Yeah. I said it. Learning Korean is not as hard as you think. Here are
Language is a progress not a destination. There’s no test to measure someone’s fluency(if there is one let me know I’d like to buy one). And for that reason, language learning requires A LOT OF time input, plus EVEN A LOT MORE time of repition( what good is it if you forget everything next year).
I’ve tried learning Spanish over three almost ten years. My first Spanish word was from my highschool spanish 1 class, “HOLA” . Little did I know, that became the only word I know how to say with confidence today.
Was I lazy? Yes and NO. I was more like on and off. One year I will be motivated and buy a Rosessta stone( sitting at my bookshelf dusty now), Pimsleur method(did i spell that right?) , and Many other free products on youtube, pdf books , etc. Of course I have many hardcopy books as well from my spanish classes+some other spanish books.
And the other year I will be so busy( not really more like I got tired of learning spanish) and I will put off with learning. And after 10 years of learning Spanish on and off, I can say “HOLA”
The main reason was because I thought I love Spanish culture, turned out later not as much. (I’m just so used to Korean culture sorry lol )
So here’s a point. You have to really LOVE THE CULTURE,MEDIA of the language you want to learn so that you can constantly push yourself to learn more(and immerse yourself to a language).
I know some people might disagree, but Korean language is amazing and easy.
hangul (한글) is the only language that was created by a man with intentions. (king sejong). And that’s why it is the language that is registered at Unesco.
If you spend good hour or two studying hangul, you will get to understand how the words are formed. And after couple hours of practice, you will be able to pretty much be able to read/write Korean without difficulty.
Trust me on this, the longer you put time on practicing hangul, the easier it will get.
Just go watch some youtube videos on hangul, there are thousands of them out there. But make sure you study! Don’t just watch it thinking that you are learning as you go (typical youtube pitfall)
Ok I wish I can literally come into this blog post and speak myself to show the difference.
But when you say the word “English” the accent is put on the “E” . If you say the word with accent on “Sh” instead, it will be super difficult to understand.
Luckily, Korean language don’t have an accent. ANYWHERE.
Hello is hello is hello. (No accent anywhere)
This is super amazing because for example, Chinese language has like 4 pin yin(phonetic sound) for each sound. Total was like 94 sounds or something( CRAZY!!)
I almost gave up on learning Spanish at one point because of the Ud./Uds/Te/Se/ etc. (if you’re spanish speaker you will know what i’m talking about)
There are so many forms and exceptions to Spanish! I love Hispanic people but language was not my favorite( No offense but I tried to watch Spanish dramas to learn Spanish and couldn’t finish a single episode)
All you need to do is to put “YO” at the end(if you want to be polite)
Of course there are some other word forms that doesn’t take the “Yo” at the end, but really don’t worry about it. Korean people already know you’re not from Korea and we don’t mind you make some mistake(Like we can tell if you’re trying to be polite so that’s all that matters)
Ok that was a bit too much marketing haha.
What I’m trying to say is that you have many tutors/ programs out there to help you learn Korean. There were huge demand for Korean, and supply(people who teach Korean) has been increasing as a result.
My suggestion is to go with the program you like but avoid the programs that require one time big payment. If you buy those, three things will happen. 1. Your wallet will feel lighter next day. 2. You feel like you have already become an expert at Korean (but not at all) 3. You will be motivated to learn but as time passes you will come back to normal daily life.
Instead, I highly recommend programs that comes with accessment (homework,quiz etc. Human interactions are always better), Or tutoring ( as tutoring has all the components of effective learning they’re expensive for a reason)
Keep up the hard work! One day you wake up and you will speak Korean (like a magic)