How I'm Learning Korean and Korean Study Tips!
안녕하세요 여러분~!
Congratulations to those who have just decided to dive into the beautiful world of Korean learning and welcome back to all my fellow more experienced and dedicated learners!
Personally, I am not a textbook learner and I find less structured learning more fun and interesting (Note: I'm not learning Korean for academic or professional purposes so I can take it easy). Therefore, I managed to compile a lengthy list of online resources that I've used over the years. I am proud to present to you my treasure box of resources ranging from online language courses to websites with flashcards and fun exercises.
Hope you have fun and enjoy the ride :)
THE TREASURE BOX OF RESOURCES:
I found this website particularly useful when studying the alphabet, which I suggest all beginners do from the get go. Knowing and being able to read Korean will help you immensely with your future studies (trust me!). This website is nicely structured and gives you a ton of example words, which also increases your vocabulary (woo! two rabbits with one stone!).
These guys are absolutely amazing and are literally my inspiration when it comes to learning Korean. They also have a youtube channel where they post fun learning videos and live Q&A sessions. The website is very neatly organised with tons of video/audio lessons, learning tools/resources and shopping site for books.
This is one of the most useful websites I've found on the internet and it is divided into levels with lots of examples and explanations. I use it a lot for my Weekly Korean series. Waaah It's just gold, guys really! :D
This site probably holds the most amount of grammar/vocabulary information you can find. Some of the content is NOT free but some is, so look around the site and subscribe to their WORD OF THE DAY emails! That's what I do :)
Really great site for learning! You can sign up for word/sentence of the day, which I did and I'm loving it!
I just recently found this website but it looks very promising for beginners and lower intermediates. This guy (I assume his name is Billy) wrote two books on learning Korean and from reading the reviews, the books are pretty good so make sure to check them out! He also has a YouTube channel with fun and interactive videos.
Apparently Korean univresities, like Sogang Unviersity, have online Korean learning programs and this is one of them. This website offers a plethora of structured Korean learning with 7 levels of proficiency from a legitimate Korean university. It may be a little oudated-looking but if you're looking for proved/reliable resource, this website is meatn for you!
Generally high quality blog with very well-structured lessons focusing on specific grammar points. There isn't much information about the author apart from the fact that he seems quite religious (you'll know what I mean after you visit the website) and that he is either a native speaker or someone who is fluent in Korean. I guess if you don't mind the reliability of your sources, check out this website!
Livemocha used to be an independent language learning website with multiple different languages offered. It took me 5 seconds to sign up and it was very useful to learn pretty much ANY language. Also it was based on mutual help from users of the site, for example if you're a native English speaker and you are learning Korean, you will be expected to correct or help other people who are learning English, while getting help from native Korea speakers on the exercises that you do. It was a very mutually rewarding site and it just restored my faith in humanity :D Unfortunately the Livemocha community has been permanently closed and Rosetta Stone was established in its place, which is just as useful of a learning tool as livemocha used to me. may it rest in peace ㅠ____ㅠ
This blog that lists lots and lots of Korean learning resources just like I do. So if you want to find even more information on learning Korean, visit this blog! It also doesn't only focus on Korean learning but other aspects of Korean culture as well, which I think is very nice.
Pretty much another blog about learning Korean and Korean culture in general. I'm not a fan of the format because it is quite confusing and there are a lot of ads that get in the way but otherwise, this is yet another resource you guys can use.
The reason why I'm throwing so many Korean learning blogs at you guys is because, even though some stuff might get repetitive, the more blogs you visit, each and every one of them may (or may not) offer some new insight into not only learning Korean but exploring Korean culture as well.
This is NOT a website where you can find resources for studying Korean but rather it's a place where you can find lots of Kpop lyrics in Hangul! Just thought that might be interesting for some of you :]
Ok so this is my list of all possible and impossible resources that I could find. I'm pretty sure there are thousands and hundreds more websites so don't limit yourself to whatever is listed above. These are just some places I've stumbled upon and used in the past years.
HOPE THIS HELPS!
If you have any further questions, ask away! :D
P.S.: The restaurant I went to is called Arirang and you can easily find it as it is located on one of the smaller streets branching out from Oxford Street.
Here's the address: 31-32 Poland Street, London W1F 8QT
Much love,
x