How To Learn Korean: 5 Great Resources For Beginners ☆

Hello, my name is Lilly and I'm obsessed with languages. I'm not really very good at speaking the words what make sense, like, but I love words and language, and I love learning new words in new languages. Let me list some of my favourite words in different languages:

English: clandestine

German: schlafzimmer (bedroom)

Japanese: 毎日/mainichi (every day)

Korean: 토끼/tokki (bunny)

Portuguese: que hino (roughly the equivalent of "tuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuune!")

Ah, such delightful words. Now, I don't claim to be fluent in any language other than English, but to give you a bit of background, I've studied Japanese on and off for a number of years in a very weird way that means that whilst I know probably over a thousand Japanese words, I don't know much grammar. Also kanji, there are a lot of them, and most of them I cannot read. I'm not good at sentence construction and syntax is a mystery. I've studied German for maybe around a year, and I am much more proficient in it than Japanese, which is mostly because from an English-speaking standpoint it is much easier to get further along into understanding German well. I can do sentences in German, but my pronunciation is probably The Actual Worst.

Ich bin eine Englanderin, und ich spreche Deutsche ein bittschen.

That said, I've spent a lot of time studying those two languages online, and I have learned a lot about language itself, and avenues of self-study. My favourite part of language learning has to be near the beginning, when you've dipped your toes in and you're starting to REMEMBER WORDS and it feels AMAZING. So despite how much I still need to learn in Japanese and German, after engaging so much with Korean media that I started to understand some really common words and phrases, I decided to give in to my desires and start studying some Korean.

So, as a beginner, here are my favourite resources so far:

Talk To Me In Korean

TTMIK is extremely well known and often one of the first things you'll be recommended when looking for Korean language learning resources, and for good reason. They have some really good videos, produce a series of books that people seem to like a lot (I haven't tried them myself just yet!), and have a lot of lessons and other stuff to be found on their website.

Korean Dungeon

This is my favourite thing. It's a mobile game in which you kill orcs by learning words. It's a quick, fun, and easy thing you can do every day and is a great way to start off your learning and familiarise yourself with some words. The app is only available on Android as far is I know (as of writing), but it's really well designed, and you can switch off the romanization in the menu (so useful!). I tried this app not expecting much (since there are a lot of not-very-good language apps out there), but I was pleasantly surprised and now I love using it.

Anki Korean Decks

Anki is a handy flashcard programme which I initially used for Japanese learning. I use it on desktop and I also use the mobile app. You can use it for pretty much anything you can put onto flashcards, but one useful element of Anki is its shared decks. These are flashcard decks shared by other users. Here is the full list of available Korean decks, and the ones I'd recommend are 'Korean Grammar Sentences by Evita', and 'Korean Vocabulary by Evita'. They're awesome - but you can experiment with different decks there and see which ones suit you (or create your own custom deck).

MBC Mini

I was searching for a site where I could listen to Korean radio stations, and I went through quite a few that didn't seem to work properly or were non-Korean radio stations dedicated to Korean music. I was looking for a Korean talk radio so I could listen to lots of talking, and eventually I found MBC Mini. Just click the play button on the left side of the web player, and you get instant radio. There are a few different stations you can cycle through, but I recommend the default station, 표준FM (standard FM).

And... This

Lastly, a slightly odd yet super useful thing I stumbled upon is the existence of a bunch of videos that compile many uses of a certain word or phrase often used in k-pop songs - so for example, here is one that compiles lots of different examples of Korean pop singers singing the phrase "첫사랑 (cheot sarang; first love)":

It certainly can work to get a word/phrase hammered into your skull. If you're not a k-pop fan it might cause your brain to be pushed right out of your head, but I enjoy these and think they're super interesting and useful for discovering or solidifying really commonly used words/phrases.

☆☆☆

I hope that some of this stuff is useful, and from one beginner to another: 안녕히 계세요!