#language learn

Duolingo - This is where I started. Wouldn’t really recommend it, except for if you’re struggling with memorising and reading 한글 (hangeul - the Korean writing system). In that case, the first few lessons can be helpful because they basically just chuck letter blocks at you and make you learn how they sound.

How To Study Korean (HTSK) - a website that breaks up learning the language into 7 units (plus a Unit 0 to learn 한글, and an additional unit for 한자 - hanja - the equivalent Chinese characters that are commonly used in Korea). Within each unit there are about 25 lessons, which each introduce both vocabulary, verbs, grammar points, the works. I found it really great, especially since it’s entirely free, with the exception of supplementary resources like printable/PDF booklets to accompany each lesson. There are also audio recordings for the vocab and example sentences, and YouTube videos that you can use to test your knowledge and familiarity with the content of each lesson (sentence practice, reading practice, dictation, and an “apply yourself” that uses new vocabulary with the learned concepts). As far as I know, these go up to the end of Unit 1. The explanations are pretty clear as well. I know that they also offer at least some of the lessons in varying languages, but I can’t tell you much about the quality or extent of these, since I’m a native English speaker and have only used the English resources. The way I roughly structured my learning with HTSK was, I would dedicate one to two weeks per lesson, and each day would be a combination of two of the following - reading and digesting the content, making or reviewing the vocab list (I’ll get to programs I use for this in a bit), one of the videos (sentence/reading/dictation), and at the end of the week or two weeks, I would test myself on the vocabulary, do the apply video, and make an overview of the content and any notes I felt were important in my notebook. I also wrote down all the example sentences, because chunking is a very effective way of learning for me, although I’m starting to add example sentences to my vocabulary reviews to help me with useful, everyday sentences, and learning through context (for example, in the list I would include both the word 뭐 - what, and the phrase 뭐예아? - what is it?)

(https://www.howtostudykorean.com/)

Talk To Me In Korean (TTMIK) - a company(?) based in South Korea who run a website, YouTube channel, and Spotify podcast (and probably more; these guys are everywhere). There are varying memberships at varying price points for the online lessons - yes, there is a free one - and an extensive bookstore on their website for all fluency levels,  한글 practice, grammar, theory, et cetera. Pretty much everyone I’ve come across who is learning Korean is doing it primarily through TTMIK’s resources. I like learning from textbooks, and I really, really appreciate that the units are parallel between the theory book, grammar book, and podcast episodes, so TTMIK is what I’m currently using. If anyone’s curious, I have the TTMIK Level 1 textbook and workbook, as well as Real-Life Korean Conversations For Beginners (for a bit extension work to keep me going when I’m feeling particularly masochistic, and for after I finish the L1 books). With the textbook and workbook, you can download/access the audio files for dictation exercises and such, through Google Drive and Dropbox. I tend to listen to the podcast episodes on the bus to school, as a passive review of the units I’ve already done. I love the podcasts because I’m a very aural learner.

(https://talktomeinkorean.com/)

Quizlet - I know, I know, it’s not specifically a Korean language resource. I’ve been using Quizlet for quite a few years now, mainly because my French teachers set a lot of review work through Education Perfect, which is also great, but can be a very frustrating and meticulous way of learning vocabulary in particular. You have to get the answer exactly right, and can’t personalise your learning because of how rigid the program is. I get it; it has to be a reputable global resource so changes or suggestions need to go through a team, but it wasn’t my schtick. Enter Quizlet. Much more flexibility. How meticulous your responses have to be is up to you; basically it puts you in charge of your own learning. It’s not perfect but it is good for self-study especially considering the lack of languages available on Education Perfect. 

(https://quizlet.com/latest)

Youtube people!

Lindie Botes - she. speaks. so. many. languages. and gives a lot of advice on her YouTube channel. I also really love her openness on topics like language guilt, demotivation, and normalising the changing of goals. Keeps it real. She’s not a native speaker, for reference.

Abby P - I saw some video that “exposed her” or something, but I haven’t been bothered to watch it; her pronunciation videos were helpful to me when I started learning  한글. Her boyfriend is a native speaker.

JOLLY and 영국남자 Korean Englishman - Josh and Ollie are pretty fun to binge for some passive input learning and culture-based content. They will always put you in the mood for KBBQ, promise. Josh speaks, from what I can tell, very good conversational Korean, and The JOLLY channel has a playlist for Ollie’s Korean Learning Challenge. Neither of them are native speakers, but many of their friends are.

Conversational Korean - I don’t know who you are, but you’re very likeable regardless. They have a bunch of videos for reading and pronunciation practice, vocab lists, phrases, honestly I should have invested more time exploring their resources but this post is long enough and I’m very lazy.