안녕하세요. 저는 필리핀에서 온 카미입니다. 한국드라마하고 케이팝을 좋아하세요? 한국어를 공부하고 있으세요? 아니면 공부하고 싶으신가요? 영어자막 없이 드라마나 예능이나 보고 싶으면 한국어를 공부 해야돼죠? 한국어 공부는 어렵다고요? 공부는 어렵기도 한데 님은 열정만 있다면 잘 할수 있겠죠! 걱정하지 마세요. 저도 처음에는 힘들었던 걸 느꼈어요. 그런데 제 꿈은 원어민처럼 한국말할 수 있는 사람이 되고 싶어서 계속 공부를 했어요. 님도 할수 있어요. 화이팅!!

Hello! I'm Cami from the Philippines. Do you like K-Dramas or K-Pop? Are you studying Korean? Or maybe you want to study Korean? If you want to watch Dramas or Variety shows without english subtitles then you have to study Korean right? You say that studying Korean is hard? Although studying it can be difficult If you have the passion then you can do well! Don't worry. I, too, at first felt the difficulty. But my dream is to become a person that can speak Korean like a native so I continued to study. You can do it too. Fighting!!

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Let's got some info out of the way

• I'm Filipino (Philippines, located in South East Asia).
• Studied Korean since I was 18. I'm now 25. do the math. lol. I know i'm old. 
• I self-studied mostly. Enrolled in a class only once for 3 months then stopped because the school was too far.
• I studied for only 10-15 minutes a day even while I was studying in HS and College. If I wanted to be fluent, I couldn't make excuses.
• I hate studying but I love Korean so I compromised with myself -- only 10-15 min a day and we're done.
• As a beginner, I studied Hangul (Korean alphabet) first before everything else.
• To increase vocabulary, I stuck post-it notes around my house until my parents found it annoying... but they knew I was studying language so they never complained directly... just made jokes.
• I took TEST OF PROFICIENCY IN KOREAN (TOPIK) every year since 2015.
• I passed TOPIK I, Level 2 in 2015. Failed TOPIK II in 2016. Passed TOPIK II in 2017 with Level 3. Just because you fail doesn't mean you stop trying. I took TOPIK II again this year to hopefully get Level 4. 

This is my experience. Some people learn Korean faster and some slower. I'm quite slow compared to my peers. When I see people who are fluent in the language after studying for 6 months... I get a jealous rage. If only I had studied more and harder. BUT-- I can only blame myself because I only studied for 10 minutes anyways. But I'm happy for anyone that becomes fluent in a language.

I know a lot of people make excuses because they have work or studies. I made excuses too. Personally, I wanted to change that and stop making excuses and just LEARN THE DAMN LANGUAGE. lol. I was pretty hard on myself. I continued studying everyday until I was confident in the language. 

The benefit of learning Korean is watching Koreans faces when they hear me talk and the face doesn't match the language. looool. I don't look Korean, mind you.

HOW TO LEARN KOREAN

1. Don't expect to be fluent overnight or even in 6 months. Lose that mentality or you'll have a hard time.
2. Memorize Hangul. If you believe you can study the language without the alphabet, fight me. No, I'm kidding! haha. But seriously, I don't believe that will work. Try to prove me wrong but everyone* who has learned Korean agrees that hangul is the priority.
3. Start with greetings. You can never go wrong with knowing this.
4. Increase vocabulary by using words at home. The first word I learned was for "bathroom" because... I need that word!
5. Check out TALKTOMEINKOREAN.COM because that's how I started. They only had Level 4 back then. Now they have a book collection (which I bought). 
6. Go Billy Korean, The World of Dave, 영국남자 are channels I subscribe to and they are fluent Korean-speaking foreigners on youtube.
7. Find a Korean speaking partner. This will take a lot of time. I've only made 2 good Korean friends on this app called HELLOTALK (ios and android available). But it helps because you can share information about your countries. If you're lucky, you'll make lifetime friendships.
8. MAKE MISTAKES. You're not perfect and no one is. I still make mistakes but I need to make them because how will I get better in speaking if I don't get corrected? Don't get offended by corrections. You'll get annoyed (yep!) but it's all for you

*everyone I mean Korean people, Youtubers and Bloggers who are fluent in Korean and have claimed the exact same thing.

I might make a new blog post with common phrases? But it depends. I don't know where to start. HAHA.

If you have any suggestions on what you want to learn in Korean, just leave a comment! I'll try my best wih it. :D

Are you learning Korean too? Let me know! Share your experience!!