Updated June 7th, 2026

New to learning Korean? Recently started, but need some more resources? This list is for you. All of these resources are geared toward beginning level learners. All recommendations in this thread have been selected based on reviews and suggestions by active subreddit members. The goal of the list is to curate the best, most accurate, organized, and clear resources for beginners, and as such does not contain every single resource for learning Korean. If you'd like to make a suggestion for a resource that has been recommended in this subreddit, please send me a PM.

"I'm brand new. Where do I start?"

First learn Hangul (the Korean alphabet), and avoid using "romanization" (reading/writing Korean with the English alphabet). Most books and online courses in this list also include Hangul lessons. Here and here are two examples.

"I've learned 한글 already. I want some free online written lessons."

King Sejong Institute Various online courses taught in Korean

How to Study Korean Blog style lessons by a non-native, typically used as a secondary reference

"I want free video lessons."

Talk To Me In Korean Popular Korean language videos

GO! Billy Korean or his 100-episode beginner course Non-native Korean teacher

Korean with Miss Vicky Lessons for beginners taught in English

Prof. Yoon's Korean Language Class Lessons follow the 'Integrated Korean' book series

Quick Korean Lessons taught completely in Korean

seemile Korean Classroom style lessons

"I want a textbook or written materials."

Talk To Me In Korean Largest, most popular site for all levels

Korean Grammar in Use Popular detailed textbook for beginning grammar

Korean Made Simple Self-study Korean textbook by GO! Billy Korean

Sogang Korean Sogang University's textbook series

Basic Korean: A Grammar and Workbook Workbook focusing on basic grammar and vocabulary

Integrated Korean Popular textbook series for in-class usage

"I want an online dictionary."

Naver Dictionary or Naver Dictionary KR Has nearly everything, including example sentences and pronunciation

National Institute of Korean Language Popular alternative, built for Korean language learners

Daum Dictionary Slightly less information than Naver dictionary, but easier to use

"I want some more study tools (apps, programs, tutors, other sites, etc.).

Anki Free program (paid on iOS) for making and reviewing flashcards

Memrise Site for making, reviewing, and sharing flash card decks

Italki Web site for finding online paid tutors

Some popular free chatting programs/sites for meeting and practicing with native Koreans are HelloTalk, Tandem, Interpals, and Conversation Exchange.

Also check out our subreddit's community Wiki page for more info and resources.

With everyone stuck inside, this seems like the perfect time to share the Google Sheet I used to learn over 6000 Korean vocab words.

I've added example sentences and researched the definition for each word with multiple dictionaries and input from native speakers.

The spreadsheet is organized so that words relating to the same topic are all grouped together.

Example:

Category: Nouns

Group: School related

Sup-Group: School materials

My favorite part and the main motivation I had for making it was to help understand the difference between synonyms. When there are 10 ways to say the same thing, it can get really confusing lol.

It took a LONG time to make this and it's been super helpful to me so I wanted to share it with r/Korean. Of course it's still a work in progress and I will try to update it as often as possible.

I highly recommend checking it out even if your a beginner and taking your own notes!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16pRPe1aNRoQbcihSBkGs5La5b59gQ0bCq1-ss09pgFI/edit?usp=sharing

Edit 1: Someone asked a great question below and these are my thoughts:

I would suggest people use this as a supplementary resource alongside an SRS. This spreadsheet can give more context to words than a dictionary can and I’ve added a lot of native input to give nuance to each word.

If I were to do it again...I don’t think I would lol. The amount of time it took researching and organizing words probably would have been better spent actually speaking the language. But since I’ve already put the time in I might as well share it.

That being said, I DO recommend making your own flash cards/vocab list just not to the extent that I did.

The biggest pro that I found was that because my definitions were more unique than what you find in a dictionary it was easier to memorize words. A lot of vocab lists will have identical definitions for like 5 words which makes it extremely difficult to remember.

The con was that a lot of time was wasted manually organizing the spreadsheet. Grouping words together is useful but in the end wasn’t worth the time.

The last thing I’ll say is that, I don’t think anyone else should try and replicate what I did. Use this spreadsheet when you’re confused about the meaning of a difficult word or your trying to find a specific word to fit a unique situation. It should be used to supplement your vocab memorization.

Edit 2: Wow! I’m very grateful for all of the support! Since this post will be hard to find in a week or so I decided to share it in a more permanent place for future reference. Link

Just made me laugh

Hey guys, it's wassupjoe here.

One mistake I see a lot of foreigners make is taking the question "Bab meog-eoss-eo? (밥 먹었어?)" too literally.

If a Korean friend asks you this, don't start listing what you had for lunch like "I had a sandwich and a coke..."

For us, "Did you eat?" is just another way of saying "How are you?" or "I care about you." We are obsessed with food, so asking if someone has eaten is the ultimate form of affection.

The best answer? Just say "Ung, meog-eoss-eo (응, 먹었어 - Yeah, I ate)" even if you haven't. Or just ask back "Neo-neun? (너는? - How about you?)".

It makes the conversation much smoother! Let me know if you want more "Real Korean" tips like this. Peace

Hi r/korean!

I came across a post in r/languagelearning on the ~625 word vocabulary words to learn as a basis to become fluent in a language. Apparently, learning these words gives you a solid base to achieve fluency "quickly" and efficiently.

I decided to translate the list and make a spreadsheet. There are 600 words here, as some Korean words have multiple meanings. For example "다리" means both "leg" and "bridge". For beginners, I think this might help you learn the most common words. For more advanced learners, it's a great review.

Check it out and please find it useful! Spreadsheet: The 600 Essential Korean Words

I also made flash cards for it on Quizlet, which you can find here.

Pro tip: download the Quizlet app and play the flash cards while you’re doing other stuff. I find the more inputs I give my brain, the better it sticks. Listening passively helps!

I hope you find this useful! 화이팅^^

P.S. If you found this useful, feel free to sign up for my weekly newsletter where I share helpful resources and tips for learning Korean like this! You can sign up here

안녕하세요, 여러분! 톡투미 인 코리안의 선현우입니다.
This is Hyunwoo from Talk To Me In Korean.
I’m here to write about a big change we are bringing to how we offer our Korean lessons on the Talk To Me In Korean website. And I know this decision will be very unpopular among many Korean learners who have been using our learning materials over the years, so we postponed for as long as we could.
Long story short, talktomeinkorean.com will now be a paid-only website, starting from August 9, 2023, but we’ll continue providing free resources through YouTube, podcasts and various other social media.
So that’s a big change, and it was by far the most difficult decision we had to make ever since we first started TTMIK back in 2009.
Since we didn’t start with outside investors or a lot of seed money, we’ve been growing our business little by little, while making small additions to the product line-up and also adding one new team member at a time, to keep up with the increasing amount of work. Thanks to you all, we are now one of the most widely known resources for learning Korean.
It makes us very happy that we’ve been able to help so many people around the world to learn Korean with our materials, so that’s why it was really difficult for us to come to the decision of transitioning talktomeinkorean.com into a paid-only website.
We’re making this change because the maintenance costs for providing free resources on our website have become too high for us, and we won’t be able to continue developing more content and offering more services to Korean learners, if we continue offering a large portion of our courses for free to more than one million registered users.
I know there could’ve been better ways to structure the business or position our brand in the market in the first place, to avoid this sudden big change, but we genuinely started with the single goal of helping people learn Korean, and all the other parts of the business were planned after that. So it’s a choice that we’ll have to embrace now, along with the criticism that we’ll probably get from many learners who have been using our free resources.
If you are already a paying subscriber on our website studying with our courses, thank you very much and you can just continue studying with the courses. You will also see many improvements coming to the site on August 9.
If you are a Basic member on our website now, thank you for studying with our lessons and please consider subscribing. You will definitely get more out of it than the investment you make in your Korean learning. We’ll make sure your subscrpition will be very much worth it, by continuously improving our services.
We’ve always cared very much about learners, whether they are paying customers or not, and we still do care very much. We will continue to do our best to help as many Korean learners as possible in the best way we can.
Thank you so much for reading this far, and please leave your questions below and I’ll answer them.
And we also just posted a YouTube video where we explain this verbally.
감사합니다.

안녕하세요! Hi, everyone.

My name is Hyunwoo Sun and as some of you know, I am running a website called Talk To Me In Korean. I know I have never really participated in the discussions here (I’m more active on Twitter but I’d like to be more active here from now, starting with an AMA.

My good friend Billy from the Go! Billy Korean Youtube channel told me it’s a tradition on Reddit to hold a banana for scale, but my sons ate all the bananas we had at home, so here’s just a photo of me instead.

Any me anything! I’ll be here all day.

아무 질문이나 편하게 해 주세요! 오늘 하루 종일 여기 있으면서 답변할게요. 감사합니다.

Edit: Wow!!! I was blown away by the response and all the great comments. I think I've answered all of the questions I've seen (so far), and I will come back later (today and also throughout the remainder of this week) to answer more questions. Thank you very much! 이렇게 따뜻하게 맞이해 주셔서 감사합니다. 질문에 거의 다 답변을 한 것 같은데, 혹시 놓친 게 있으면 나중에 다시 와서 답변 달게요.

안녕하세요, 저는 크리스틴이고 (한국이름은 아영이에요:)) 한국어 원어민 튜터예요. Hi, I'm Christine (Korean name 아영) and I'm a native Korean tutor. 학생들이랑 친구들이 많이 하는 질문을 모아서 '한국어 배울 때 유용한 표현' 리스트를 만들었어요. I made a list of useful Korean phrases for learning Korean based on my students' and friends' questions.

문장을 듣고 싶으시면 링크를 클릭해 주세요. If you want to listen to these phrases, click the link ▶ https://youtu.be/LwOiciJlsXo 도움이 되었으면 좋겠어요! Hope this helps!

1.Please repeat (please say it again)

다시 말해 주세요

다시 말씀해 주세요 (honorific)

2. Sorry?

네?

3. What did you say?

뭐라고 했어요?

뭐라고 하셨어요? (honorific)

4. Please say it a bit slowly

조금만 천천히 말해 주세요

조금만 천천히 말씀해 주세요 (honorific)

5. What does ~ mean?

~ 무슨 뜻이에요?

What does this mean?

이거 무슨 뜻이에요?

6. What is ~ in Korean? (how do you say ~ in Korean?)

~ 한국어로 뭐예요?

What is this in Korean? (how do you say this in Korean?)

이거 한국어로 뭐예요?

7. What's ~ called in Korean? (How do you say ~ in Korean?)

~ 한국어로 뭐라고 해요?

What's this called in Korean? (how do you say this in Korean?)

이거 한국어로 뭐라고 해요?

8. I don’t know, I'm not sure

잘 모르겠어요

9. I don’t know what ~ means

~ 무슨 뜻인지 모르겠어요

I don't know what this means

이거 무슨 뜻인지 모르겠어요

10. I don’t remember

기억이 안 나요 (or 생각이 안 나요)

11. I forgot

까먹었어요 (sounds informal)

잊어버렸어요

12. I’m confused (it’s confusing)

헷갈려요

13. How do you spell ~?

~ 어떻게 써요?

How do you spell this?

이거 어떻게 써요?

14. How do you pronounce ~?

~ 어떻게 읽어요? (or ~ 어떻게 발음해요?)

How do you pronounce this?

이거 어떻게 읽어요? 이거 어떻게 발음해요?

Hi, everyone!

I wanted to share my experience learning Korean and maybe connect with others on a similar journey. My native language is Arabic, and I’ve also reached a good level in English, but diving into Korean has been a completely different challenge!

I started learning Korean because I fell in love with the culture and language while watching K-dramas back in 2016. At first, the grammar (especially 는것 and noun modifiers) felt overwhelming, and I struggled to understand how everything fits together. It felt like walking in a maze with no exit.

However, with time, I found methods that worked for me:

•	Listening to podcasts: I listen to native Korean podcasts on Naver Audio clip app, and I now understand around 75% of what I hear, which feels like a huge win.

•	Watching K-dramas: I started with English subtitles but gradually challenged myself to watch them without any subtitles. Now, I can enjoy watching Korean entertainment programs without needing subtitles. So far, I’ve watched three dramas entirely in Korean! Sometimes I skip words I don’t understand, but overall, it’s been a rewarding experience.

•	Writing practice: I completed a 30-day writing challenge to improve my sentence flow. It made a big difference!

•	Shadowing practice: Shadowing has been a tough but effective method for improving my pronunciation. I focused a lot on the Didi Korean Podcast, and I’ve noticed a significant improvement in my intonation.

I’ve been more focused on understanding nuances in the language rather than speaking, so I haven’t practiced speaking as much. But I do speak sometimes, especially with ChatGPT or friends.

Resources I’ve Used So Far

•	Miss Vicky’s YouTube Channel: Her grammar explanations were a game-changer for me.

•	Go Billy Korean: Another amazing resource for understanding grammar and the language.

•	Sejong Institute Courses: I took one of their courses, and it was great! The speaking exercises were fun and engaging.

•	How to Study Korean Website: I used this for grammar lessons and shadowed the example sentences to pick up grammar and pronunciation. I’m currently working on the lower advanced units.

•	Talk To Me In Korean: I used their YouTube channel and one of their books, which was very helpful in the beginning stages. Their podcast was also great for grammar and listening practice.

•	Korean Grammar in Use Books: I completed both the beginner and intermediate levels.

•	Naver Dictionary: I used it to build my vocabulary. The TOPIK word lists and flashcards were super helpful. I didn’t always use the flashcards, but I would scroll through the vocab before sleeping or right after waking up. This habit helped me memorize a lot of words!

•	최소소 Podcast: A great resource for listening practice.

•	Seventeen’s Weverse Lives: Since I’m a fan, it was so fun to listen to them speak in Korean and understand what they were saying.

•	Didi Korean Podcast: My all-time favorite for listening and shadowing.

Methods That Helped Me

•	I didn’t stick to one resource I searched for materials in both English and Arabic.

•	Daily scrolling on Weverse helped me see how Koreans write, and I learned by copying their style.

•	Copying sentences helped me understand structure and how to write naturally.

•	Practicing speaking with ChatGPT and sometimes with friends.

My Study Routine

In the first 5 months, I studied for 8 hours a day. Surprisingly, I never felt overwhelmed because I was so motivated. During that time, I had some personal challenges that kept me from attending university, but I’m doing fine now and will return soon!

Of course, there are still moments when I doubt myself like reading slowly, struggling with speaking or feeling awkward about my mistakes. But I remind myself that every small step is progress.

Now, I can enjoy native Korean content, read books, and more. I’m so proud of what I’ve accomplished!

One of my biggest goals now is to improve my speaking and reading fluency. I recently started practicing speaking for 30 minutes daily. It’s nerve-wracking but exciting!

If you’re learning Korean too, I’d love to hear about your experience. How do you practice, and what challenges are you facing? If you want more resources or tips, let me know in the comments below.

Let’s cheer each other on! 감사합니다!

Edit;

I also opened an Instagram account and followed only Korean speaking content creators to immerse myself more in the language as same as I did while learning English. I followed accounts that translate from Korean to English to help improve my understanding.

Additionally, I did Korean to Arabic translations for about 1 and a half month, but I stopped because I felt I wasn’t confident enough in my Korean skills at that time.

My Method-

Spaced repetition, everyday, for an hour. I don't think I have missed a day in 3 years.

Consistency has been the key here. I will note- this is roughly an hour per day of reviewing the words. I spend additional time reading materials(fiction books, textbooks, news articles, twitter etc) to find words I don’t know and make new flash cards based on those words. That is probably an addition hour per day.

After the first 2000 words or so- I started using Korean definitions for all my cards(got this tip from the Fluent Forever book). Initially this is extremely painful- but it’s been SO worth it. You dramatically improve your reading speed, comprehension and pronunciation this way(I ready aloud when I study).

My App - SmartCards+

This is the app I use to learn. I started with Anki 3 years ago and in the process of becoming obsessed with learning Korean vocabulary I created this app(iPhone only unfortunetily!). It’s very similar to Anki in terms of the Algorithm but (for me at least!) much simpler and more satisfying to use. Also for what it’s worth- it’s now completely free to use(ad supported). It also supports Anki Deck import for anyone that might want to switch over.

How good is my Korean?

The only objective measure I can point to is that I’ve gotten a 2.5/2.5 on the Korean DLPT which is a military language assessment(I am in the the military but I’m not a Korean linguist in the military, I just take this test for fun basically). I’ve read online that this is equivalent to TOPIK 6….but I’m not so sure. Based on doing some practice TOPIK exams online I think I could get TOPIK 5 though. My speaking I would say is fairly good but not amazing. In day to day interactions I would say I have zero issues communicating or understanding. I can often convey more complex feelings, thoughts or stories but not without some difficultly(for me and the listener lol).

Vocabulary acquisition continues to get easier over time

The more words you know the easier it is to make connections with other words. I’m still reviewing my words for about an hour per day, but my rate of learning has steadily increased. Each year I’m reviewing and more cards per day but I’m spending less time reviewing each card because my reading speed and confidence continues to improve.

Average words learned per day over time

• 2017- 6

• 2018- 7.7

• 2019- 12.8

• 2020(so far)- 15.4

I’m finally starting to regularly be able to guess word meanings from context

To be able to grab most words from context it is said that you need to understand about 95% of the words you are hearing/reading. From my personal studies this seems about right. I’ve read 3 Roald Dahl translations and I typically highlight one or two words per page I’m reading. Most of the time it’s easy to tell from context what they are(or guess close enough) and rarely will I hit a word or passage that I can’t easily understand. I’m also reading a longer form adult Korean fiction book right now and I’m probably closer to 80%-85% word comprehension here- and it’s MUCH more difficult to understand. At this rate I can understand main plot points, but I know I’m missing a LOT of nuance. If I’m not reading a book I try to read one news article per day. Usually these are fairly difficult and require me to look up a lot of new words, but sometimes depending on the topic I can surprisingly understand most or all of it easily.

Passive Learning Becomes Easier and More Effective

Watching shows, reading books, listening to podcasts is a great way to learn. In my opinion it is REALLY REALLY hard and borderline impossible to effectively learn vocabulary and grammar through passive methods. However, it’s an incredibly effective way to reenforce and learn the nuance of vocabulary and language. For me- If I can’t at least roughly follow along with what’s happening I just zone out and learn nothing. So improving vocab has been critical in expanding the number of possible passible learning sources. The more I put into my studies- the more I get out of passive learning.

At any point I probably can’t remember 15-20% of the words in my SRS

This is to be expected of course and is the whole point of using an SRS. Forgetting is a part of learning. I’ve come to appreciate that relearning old words you have forgotten is JUST as valuable as learning new words. Another common occurrence is- I’ve learned a word, but when I hear some up it for the first time in conversation it doesn’t jump out at me as a word I know. So the speaker may have to explain it to me. At that point the word generally comes back and despite not recognizing it at first- having that ‘aha’ moment is much more satisfying because the explanation I’m hearing of the word is then matched up to the previous study I’ve put in on it.

Future Goals-

• Learn 20k total words- this will likely take me another 2 years

• Read one long form book per month in Korean to really ramp up passive exposure- I’m mixing books of differently levels to keep me motivated and make this goal achievable.

• Continue listening to podcasts to improve listening

• Continue iTalki lessons as much as time permits

Final thoughts on learning 10k words

Some guides say that 10,000 words is ‘fluent’ but I would have to disagree. Everyone has a different definition of ‘fluent’ so this is super subjective. 10k words is a huge milestone and a lot of Korean speakers are impressed by my Korean and might even call me fluent. However when writing and speaking, even though they have improved A LOT, I have a long way to go for me to consider myself fluent.

Just wanted to share. I taught my friend one of my favorite words today: 윤슬. (Yoon-seul)

There’s no direct English equivalent.

It means the shimmering light that reflects on the surface of water — like when sunlight hits the ocean or a lake and sparkles. ✨🌊

I love words that feel like they’re describing a feeling and a scene at the same time.

(Ah i can't post photos here, please google image search 윤슬! Just tryna share the beauty and love🫶)

Native speakers sometimes say that 애 and 에 are pronounced the same because old people used to pronounce them as slightly different versions of the “eh” sound and that young people don’t care anymore. There is more to the story.

On a basic level, humans differentiate speech sounds by their acoustic parameters. When children hear speech sounds, their brains attempt to identify these parameters. Then, the child attempts to reproduce those characteristics with their speech organs. Humans are not perfect. Small differences build generation-by-generation until the sound has changed completely.

It is important that you are familiar with the IPA vowel chart. This chart is intended to represent the space created in your mouth by the palate(s), jaw, and tongue root. The y-axis displays “vowel height/openness” (how open is my mouth?) and the x-axis displays vowel backness/tongue position (where is the root of my tongue?). Sounds made with unrounded lips are on the left and sounds made with rounded lips are on the right. Linguists can map most vowel sounds in most languages somewhere onto this chart. Sounds that share similar parameters border each other and are the most likely to mutate into one another.

A long time ago, the vowel 어 /ʌ/ was pronounced less like modern 오 /o̝/ and more like modern 애/에 /e̞/. One way that we can demonstrate this is by looking at Japanese and Korean cognates. Many Korean words that contain 어 correspond directly to Japanese words that contain the sound /e̞/ (like in English “mate” or “met”). Korean 전화 is Japanese でんわ “denwa.” Korean 선생 is Japanese せんせい “sensei.” Korean 온천 is Japanese おんせん “onsen.”

Over time, 어 /e̞/ turned into the sound /ə/ (like the last “a” in the English word “banana”) by retracting the tongue root. If you look at the IPA vowel chart, you will see that /e̞/ is directly to the left of /ə/. This change was followed by /ə/ becoming /ʌ/ (modern pronunciation) by retracting the tongue root even further. /ə/ is directly to the left of /ʌ/. This change is associated with the loss of the vowel ㆍ/ɒ/ (arae-a), which is directly beneath /ʌ/ and is almost moribund in modern Korean.

Sejong chose the simplest letters (이,어,아,으,우,오,ㆍ) to write the most basic sounds at the time (/i/, /e̞/, /a/, /ɨ/, /u/, /o̞/, /ɒ/). All Korean vowels that consist of more than one letter (와, 의, 애, 왜, 외 etc.) used to be pronounced exactly how they are written.

Some of these have remained relatively stable in their composition for centuries, such as 의 (으이). On the other hand, 외 used to be pronounced like modern Korean 오이, but its pronunciation has shifted to modern 우애 or even just 애/에. Likewise, 워 used to be pronounced like modern 우애/웨, but now it sounds closer to modern 우오 (compare the Korean and Japanese words for their currency: 원 “ue(o)n” and えん “(y)en”).

애 was pronounced as 아이 and 에 was pronounced as 어이. Sejong isn’t trying to trick you. 애 looks like a combination of 아 and 이 because that’s exactly what it was and that’s exactly how he expected you to pronounce it.

We can apply this pattern to other words. 태풍 (typhoon) would be pronounced 타이풍 and 태국 (Thailand) would be pronounced 타이국. Notice how their original pronunciations sound much closer to the English words than their modern pronunciations. 새 (bird) would be pronounced 사이. 헤 (sea) would be pronounced 헤이. 세계 (world) would be pronounced 세이기에이 (compare to Japanese せかい “sekai”).

This also explains why words containing 아이, such as 남자아이 (boy), contract into forms like 남자애. At one point in time, people would write 남자애 but still read it as 남자아이. The same thing is true for words containing 어이, such as 거이 (that + subject marker), which contracts into 게.

Writing two vowels as one letter reflected changes to the number of syllables in a word. 아이 is two syllables, but when people wrote it together as 애, they would pronounce it as one syllable like the English word “eye” (아 + 이). When two vowels that used to take up two syllables are pronounced really quickly as one syllable, linguists call it diphthongization. English has several diphthongs, here are some examples: “eye” (아이), “boy” (ㅂ오이), “cow” (ㅋ아우), “ew” (이우), and “toe” (ㅌ어우).

Over time, diphthongs (two vowels) have a tendency to simplify into monophthongs (one vowel). The vowel that they simplify into is dependent on human anatomy (easily visualized with the IPA vowel chart, mentioned earlier).

에 is made out of 어 /e̞~ə/ and 이 /i/. What sound is between 어 /e̞~ə/ and 이 /i/? The sound /e/ is between /e̞/ and /i/, enabling 에 to simplify into /e/.

애 is made out of 아 /a/ and 이 /i/. What sound is between 아 /a/ and 이 /i/? The sound /ɛ/ is between 아 /a/ and 이 /i/, enabling 애 to simplify into /ɛ/.

The sound 에 /e/ was historically pronounced with the mouth slightly more closed than it is for 애 /ɛ/. This is the subtle difference that native speakers are usually talking about when they say that the sounds “used to be different.” This difference is actually just the faintest trace of the collapse of the vowel clusters that these letters used to represent.

From there, the sounds became more similar. What sound is between 에 /e/ and 애 /ɛ/? The sound /e̝/ is between 에 /e/ and 애 /ɛ/, so 에 /e/ and 애 /ɛ/ both merged together into /e̝/. This is why both 애 and 에 have the same sound in modern Seoul Korean: /e̝/

Let’s recap the whole thing:

어 went from /e̝/ to /ə/ to /ʌ̝/

에 went from /e̝͡i/ to /e/ to /e̝/

애 went from /a͡i/ to /ɛ/ to /e̝/

I hope this explanation serves you well!

Remember the post about asking your thoughts on making a Korean ver. of Urban Dictionary?

It's out! I finally made it!!

The name of the app is 가갸 사전. Download it from the links below.

For Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.dddictionary.dd

For IOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id1526597496

you can Post, Ask, Search and Scrap words w/o signing up.

• If you have any idea or questions, pls DM me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/intaek1900/

ps. It took really really long long time than I expected. very tough very tough..

That was a trend at least until 6-7 years ago. Young college girls would call each other "여신!!" to compliment each other's appearance, clothing, etc. It was a trend among college girls and some men didn't take it very well and badmouthed it online.

Is it still a thing in Korea?

I’m a native speaker who has been on this subreddit for some time, and today I’d like to share something that has been bugging me recently.

Korean, being a language with a rich history of being translated into (the very first Hangul text was a translation of a Classical Chinese text), also has a long history of a peculiar “style” of speaking and writing, called “Translationese” (번역투). “Translationese” is a style of the Korean language that arises from translations of foreign texts and speech, and it is very distinct from how Koreans use the language in daily life. Let me show you some examples, and discuss why Translationese is so prominent in Korean.

• Original text: “I hope my explanation helps you.”

• Natural Korean translation: “제 설명이 도움이 되었으면 좋겠습니다.”

• Translationese: “제 설명이 당신을 돕기를 희망합니다.”

Why is the last sentence Translationese? Because ‘당신’ is used, which is only used in very special circumstances, and 희망하다 “to hope” is an overly formal sounding word for this situation. Basically, no Korean will say that sentence to another Korean in daily life.

Then you would be asking: Why did this happen? If no one says it like that in real life, why translate it that way? That is because it is so much easier to translate to Translationese than to natural-sounding Korean. If you look closely, it is a word-by-word literal translation of English:

• 제 - my, 설명 - explanation, 당신 - you, 돕다 - to help, 희망하다 - to hope

So it is very easy to make Translationese sentences when translating, whereas it is harder to make natural translations, where you need to paraphrase the sentence and come up with an idiomatic way to express the same idea. And translated media being so prevalent in Korean society, and there being so many mediocre translators, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that most of the literature that Koreans encounter in daily life is in Translationese.

Since this style of writing being so pervasive in Korean society, people actually started to write original Korean literature in Translationese too! The reason for this could be that people just got too used to Translationese that they started to think it’s part of the ‘literary style’ of Korean. Or it could be because Translationese sounds more convincing and like it has more authority. But the thing to keep in mind is that it is yet to seep into Koreans’ daily speaking style. This is important: Translationese is still mostly contained in formal-sounding literature and in movie dubs. Now here comes the problem:

When a person speaks, our brain automatically and subconsciously “adjusts” our speech to be best understood by the person we are talking to. For example, when you talk to your grandparents, you will tend to avoid using neologisms and Internet slang to help them better understand what you are saying. The same thing happens across language boundaries too: There is a well-documented case of English teachers in Japan altering their English pronunciation and simplifying their grammar to be better understood by their students. For example, they avoid connecting words naturally (e.g. pronounce ‘what do you think’ word-by-word instead of connecting them naturally like ‘wha’da’ya’think’), and avoid contractions (e.g. always say ‘going to’ instead of ‘gonna’).

This happens to a Korean speaker when talking to a foreigner too. Specifically, I’ve noticed a lot of (especially young) Koreans have a habit of using Translationese when talking to foreigners! This could be either a conscious choice or a subconscious effect. The reason for this could be that Koreans think Westerners would understand better if they spoke in Translationese, which is, as stated above, closer to European languages’ pragmatics and grammar. Another reason could be that their brain switches to ‘Westerner mode’ when faced with a Westerner, so you start to think in Translationese instead of idiomatic Korean. Either way, this could be harmful to a Korean learner if their goal is to achieve natural-sounding Korean speech.

For example: A Korean learner will learn that ‘당신’ is practically never used in daily life, and then realize everyone is using it to them, because Koreans are speaking in Translationese to them! I’ve seen many learners be confused by this and argue that ‘당신’ is used a lot in daily life, when actually it is not. So that is why I wrote this to give you learners a heads-up.

Happy Friday everyone!

I'm going to be playing Among Us with my wife and her Korean friends, but I barely know any Korean at all. To help myself out, I made some cheat sheets for me to refer to while we play. I'm sure I'm missing some important things I'd like to be able to say, but let's call these version 1!

https://imgur.com/gallery/8OYfMJy

Edit: Updated to a new gallery with a few tweaks

If this isn’t related to the subreddit then feel free to remove this.

I started learning Korean about 3-4 months ago and it has CHANGED MY LIFE completely, I went from having the worst depression and being on medication to being completely fulfilled and passionate about a language that brings me so much joy 🥲 and I love talking about it!! (Not to people who aren’t interested obviously) but I find that there’s a negative stigma that sometimes surrounds people who learn Korean, and I feel kinda ashamed telling new people about it, since I usually get labelled as a koreaboo or told that I’m learning it because of k pop or even worse that I’m an Asian fetishiser, I guess every language has stereotypes for those that chose to learn it out of free will, but are there any other people who are just learning this language because they love it? I have no intention of ever moving to Korea and I’ll probably never speak Korean unless I travel there, but people are always so quick to assume I’m doing it for nefarious intentions and it makes me ashamed to tell anyone about it, which sucks.

Hi guys,

The slang I want to introduce today is "이왜진", which is short for "이게 왜 진짜?" (roughly translated as "Why is this real?" or "How is this actually happening?").

This phrase started gaining popularity around 2022 when an internet streamer scratched an instant lottery ticket during a live broadcast and won a shocking 20 million KRW (approximately 15,000 USD). The clip of this moment spread rapidly online with the tag "#이왜진", and since then, people have been using this expression whenever they encounter something that is too unbelievable to be real.

Nowadays, 이왜진 is not only used for extreme cases like lottery wins but also in everyday situations where the outcome is totally unexpected.

For example:

• If you experience an unexpected loss in a game, you might say "이왜진..."

• If a movie or drama has a shocking plot twist, viewers might react with "이왜진!"

• If something completely unpredictable happens in daily life, like bumping into an old friend in a foreign country, you could use "이왜진" to express your surprise.

You'll often see 이왜진 in online communities, social media comments, and meme culture. It's a fun and expressive way to react when reality just doesn’t make sense! 😵‍💫

Hello everyone~

For the context, I was born and raised in Korea and I used to teach second and third generation Korean children! As a Korean, thank you so much for being interested in our culture and language and I am here to help you! By the way, I am new to reddit so I don't really know how this site works lol.

Listening:

I think most of you are used to listening to Korean from Kpop and Kdramas! I would actually suggest listening to Korean dubbed animations because the voice actors have clearer pronunciations. There are dubbed animes too but there are a lot of amazing Korean animations that you can definitely check out. They are "meant for children" but I still have so much fun watching these. Many of them are out on Youtube so you probably don't have to go through illegal websites lol.

One of the downsides of listening to kdramas is that sometimes they don't really sound natural. Some writers write the scripts in literally style(?). So instead of kdrama, maybe you can check out Korean variety shows! I would suggest 1박 2일 (1N2D) because it also introduces around the country. You can find out so many beautiful places outside of Seoul.

Reading:

I don't really have a lot of tips for reading unfortunately:( But! If you are watching the Korean animations that I suggested, you may be able to have an access to Korean subtitles. Sometimes, Netflix has Korean subs for Korean shows. It will definitely expose you to Korean language in a fast way. It will help you with spelling for sure.

Writing:

I found out that many of you are using lined paper when you are writing in Korean. However, if you are a beginner, I would suggest using a grid paper instead! When children start writing in Korea, they start off from 깍두기 공책 "kkadugi notebook". It is a notebook with a bunch of squares instead of lines. Because Hangul in very square language, it is easy to slip off(?) when you are writing. Sometimes it was hard to recognize for me to read because their 받침 was in a weird place. I found out that students' writings are neater when they used a grid paper. So if you are a hangul beginner, start from grid paper! Also, don't be too stressed about spelling! Stuff like "되" and "돼" is also confusing to native Koreans! Sejong the Great did a great job when he was inventing Hangul and people still understand it anyway. Focus on your grammar more, especially basic particles like (은/는/이/가).

Summary:

• Watch Korean animations and variety shows.

• Korean subs if accessible.

• If you are a Hangul beginner, use grid paper instead of lined paper.

I just realized I only gave you guys like three tips lol. I hope it helps!

안녕하세요 여러분!

Today like 3 Korean moms walked into the boba shop I work at. It’s just me and one of them wanted a strawberry banana smoothie but the bananas weren’t ripe. I don’t think my Korean is all that good, I only praise my pronunciation but I had no choice so I spoke to them and said 바나나 없어요. And they were like 어마! They asked how I knew Korean and where I studied and I answered them in Korean and they praised me and asked if I was like half Korean. Idk but that made me feel nice. I’m black btw.

And they kept thanking me and were just super nice…

Hey r/Korean~

When I was a beginner I remember having this packet of random sheets of paper with notes on them, and in there were a few pages explaining all of the sound change rules. It was really helpful for me at the time, but also confusing because they were simply written down like an essay. I realized that still as of 2024 there weren't any guides that summarized all of the sound change rules in one spot to reference easily, so I decided to make one. That idea evolved into "let's see what else I would've wanted as a beginner," and so today I'm happy to release my first set of cheat sheets for Korean.

Here's a link to get the cheat sheets (FREE TIER): https://www.patreon.com/posts/117337476

Here's a video about how the cheat sheets work: https://youtu.be/Y1E_ZIWojYw

And here's a full summary of the video:

I made six cheat sheets that you can download from my free Patreon tier (you have to join, but it's free, and you can leave after downloading them if you'd like). If there's enough interest I can make more cheat sheets in the future.

“The Korean Alphabet” (한글)

Includes the letters in alphabetical order, dictionary order, the names of each letter, syllable blocks, and notes about pronunciation, diphthongs, and alternate ways of writing.

“Sound Change Rules” (받침)

Includes all of the basic sound change rules, along with several lesser-known sound change rules. Each rule comes with examples, and common exceptions are marked.

“Verb Conjugation” (해요체)

Includes all of the basic conjugation rules for making the 요 form, along with all of the common irregular rules. Common exceptions are marked.

“Markers and Particles” (조사)

Includes all of these common markers and particles: Topic Marker, Subject Marker, Object Marker, (으)로, 의, 와/과, (이)랑, 들, 에, 에서, 에게(서), 한테(서), 도, 만, 밖에, 까지.

“Dates and Seasons” (날짜와 계절)

Includes how to count dates, years, months, weeks, and days. Also covers common vocabulary used for dates and seasons, as well as all of the most important holidays in Korea, both on the Western calendar and the Lunar calendar.

“Postpositions” (후치사).

Includes these common postpositions: 안, 속, 밖, 주위, 앞, 뒤, 옆, 곁, 위, 아래, 밑, 주변, 가운데, 사이, 중간, 근처, 왼쪽, 오른쪽, 동서남북.

Yes, there is about 75 million people that are better at korean than you. But keep in mind, you can korean better than 7,7 billion.

화이팅!

It is basically a Korean ver. of the Urban Dictionary.

A crowdsourced online dictionary of Korean slang words and new phrases.

What do you think? Will people who learn Korean want to use this app?

I wanna know if there's already an alternative for this or not.

Pls tell anything about the idea and my designs.

https://imgur.com/a/kvlL0sP