Heeeeeeey! These are some of my favorite resources that I use to study Korean - Stuff on the internet can be really unreliable/inaccurate, so I recommend these websites/channels/books to use and follow.

Language Books:

The only books that I really like are the Integrated Korean 2nd Edition textbooks printed by the University of Hawaii Press. The examples are awesome and the explanations are really clear and concise. Along with these books are Workbooks, but don’t waste your money on them. They’re really nice if someone fluent is there to check your work; none of the answers are online because these books are also used for testing and without the correct answers, it’s really easy to practice something a bajillion times the wrong way. I choose to pass up that chance of creating problems for myself and stick to just the main book.

Integrated Korean Beginning 1 - 2nd Edition

ISBN: 978-0824834401

Levels: Beg1,2 Inter1,2 AdvInter1,2 Adv1, 2

Book Resources:

The website is the best part about the book - it has both lecture style notes that accompany the book and audio recordings of every vocabulary list, conversation, and narration. The thing I regret about when I first started learning was not taking advantage of the audio files - it’s the best way to fix pronunciation and avoid developing an accent. Another cool thing is that they record with both a male and female which helps a lot if you have trouble parroting what’s being said. The best part is, even if you decide not to use Klear Textbooks, the website is public and available to everyone. Check it out at www.kleartextbook.com

Dictionaries:

One thing that I can’t stand is romanization and I ran into a lot of dictionaries that liked to use it for alphabetization (Read my rant about romanization in General Advice). The Collins Pocket Korean Dictionary is by far my favorite - the first half is Korean-English and the second half English-Korean. I have only two issue with this dictionary: one, it’s pocket sized and I’d like to have an unabridged version; and two, the example uses in the “Korean Grammar” section found in between the two halves has some annoying translation errors that I didn't notice at first. Nevertheless, I love this dictionary and it’s the only one I reccommend.

Collins Pocket Korean Dictionary (in color)

ISBN: 9780062191717

Youtube:

These are more or less in the order of the channels I frequent the most straight on down (under each section). Note: A lot of these can fall into both categories.

1) These are channels that I watch to get a feel for what life is like in Korea:

ChoNunMigookSaram - https://www.youtube.com/user/ChoNunMigookSaram

Eat Your Kimchi - https://www.youtube.com/user/simonandmartina

Trish JLuv - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCH2c1PB2kuHg6uLZS5-2Ag

HallyuBack - https://www.youtube.com/user/HallyuBack

Smiling Seoul - https://www.youtube.com/user/delightful123

Rachel & Jun - https://www.youtube.com/user/MyHusbandisJapanese

    I know these guys live in Japan, but her videos are really informative too ^///^

2) These channels are more on the educational side:

sweetandtasty - https://www.youtube.com/user/sweetandtasty

TalkToMeInKorean - https://www.youtube.com/user/talktomeinkorean

BusyAtomdotcom - https://www.youtube.com/user/BusyAtomdotcom

General advice:

Here’s my two cents on everything else:

- Buying books - Get eeeeeeeeverything on Amazon. If you look hard enough, you will find it.

- Repeat after me - When I first started out, I mostly afraid of developing an ugly accent. The best way to avoid this is by practicing out loud. I never read in my head - for one because I can breeze over mistakes, and two because it's important to hear yourself pronouncing the words.  

- Plant, Water, Grow - Memrise is honestly the best learning website EVER. What I like the most about it is that the Klear Textbooks have all been uploaded and made into courses meaning every vocabulary sheet in the book is online. It’s also not just about taking quiz after quiz, it’s set up in a way that words are systematically recalled around the time they may be forgotten in order to maximize the amount of terms in your working vocabulary.  Now available is the mobile app which includes a daily tracker and a new game that tests your recall speed.

- Romanization is the devil - In short: don’t really on it because Koreans DON’T use it. The romanization of Korean is a system for representing the Korean language using the Latin script. My main issue with it is despite the fact that the “Revised Romanization of Korean” is the official system, adopted by South Korea in 2000, there are a bajillion other versions that are still in use. 이, a highly common Korean surname, can be written as Lee, Ri, Yi, Rhee, or Rhie according to various romanization. In my opinion, it’s more annoying than helpful…

- Kpop and KDramas - Kpop is actually really helpful. Your eyes do not deceive you! Kpop helps… but not at first. Initially, the music was too fast to keep up with and the way words are sung can be drastically different from how they are said. Fast forward past the beginning stage of learning Korean, it helps with listening skills - BTS’ Rap Monster spits true to his name, so when you begin to catch bits and pieces of what he’s saying, you deserve to feel accomplished. On the other hand, KDramas offer a more realistic scope of conversational Korean. In my case, it aided me in identifying how the honorific system functions in “real-life” scenarios, when it’s appropriate to use certain phrases, when it’s not, etc.

- Practice - Last but not least, remember that practice makes problems, not perfection. It’s important to practice in a way that will help your Korean improve steadily over time. Most of all, I hope that these resources and links will help guide you as you begin or continue to learn Korean.

Good Luck!

BeMyExo

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