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The video above is a little outdated, with this list I will try to keep it updated as I continue to watch more shows and movies that are provided worldwide through Netflix.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.