Retro Learns Korean

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.

I read 61 Korean books in 2020

If you have read any of my previous articles, you may already know that I am a big proponent of reading for foreign language acquisition. I started reading proper Korean books some time around March 2019, around 6 months into learning, which when I think about it is too late and one of my biggest regrets is not reading earlier.

Initially, I found a very nice series of history books aimed at a younger audience, 그림으로 보는 세계사, that just so happened to be on Ridiselect. Seeing as it was cheaper to use Ridiselect than to pay for each book individually I subscribed to the service, which was back then $6.99 per month. As they were the first books I read, it took me a while to get through them.

Once I finished them, I looked at what else was available through Ridiselect and stumbled upon a few books that were so far beyond my level that I could only pick up bits. However my main aim when reading them was to read them to see the words in context and try to pick up as many as I could. I spent a few months reading these before deciding to come back down to lower level books.

How to Learn Korean in 2021

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 Master the Korean Number Systems

This article is going to presume that you have at least the knowledge of the number systems, although as we all know knowledge is not acquisition. I will try to cover some strategies you can use to better help remember the numbers and also make it more natural to read them in Korean.

As anyone who has tried to learn another language will know it's very difficult to read a written arabic number without defaulting to saying it in your native language. I know many people who are extremely fluent in English and say they always count in their native language. However our aim should be to at least be comfortable with numbers so that we can tell people things like our age or our birth date.

I've found while learning Korean that numbers come up very often in various ways and it has become beneficial for my reading speed and understanding to be able to automatically know the number in Korean. For reference I will refer to 일, 이, 삼 as the Sino-Korean system and 하나, 둘, 셋 as the pure Korean system.

Talk to Me in Korean Advanced Idiomatic Expressions Reference List

Starting at Level 8 TTMIK added idiomatic expression lessons based on 1 word. Here the list is compiled for easy access with links to each lesson. There is also an Anki deck available which covers the idioms from the collaboration between TTMIK and Naver.

The Role of Anki in Language Learning

I've been wanting to write about this for a while. I see a lot of people over complicate their experience with Anki and even shy away from using it all together because they perceive it to be more complicated than it is. The first thing I will state is that all the content within this article is based off of my own opinion of the software from how I've used it and how I've seen others use it.

The first thing to note is that Anki is merely a supplement to your learning. The reason and method of using Anki will vary throughout your language learning journey. However one should not feel obligated to use it at any point. Once it becomes boring or you forget the reason you're even using it, then simply just stop.

You can download for free Anki here: