Loving Korean

I’ve been planning and organizing my Korean language learning for years now.

When I first started learning Korean I thought I just needed to memorize the words, learn the rules for forming sentences and that would be it.

Then, when I proudly stood in front of Kimchi Man and spat out a sentence in Korean for the first time, and all I got in return was a blank stare, it occurred to me I should have probably spent some time working on my pronunciation as well.

And when I uncertainly carved into paper the first set of straight lines and circles that were supposed to be Korean writing but turned out to look like first attempts of a recovering stroke victim, I realized two things: 1. I need to practice writing Korean a lot, and 2. imitating computer fonts when writing Hangul might not be the best idea ever.

Now that I look back with all this hindsight, I realize just how many resources I collected and how many textbooks and strategies for learning Korean language I’d tried out over the years. I wish I had that knowledge when I first started out. So that it all doesn’t go to waste, I am sharing it all with you.

I made a list that should contain what, where, and how you need to learn to fully grasp Korean language.

I will write a full guide and tips for each of these points and once that’s done I will link to each of them, so look out for new posts during the next few days and weeks.

• Learn Hangul
  • Really BEFORE you do anything else, learn Hangul. Hangul is Korean alphabet, it has only 24 letters, and it takes just a few days to fully master it. Avoid Romanization at all costs. Best way I can describe it is: If you use Romanization to learn Korean you will sound to Koreans exactly as Koreans sound to us when they read English words written in Hangul. Hwaiting!
• Practice typing Hangul
  • Hangul is very easy to input with a keyboard, whether you have a typical QWERTY keyboard, or a touch screen which offers some innovative possibilities. The main steps here for me were to set up the keyboard to be able to write Korean (click here if you need to set up Korean keyboard on Windows 10), and then just practice, with a little help from some typing programs. You can also put Hangul stickers on your keyboard to make finding your way around easier.
• Practice Korean handwriting
  • This is technically not necessary to be able to clearly communicate. Just learning Hangul and stroke order is enough. However, I felt my handwriting was an insult to people’s eyes. Also, I had real trouble READING Korean people’s handwriting. It was difficult finding precise instructions online so I developed a few of my own strategies. Recently I also got into Korean brush calligraphy. I won’t lie, it’s difficult but you get beautiful results even if you have no idea what you’re doing.

• Vocabulary
  • Learning vocabulary is obviously one of the main things you need to do when learning a language, but it can get a bit tedious, especially if you’re trying to cram words without really understanding how they fit into sentences. Sometimes it does just come down to hard work and persistence, but there are more fun ways to supplement your learning as well.
    If you’re using Memrise, I have some tips.

• Grammar
  • This may be even scarier to some people than learning vocabulary, but you really can’t learn a language well without learning the grammar rules. Luckily, compared to just a few years ago there are really many good resources for learning Korean grammar, some even completely free. Textbooks worked the best for me, and I even got some to review, like Elementary Korean.

• Pronunciation
  • It is true that you can just pick this up on the go, but adults have difficulty distinguishing sounds in languages other than their native one, so both your pronunciation and listening skills will benefit if you take some structured approach to learning how different sounds are made in Korean and which part of your mouth and lips you need to use.If you are self-learning Korean, a good Korean pronunciation textbook is the best bet to get your pronunciation to a pleasing level.