TIPS: How I Learn Korean

Hello guys! It’s been a while since I wrote on this blog, so today I decided to share something that (hopefully) useful for anyone who also learn Korean but haven’t been able to find a proper method that suit your style. Well, actually I’ve been wondering to share such articles for these past couple of months but in the end I always held back and postpone the idea because I didn’t think I’m good enough to give tips eventhough I have already been studying for 5 years now. But after thinking over and over again I decided to do it. Because there will always be a beginner who might still looking for tips and advice as I did when I was still a beginner. Anyway, all the tips and method below are all based on my experience of studying. I will wrote some points step by step from very beginning to help you find you need. All ups and down is obvious because learn foreign language is not a piece of cake. There’s always new things to learn so don’t expect to master it in a flash. But if we study hard we can always make it to another level. So, go find your way to learn ;)

Okay, without much disclaimer let’s get started!

1.       BEGINNER? LEARN HANGUL FIRST

If you just decided to learn Korean language and don’t know where to start. There’s no better options than learn hangul. Korean alphabet is different from English. They tend to use Hangul character in writing which might completely different from alphabet we use everyday. If you still hesitating because you don’t familiar with it, I will give you advice: go ahead! Don’t hesitate too much because once you learn, you will find out that hangul is not hard to learn. Even some people said Hangul is the easiest character in the world. If I had to compare with Kanji or chineese character, Hangul is obvously the easiest because they tend to have less complicated stroke. If I’m not mistaken I only learn Hangul within a day. Yes! Just one day and I already memorized all of the characters. Just imagine how easy they are!

2.       DON’T EVER USE ROMANIZATION

Once you can read Hangul don’t you ever read romanization again. I know though you can read it doesn’t mean you can read it smoothly just like your normal alphabet. You might struggling a bit. Well, a lot. Even until now I’m still dizzy everytime I read bunch of text in hangul. But still, don’t EVER read roman because it could limit you to learn more. Even you won’t be able to know how to pronounce it perfectly. Because if you sharp enough to notice there are lot of way to write romanization. And it will be depends on how you read it. What I’m trying to say is, there are no perfect romanization. The only way for you to know how a word properly sounds like is to read it in Hangul. You can never guessing sounds of romanization. Okay, I wil give you an examples. There is a character ㅓ that usually write in romanization as ‘u’ while the actual sounds is not even ‘u’ as like in ‘you’ or worse like in ‘jungle’. If it has to be romanization maybe the closest sound is like ‘eo’ but still it couldn’t be perfect. Another reason is because some people in some country, especially my fellow Indonesian, could think it sounds in two vocals, so it would be like ‘eh’ and ‘oh’ which the actual sounds only contain one vocal. Personally I’ve also been struggling to pronounce it properly since I learn Korean. It’s because the sounds is very similar to our alphabet ‘O’ normally sounds while there is another character ㅗ which represent the ‘O’ for English alphabet. But to me the ㅗ character is more like between o and u, and ㅓ  sounds is just like how we normally say ‘O’. Well, it’s a long explanation, tho. But I hope you get the point in which why I recommend strongly to not using Romanization anymore once you know Hangul. I personally have never read Roman again. And I really HATE to read it. I purposely use the capital so you will understand why I’m against it. Believe me, it just make you lazier to read hangul and deceive you pronouncing in a right way. The only romanization words I still familiar with are oppa, eomma, hyung, nuna, eonni, mian, and annyeong. Because I still use it in chatting LOL. The rest of them will be just like name (?) like Korean artist name because they are everywhere. Even I’m still typing their name in romanization when I want to google them lol.

3.       INSTALL HANGUL KEYBOARD ON YOUR PHONE AND PC

Now you want to stop using romanization to write it’s a must to install Hangul Keyboard in every devices you have. You will need it to type in Hangul or when you want to look up words in the dictionary.

4.       WATCH AND LISTEN (VARIETY SHOW, DRAMA, AND MUSIC)

Everybody come to know Korean from different reasons and purpose but we can’t deny most of us know Korean because of their entertainment industry. I bet you all aready familiar with Korean Variety, Drama, and K-pop. It’s the same for me. I came from loving the entertainment. Actually, I’m not a Kpopers at first. I came to love Korea because of their variety show. A little story of me, back in early 2012 a friend of my sister introducing us to Kpop but I didn’t interest at all because I always have this feeling; to not want to listen to music which I don’t familiar with the language. Because it makes me dying to know the lyrics, which makes me wanted to learn the whole language (and it came true). But when she tried to influence us with the variety show I’m all done LOL. It was Running Man and the whole world know it such an addicting show you can help but fall in love with the show. Because the show invited lots of celebrity and idols I came to know lots of them and started to give attention to K-pop. Since then I decided to learn Korean.

Watching Variety Shows was very helpful for me to start learning because in variety shows you hear many kind of conversation and interaction. Sometimes they talk formally and in another situation they talk in informal way. It helped me to get familiar with the words even before I decided to learn continually. If you hear Korean native conversation, they tend to have various kind of ending particles/suffixes. Each represent a different expression and feeling even if the difference is very subtle. For examples, there are many ways to say ‘will’ or future tenses but I will give you two common grammar they usually use. –ㄹ 거에요 and –ㄹ 게요. Both mean will or represent the future tenses. But there is a subtle different meaning, in what kind of situation we should use each of them. To figure it out and understand it perfectly is by listening to how they use it in real conversation and watch the action after it. That’s why I recommend you to watch a lot of variety so eventhough you don’t understand the meaning first, once you familiar with the suffixes it will be easier for you to understand the difference when you about to learn the lesson. Same with Drama I guess, in fact that I don’t enjoy Drama that much I don’t know what will be more effective. But if you prefer Drama rather than Variety Shows it’s up to you. Also if you are music lover I recommend to listen to Korean songs as much as you can. You don’t have to listen to Kpop, tho. There are lots of Korean music genre. Find that suits your taste. The songs that you play over and over again will stuck in your mind and it could help you memorize new words. Also you will look up for the translation in order to know the meaning. But once again, if you want to know the lyric please use only hangul. Try looking for the lyric with Hangul ;)

5.       BOOKS OR ONLINE LESSONS? BOTH DO WORK!

Now it’s time for you to start your first lesson! As it is your first time, you might still wonder what books will you learn from or is there another method? Since I never take any formal course and only learn by myself I found myself the method that suits me well. And of course it started with free lesson on the internet! Don’t ask me, there are soooo many Korean lesson especially for beginner. Still, I will recommend some sites J

·         Talk To Me in Korean

Okay, I know you’ll probably guess it already. This website has already been recommended multiple, okay no, uncountable times. Yeah, it’s because the method they offer is very friendly and easy to understand especially for beginner. The curiculum divide into 9 levels where each level contain about 30 lessons. Every lessons not only contain bunch of text in pdf format but also podcast where the teacher explains the lessons. It feels like you are in the class with native teachers LOL. Until now, TTMIK system in teaching has developed a lot. If you tired of reading in pdf or you don’t want to be bother by download every lessons they also provide Physical books that they sell in their online store. Not only through the website, you can also visit and subscribe their youtube channel where they upload many kind of video lessons that could helps you through the progress.

·         How to Study Korean

When I found this site I was already a half way to finishing the TTMIK lessons so lots of the lesson has already been taught. But still, I love this website so much! I personally think this websites provides all of the material lessons you need to know and they organized well.  The Lessons are separated into Units. Each Unit has 25 Lessons, 3 Quizzes and a Unit Test. Completely perfect, right? Another reasons for me to love it because the lessons is explained more detail than any other free online lessons. They also give more examples to help us understand better. Another thing, the teacher is a foreigner who lives in Korea so I think he could feel the struggle of learning foreign language and he know what concern us so he wrote the lesson thouhtfully considering what could be our difficulties and through our concerns. Sadly, they don’t provide such podcast but they also have their own store where we can purchase additional material to help learn more easily.

Actually there are lots of free lessons but I’m afraid I can’t recommend you any other one because I majorly use only those two websites and only google everything I want to know. But of course you can freely looking for another one ;)

Tell me you don’t like study through computer all the time and need some reference of books, honsestly I don’t have any lol. I once bought a book but the lessons are basically the same with any other online source lessons and I prefer to read through devices so I just stick out with the online lessons. Besides, I learn Korean through English from the start so it’s kind of weird to learn from my mother language, Bahasa. Even when I’m watching Korean variety or drama I never use Indonesian subtitles. I just feel wrong to read the translation because I’m not familiar with it and it makes me cringe just to take a glance LOL. Same case for lyric translation, I prefer to look up for the English translation. Actually, I personally think Korean vocabulary context is more similar to Bahasa and is easier to translate to Bahasa. Oh, and based on my experience I thought learn languages through another foreign language could makes you think twice before making sentences. It always happen to me. Like when I want to say something but the sentence pop up in my mother language so I need to find the English version first before translate it to Korean lol. I guess it’s just another cons XD
Back to the main point, eventhough I don’t have any books to recommend, I have books that I found from the internet (pdf version), but of course they sell it in bookstores, which I think is another good and useful books. Until now I only have the begginer and intermediate series. If you want to see the pdf version I will link it down below

·         Basic Korean: A Grammar and Workbook

·         Intermediate Korean: A Grammar and Workbook

Well, actually there are more but I think it’s better for you to look up by yourself or find another recommendation from others sites.

6.       EXPAND YOUR VACOBULARY: IMPORTANT

Now you already know many kinds of Tenses and Grammar, it’s time for you to expand your vocabulary. This is very important because eventhough you have understood all of the grammar lessons you won’t be able to make sentences because your limited vocabulary. The problem is where we can find list of vocabulary to begin with? Maybe if you look up on google with Korean vocablary keyword, many articles will give you the list. But I recommend you to read a lot. Yes! Reading is the best way for any langauge learner to collect vocabulary as much as we can. You just need to know what you’re interested in then keep reading it. While there are so many source from such as article; news, entertainment, or books. When learnt English I started with reading novel that I like. I was planning to do the same but I was lacking in confidence because I was a bit scared to see so many Hangul in a passage. If you have the same problem with me then you might want to try diferent way. Here what I would like to suggest:

·         READ KOREAN WEBTOON! EFFECTIVE AND FUN

I guaranted you this method is very effective! Especially if you enjoy reading comic. Of course comic is easier to rad than books. It contain not only text but also drawing to help us understanding the situation even if we don’t read the bubble text. That’s why I think reading webtoon is fun yet challenging. After all, webtoon use 100% Korean Hangul so you might struggle at first because the beginning is the hardest. That’s why I have some tips to encourage you:

·         Try to Read Easy Webtoon

If you still find reading webtoon is difficult at first go find an easy webtoon where the story doesn’t use hard and complicated vocabulary. For example the webtoon called Penguin Loves Mev which each story end in one episode. It’s a good start to not breaking head too much

·         Find Your Interest

There are many type and genre of webtoon. What you need to do is just find one that you have interest in. This would help encourage you to keep reading episode to episode. In my case, I was so desperate because it took me about 30 minutes to finished 1 episode. So I gave up in just few episodes. If you had faced the same problem with me I have another solution. First, find the webtoon you want to read using the English versionand read it till the recent episodes. The English version tend to release much later than the Korean version. So if you really curious with the next episodes you won’t have any other way than to read the Korean. It will encourage you and you will find reading it more enjoyable than before.

Probably you still don’t know which one to read I will tell you some that I read ;)

·         Cheese in The Trap (치즈 인더 트랩)

This webtoon is very famous among the webtoon lover because it has entered the 4 Seasons and still continue. It even adapted into a Drama as it has so many fans and reader. Not talking about the Drama I was in love with this webtoon. It was the first webtoon I read. To be honest I read the English version until Season 2 and continue reading the Korean version to finish the Season 3 and 4. I’ve quit reading it in a few episodes of Season 4 because I was tired reading it while the plot is getting bored to follow with the never ending conflict.

·         Super Secret (슈퍼 시크릿)

This one still up every week and I still read it until now. The story is about friendship of a human and a werewolf that became lover in the end.

·         Oh! Holy (오! 주예수애여)

This one is also still up every week. I love this one so much! The story is about a couple who can see ghost and wonder soul because of some reason. If you think the genre is about horror well you definitely wrong! The story is comedical while the character action and expression is exaggeratedly weird yet funny!

There are some titled I read other than those above but I somehow I stop reading them after some episodes so I prefer to mention only these three. Hope you get inspired by them to find one you like!

PS: for those who wants advance reading such as novel, you can try naver novel (소설). There are so many story and they all are free just like webtoon!

·        WRITE DOWN ALL THE UNKNOWN WORDS

Okay, until now you have found the webtoon you like. Of course you can’t read it without any material. The material you need in this step is a pen, a notebook, and dictionary. There will be bunch of unfamiliar words you find in just one episode. The consequence is you have to switch pages to dictionary back and forth. Weather you read it on PC or phone please use Kor- Eng dictionary to look up any words you don’t know. If you use PC to read I recommend you to install LINGOES DICTIONARY and to look up more words and to translate sentence I recommend you to use Naver English Dictionary and Translation. Also install the naver dictionary in your phone to come in handy. Then write down all of the words and the translation in your notebook. Remember to write ALL OF THEM. Because you wouldn’t want to look back to the previous episodes to find the words you miss, right? During the time I read Cheese in The Trap, in one season I have filled all pages of my notebook with unknown words. If you’re too lazy or tired to write it manually you can create your own Wordbooks in Naver Dictionary to save all of the words you have looked for in their dictionary. You can even practice and try the quiz features there. Now you have dilligently wrote it down, it’s time to review!

·         USE FLASHCARDS TO REVIEW

Another important step is to review what you’ve write. You might remember quite much new words after numbers of episodes but it doesn’t mean you can memorize all of the vocabulary you’ve wrote in the notebook. That’s why you need to review them. Memorizing bunch of words in a time of course is not easy. We need to find a god method to keep you doing it funly yet effective. You can start make your own flashcards. Cut papers to some pieces and write the word and the meaning on both each sides. You can bring them everywhere and you can study everywhere. But if you’re too lazy to make them you can use online flashcard. There are some flashcards application for your phone. I use Quizlet and Mesmerize. You can add your own words to start or search the available flashcards in the database. There quite a lot too. Have a fun time reviewing J

·         Additional Tips for Fangirl: ARMY

If you are a proud ARMY like me XD you must have been familiar with Bangtan Fancafe where there are only official and un-official member in level 2 who can see all of the boards. The boards contain official pictures and videos which only members who can see it and they are strictly prohibited to be spread among non-member. That’s why some of us might desperately want to be level up but as we know to get level up we have to answer questions, kind of ridiculous questions I’d say, which up every 3 days. The questions are crazily difficult and tricky even for Korean. Imagine how could be worse to non-Korean. It indeed tested your understanding in read Korean questions. I tried to level up last year and it took me freaking 6 months to get level up and only 2 weeks to get demoted again to level one just because I didn’t realize my nickname somehow violate against the rules. But still, I want to express thankfulness to the crazy and mean staff of the cafe for making me suffering for months and end up dissapointed (I’m not crying) because if it’s not because of them I wouldn’t improve much and I think completed the application somehow has overcome my fear of seeing lots of Hangul. I personally won’t do it again. I’d rather purchase the membership if I have money. But I will still recommend it to ARMY who dying wanted to know inside the café boards and like to challenge theirselves for answering those ridiculous questions and gain confidence in reading Hangul.

7.       LISTENING AND LISTENING AGAIN FOR A BETTER FUTURE

You have come this far! Now you know lots of vocabulary and you have found reading Korean text in Hangul is a piece of cake, it’s time for you to get used to how native talk in a proper pronounciation. Because in real life when we hear native talk we would misunderstand some words. It could be because we never heard it the word or because the word somehow sounds similar with another word. That’s why listening practice is important. Here are some tips in how I practice my listening.

·         TTMIK’s IYAGI Podcast

This one is from TTMIK again! The lesson is about two people (teachers) having conversation with 100% pure Korean with slower speed than the normal native. So don’t worry to not understand what they’re talking about because they speak slowly and clearly not like how you hear in TV shows or Drama lol. Each episode have a topic to talk about. Not only helps you to improve in listening, they also give information about Korea that we might not know before. Other than that, they also attach the full transcript of the conversation. Unfortunately if you want to have the translation you have to purchase it. I myself have grateful enough to not having the translation because it made me try hard to look up for the words I didn’t know instead of just read the translation effortlessly. Sadly they have stopped adding more episode. But this year they uploaded one iyagi in Season 2 still until now the lesson haven’t been continue. The first season including more than 100 episodes already so it will be enough for us to begin. In the middle of the season with our progressing they increase the speed in how they talk to almost like how normal native speak. I personally feel the lesson helps me a lot to improve in my listening. I used to listen to 2-3 episodes every night before I go to sleep. I also use the transcript to practice speaking quite a lot LOL.

·         Korean Vlog

There are so many source to practice listening. But it wouldn’t be fun and boring if you don’t interest in the topic or you don’t like the method. In Youtube or any other video sharing website you can find videos such as vlog. Make sure the vlog is using Korean language. You can watch any kind of vlog; games, beauty, sports or even just everyday activities. Another tip, it’s better to watch Non-Korean vlogs who use Korean in their videos. First, they speak more clearly than natives, Second, most of them will also put caption in English just in case people from a non-Korean speaker watch their videos, and Third some of them also talk about tips and trick in learning Korean that could be helpful for us. Oh, I almost forgot to mention this one. It’s from TTMIK (again). If you like the teaching way of TTMIK you must check out their Youtube Channel. There are many categorize like Q&A, Tips, and more. But I will recommend a playlist titled Story Time where TTMIK’s teachers telling story in vlog concept. And of course they speak in Korean but what’s good is they put both Korean and English captions to help us.

·         V APP for K-Pop Lovers

If you are a K-Pop Lovers, no doubt you must have known about this app. It’s where almost all of celebrity in Korean entertainment industry have a channel to interact with their fans. I love this app so much. Not only because I can watch recent videos of my favorite groups but it can also be a very good place for improving my Korean. In this case, I challenge myself to watch Live videos of my favorite group. There are no subtitle so we can concentrate and focus in what they are talking about. If I missed the Live broadcast I would just play the replay and turned off the English captions, but another thing is I can’t always understand what are they talking about so instead of using the English caption I would prefer turn on the Korean caption. Yes! The best thing I like is some of the videos provide Korean caption. Mostly from popular channel. Good thing my favorite group got the most popular channel so most of their videos include the Korean caption LOL. I usually watch it without subtitle first then watch again with the Korean subtitle and once again with English subtitle. You can also pause the video and write down the words you don’t know. This could be interesting because you watch your favorite group/celebrity so you wouldn’t mind watching it over and over again, right? XD

·         Pick Up Words and Phrases from Variety Shows, Drama, and Music

For those who enjoy watching Variety Shows, Drama and listening to Korean songs just keep it up. In the meantime you will realize the difference before and after practicing over and over again. You might understan a lot phrases from Drama or Variety Show. Well, personally I think Variety Show is not the right place for practice listening, because they tend to have more than one person talking and it’s quite hard to distinguish the sounds because the voices are overlapping. But what’s good is almost every Korean TV Show use CG caption a lot and it’s very helpful. So when you watch Variety Shows and think you couldn’t keep up with the conversation, you can read the caption to know the main point. While Drama can be more stable in the audio and the conversation will be more clearly. Although some of the phrases in Drama could be way too impossible to say in real life LOL. Another one is for those who enjoy music. After using Hangul lyric and the English translation for awhile, let’s move to another level. Once you have enough list of vocabulary in mind it will be easier for you to pick up words in a song. You would probably have understood the main story of the song although you still don’t know each words. If you do, I suggest you to stop look up for the English translation instead translate it by yourself. It’s a very good method to test your understanding. Personally I still misunderstand sometimes and get confused by the meaning because we all know English and Korean have a different sentence structure. In case you have the same problem with me, you can try test yourself by translating it and then check if you translate it right by comparing it to the trusted source.

·         Additional Tips for Fangirl

If you are a fangirl then I will give another tips for you. You can convert your favorite idol videos with vlog format such as V Live Broadcast (not variety shows) to audio format. Remember, I recommend you to do it only with videos where there are not many people speak in one time (that’s why I don’t recommend variety show concept) to make you focus with what they are talking about. You can also do it to Radio Show.

For Army, I would like to recommend you convert our boys LOG. They have filmed many logs since their pre-debut. It’s fun since their talking about their story. You miht already know most of the story so you would understand the talks better.

Okay, that’s all! Wow, it’s such a long way LOL. Since it’s only based from my experience and remember! I learn by myself so it might be different with those who learn by taking formal course. If I have to give another tips, you can also change your phone/device to Korean. You might struggling a bit but once you used to it, it’s not a big deal. The important thing is to practice again and again. Once we loosen up or slack off a bit our memory graph about Korean will goes down as time goes by. There is the time where you might forget some of the vocabularies or grammar. It’s happen for me too. I’m not a native English speaker (you must know just to see how bad I am LOL) and when I study Korean I sometimes couldn’t come up with particular words in English eventhough I learn Korean from English. It’s because I somehow manage to leave English behind and focusing only in Korean. For me, I like to talk to myself like when I was alone or in the bathroom, I talk to myself with the language I listen or read a lot recently. It happens naturally, I just talk to myself without thinking much and the words that come up will be the language I hear and read a lot. It means my memory graph of particular language goes up and down as what it familiar most. That’s why we need to keep practice or at least hear / read the language we learn once in a while to keep used to it.

Oh, one thing I haven’t mention yet! Some people have recommend it but I hardly try it by myself is to watch animation Korean dub. We all agree that animation speak more clear than normal talk, it will be easier for us t pick up words. Why I haven’t try it is because it’s so hard to find Korean dubbing for animation movies. Once I watched it when I was on a flight and I found the Snoopy The Movie (I don’t remember the exact title) with Korean dubbing. But I got an advice to using 우리 말 더빙  in the keywords. I did try but I didn’t find another format except torent (I’m hoping to watch it online, tho) but it’s worth to try!

You can also look for Drama with Korean subtitle which is very limited. I know Viki provides it in some Drama but from what I know most of them didn’t subbed completely so it’s like only few episodes are available in Korean subtitle. Other thing, you can look up for the script itself. There are some Korean fancafe that provides script from Dramas and Movies but I just don’t know how to download it. If I’m not mistaken it required membership. Although the membership is free I just don’t know ho to be acceptable so… hahahaa. If you know the way please let me know!

Lastly (I promise this is the last) don’t forget to practice in making sentence. The best way is to have a native pen pal who can also teach and correct your mistake. But if you think finding a native friend is quiete hard you can practice yourself by writing journal everyday using the new vocabulary you know. Or you may also want to be in a community where people share the same interest to study Korean. Honestly it’s also hard for me to maintain myself practice making sentences regularly because I’m such a lazy person and I really picky in having pen pal friends. Mostly the language barrier is the biggest wall. Some people may not very good in English while I’m not confident enough to speak Korean. That’s why… LOL.

This is probably the longest post I’ve made and I doubt myself if it’s worth enough lol. I really hope this post could be help for somebody else, or at least could be a reminder of me. And I think those tips could be use for anyone who learn any languages. Okay, I’ll call it quit for now. Have a good day, God bless you!