that want something more relaxed than walls of text. The biggest advantage is that they are a lot more comprehensible due to the drawings giving you information about what is happening in the plot.

Obviously due to the lower density of the text, vocabulary acquisition will be lower. For me I can cover much more content in a book than I can with webtoons, most likely due to the need to constantly scroll to get to the text, where as with a large walls of text there is no distraction from the text.

An understated advantage of webtoons is that because they are solely spoken text and less descriptive vocabulary they are a great way to get to speaking earlier. If your main aim is to speak then it might be a good idea to spend most of your reading time on webtoons instead of texts that are less conversational.

Korean Dictionary Symbols Explained

First look at the dictionary may be confusing. In this article I want to clear up some of the more confusing or overlooked parts that are super useful for learners. I think its very easy to overlook helpful information because it seems overwhelming.

Like all knowledge it becomes much easier to digest when we know about it before hand. So I just want to point out a few things that you can take into the future with you.

Personally there are only 2 dictionaries I use. Krdict and Naver dictionary. The first is my preference because it shows the description of the word and has some examples very clearly laid out. I tend to use Naver as a last resort for words that are not on Krdict.

7 Reading Tips to Accelerate Your Korean Learning

There's a lot of fluff lists out there. "how to learn X language", "20 tips to become fluent in X" and 99% of the time they're all just generic advice that everyone already knew. Well this list aims to actually give you tips that you can actually use to make progress with Korean. There is no real order or priority to any of the tips but they will all benefit most people in some way.

As I have stated in previous posts, reading is simply the best way to make rapid progress in a language due to the amount of content you can cover and the large amount of vocabulary used. The tips will be useful for all levels including tips that beginners and advanced learners can use straight away. 

If you found these tips helpful or have tips of your own you would like to share, let me know in the comments below. It's great to get a lot of different perspectives so that we can help future learners achieve their goals. There will likely be a part 2 so please return for that at a later date.

Below I will leave a playlist of video versions of similar tips and more.

Korean Grammar in Use Advanced - Grammar Points Ranked

This list is sorted based on how much I have personally seen them used in books, TV and media that I consume. It may not be 100% accurate and as I continue to learn I will continue to notice more the grammar that I rarely see. I have read a large variety of books at different levels and regularly watch science related content.

I want the different sections to represent how I feel about the contained grammar forms. There are actually a fair amount of grammar points missing from the entire series of Korean Grammar in Use. I will try to keep this list updated and add grammar points at the end that regularly come up but are not in the book.

I have placed a description in Korean next to each point because I've found that I understood the grammar much better once I had read the Korean description. Please note that the list is likely heavily biased to my own experiences and if you mainly consume content that is not the same domain as myself you may find certain grammar more or less common.

Please refer to the book or perhaps search the dictionary or google to find more information about the  grammar points. I recommend using this as a reference as to which grammar points you know. It is good to let yourself know of the existence of grammar prior to seeing it in context so that you can identify that it is grammar.