Find a teacher, in your community or on a platform like iTalki, and speak Korean with them every time you meet. When it comes to learning how to talk, there is really no substitute for having to talk with somebody.
To add, some of the rates are surprisingly cheap for online teachers. If you can afford it, having multiple teachers with different accents and speech patterns could really help. I can understand my teacher pretty well, but not lots of other people.
If you are in Seoul, there are also language exchange meetups on meetup.com. You can meet and talk with a lot of different Korean people. May be some similar things in cities with Korean expats as well
Dang, that'd be really cool re: in-person in Korea. That's definitely something I'll consider if I ever get to spend 3+ months there at a time. Unfortunately, I live full-time in the United States (Seattle, Washington, sometimes in Orange County, California), so the in-person exchanges won't be an option at this time.
OK re: the multiple teachers with different accents and speech patterns, that is brilliant. I'll keep that in my back pocket for when my Korean is actually somewhat fluent đ
By the way, if you get a chance, could you tell me where you've found the tutors you've liked the most? I am guessing you're seconding iTalki, but I'd appreciate any other pointers you have.
Thank you for sharing your experience!
Thank you for your advice. I do see ads for Korean language tutors online sometimes, but a lot of those ads look sort of generic, leading to landing pages with lots of different languages, stock photos of tutors, etc. Your advice to check out iTalki is very helpful, I'll start there. Thank you!
Take a class or hire a tutor. I have taken three courses so far and it has really helped me to progress. I am solidly a beginner, but having native speakers give me corrections has really helped my pronunciation and confidence in my abilities. And the focused practice has helped with my reading speed.
I have been pleasantly surprised with how good the King Sejong Institute Cyber Korean course (lecture assisted - it has video on demand that you watch before your class, and then once a week you have a 2 hour class with an instructor and other students) has been, since itâs free. I donât know if it is a plus or a minus, but my instructorâs English isnât as strong as the instructors in my other classes, so itâs definitely a Korean immersion experience - although I chose the English version of the course, itâs mostly being taught in Korean. I am currently halfway through Beginner 1A. Other cool things about the class: tons of opportunities to practice speaking and listening, homework assignments twice per semester with teacher feedback, a great free textbook & workbook, and the opportunity to study with people from all over the world.
I think the next âsemesterâ will begin in late July and will start registration on July 7th. The website is a little hard to navigate, but I really recommend checking it out! This link has info about the registration & course timeline: https://www.iksi.or.kr/lms/bbs/bbsView.do?bbsMastrNo=2&bbsClNo=1&nttNo=51537
Thank you so much for your detailed response. By the way, the King Sejong Institute class looks \*amazing\*. Bookmarking it for hte future. I recognize that a great private tutor could be hard to find since everyone's learning style is different, and I honestly prefer to self-learn as much as possible. I think the online course would be a nice in-between option for me.
Genuinely, I didnât feel confident speaking until I was actually in a class and talking to people. The grammar is so different than English (and in your case, Mandarin and probably Hokkien) that it took me ages for it to âclick.â
I would search this sub for people asking the same thing, and Iâll give you the same advice I always do: talk to yourself!! Narrate what youâre doing while youâre cleaning or cooking, think out loud, have one of those imaginary celebrity interviews out loud in the shower. It might not be correct, but itâll help you get in the right habits, and then if you do decide to take a class youâll have a bunch of ideas and questions ready to figure out what you still need in order to build better sentences.
Hey, (1) thanks so much for normalizing things for me, I sort of feel like I havne't been doing a good job at learning because I can still barely string together sentences (although I rewatched Okja recently and was surprised how many full sentences I recognized!). (2) Thanks for that brilliant suggestion re: narrating things to myself. As I don't live in Korea and my Korean friends and I strictly speak in \*English\* lol (and I wouldn't make them suffer through a Korean convo with me unless I was paying them đ), outside of tutors the idea of making my own immersion is really great. Thanks again.
I was in exactly the same boat, with my Korean friends!!
And itâs okay to not speak Korean with them until youâre more proficient⌠I have found that the average Korean is really bad at explaining their own language! đ this is true for many L1 speakers but I think as English L1 speakers weâre very very used to speaking with non-natives, which makes us better at understanding someoneâs intended message.
If you can stand it, try to record yourself sometimes too! I never did it because CRINGE but you seem very serious and reflective and having some progress recordings where you can either analyze your own production or show it to someone later will be really beneficial!
Subscribed to Choisusu, thank you! This might be even more preferable to me than the full-fledged online courses other folks have been suggesting, because I can really go at my own (slow) pace without embarrassment.
Try to find news in Korean. World news, local news, etc. it may not always be the most interesting but itâs something you hear every day and it changes every day so youâre not necessarily hearing about the same topics constantly. News casters speak clearly for you to understand and depending on the story theyâre reporting on, you will get some visual references as context clues if you donât understand something.
Maybe hire a teacher/tutor. Even for just a few times a month or year so you can get some experience practicing a full conversation with them. If you keep the same one youâll prolly develop a rapport good enough that youâre not just doing small talk when you have a lesson with them.
Thank you for your response! Hahha you just reminded me, when I was studying French in high school, I subscribed to Le Monde and would watch their online clips in their sh\*tty Flash player (this was circa 2009...) My teacher joked that I sounded like a French broadcaster when I did oral presentations đ Hey, if I could sound like a Seoul TV broadcaster I'd be \*ecstatic\*. Re: what you said about the newscasters speaking very clearly and with good diction, absolutely, that makes total sense. Any particular newscasts that you enjoy? Even better if they have a Youtube channel.
Re: the tutors, do you think once a week is enough? I really don't have more time to commit than that, and I don't want to waste my or the tutor's time of that's not going to be often enough to get into the rhythm.
my studying looks the same as it did back then: 97% reading 2% listening 1% language exchange (talking/typing back and forth with natives). On average I study \~3 hours a day (over 1k hours a year, not including casual korean immersion)
It took me about 6 months to become conversational, 1.5 years to be decent at it, 3 years for basic fluency. Currently I'm probably closer to C2 than I am to C1 with 4 years of studying under my bellt
Wow, conversational in 6 months?? That's very impresive. So, did you feel that even with 97% reading you were able to speak fairly naturally? And, what specifically would you focus on reading? I find that I have a poor colloquial understanding of Korean, I could probably conjugate most things using "regular" rules but then I'll read something in Korean and I'm like "wow, the way I would have said 'X', I would sound like a complete doofus".
Naturally? No, but I was able to understand most of what the other person was saying and I was able to respond with basic sentences. I quickly improved though due to how desperately I didn't want to look foolish speaking the language - that driving force itself was probably more of a help to me than the actual speaking was. Basically you get what you put in and I put my heart and soul into the language and threw everything I had at it.
Take a class or hire tutor. I suggest you to learn korean for take TOPIK (Test of Proficiency in Korean). Why? Bcs when you learning for TOPIK test, your study will be more structured and covers all aspects (reading, writing, listening, and speaking).
Oh wow, this is the first time I'm learning about TOPIK! I'm more familiar with HSK (for written Chinese). I checked out the study topics, you're right. It's a nice structured rubric for what I need to learn, which fits an overly structured person like myself just fine. :)
Any suggestions on classes or places to find tutors?
Hello! Sorry, I don't know what classes or where places to find tutor in your region, because I live in Indonesia. But if you want to learn, I suggest you to go to website King Sejong Institute (owned by Korean Government), TTMIK (Talk To Me In Korean), and howtostudykorean. For youtube you can check channel Prof. Yoon's Korean Language Class. He has playlist for learn TOPIK.
[TTMIK] (https://talktomeinkorean.com/)
[King Sejong Institute ](https://nuri.iksi.or.kr/front/main/main.do)
[how to study korean] (https://www.howtostudykorean.com/)
Find a teacher, in your community or on a platform like iTalki, and speak Korean with them every time you meet. When it comes to learning how to talk, there is really no substitute for having to talk with somebody.
To add, some of the rates are surprisingly cheap for online teachers. If you can afford it, having multiple teachers with different accents and speech patterns could really help. I can understand my teacher pretty well, but not lots of other people. If you are in Seoul, there are also language exchange meetups on meetup.com. You can meet and talk with a lot of different Korean people. May be some similar things in cities with Korean expats as well
Dang, that'd be really cool re: in-person in Korea. That's definitely something I'll consider if I ever get to spend 3+ months there at a time. Unfortunately, I live full-time in the United States (Seattle, Washington, sometimes in Orange County, California), so the in-person exchanges won't be an option at this time. OK re: the multiple teachers with different accents and speech patterns, that is brilliant. I'll keep that in my back pocket for when my Korean is actually somewhat fluent đ By the way, if you get a chance, could you tell me where you've found the tutors you've liked the most? I am guessing you're seconding iTalki, but I'd appreciate any other pointers you have. Thank you for sharing your experience!
Thank you for your advice. I do see ads for Korean language tutors online sometimes, but a lot of those ads look sort of generic, leading to landing pages with lots of different languages, stock photos of tutors, etc. Your advice to check out iTalki is very helpful, I'll start there. Thank you!
Take a class or hire a tutor. I have taken three courses so far and it has really helped me to progress. I am solidly a beginner, but having native speakers give me corrections has really helped my pronunciation and confidence in my abilities. And the focused practice has helped with my reading speed. I have been pleasantly surprised with how good the King Sejong Institute Cyber Korean course (lecture assisted - it has video on demand that you watch before your class, and then once a week you have a 2 hour class with an instructor and other students) has been, since itâs free. I donât know if it is a plus or a minus, but my instructorâs English isnât as strong as the instructors in my other classes, so itâs definitely a Korean immersion experience - although I chose the English version of the course, itâs mostly being taught in Korean. I am currently halfway through Beginner 1A. Other cool things about the class: tons of opportunities to practice speaking and listening, homework assignments twice per semester with teacher feedback, a great free textbook & workbook, and the opportunity to study with people from all over the world. I think the next âsemesterâ will begin in late July and will start registration on July 7th. The website is a little hard to navigate, but I really recommend checking it out! This link has info about the registration & course timeline: https://www.iksi.or.kr/lms/bbs/bbsView.do?bbsMastrNo=2&bbsClNo=1&nttNo=51537
Thank you so much for your detailed response. By the way, the King Sejong Institute class looks \*amazing\*. Bookmarking it for hte future. I recognize that a great private tutor could be hard to find since everyone's learning style is different, and I honestly prefer to self-learn as much as possible. I think the online course would be a nice in-between option for me.
Genuinely, I didnât feel confident speaking until I was actually in a class and talking to people. The grammar is so different than English (and in your case, Mandarin and probably Hokkien) that it took me ages for it to âclick.â I would search this sub for people asking the same thing, and Iâll give you the same advice I always do: talk to yourself!! Narrate what youâre doing while youâre cleaning or cooking, think out loud, have one of those imaginary celebrity interviews out loud in the shower. It might not be correct, but itâll help you get in the right habits, and then if you do decide to take a class youâll have a bunch of ideas and questions ready to figure out what you still need in order to build better sentences.
Hey, (1) thanks so much for normalizing things for me, I sort of feel like I havne't been doing a good job at learning because I can still barely string together sentences (although I rewatched Okja recently and was surprised how many full sentences I recognized!). (2) Thanks for that brilliant suggestion re: narrating things to myself. As I don't live in Korea and my Korean friends and I strictly speak in \*English\* lol (and I wouldn't make them suffer through a Korean convo with me unless I was paying them đ), outside of tutors the idea of making my own immersion is really great. Thanks again.
I was in exactly the same boat, with my Korean friends!! And itâs okay to not speak Korean with them until youâre more proficient⌠I have found that the average Korean is really bad at explaining their own language! đ this is true for many L1 speakers but I think as English L1 speakers weâre very very used to speaking with non-natives, which makes us better at understanding someoneâs intended message. If you can stand it, try to record yourself sometimes too! I never did it because CRINGE but you seem very serious and reflective and having some progress recordings where you can either analyze your own production or show it to someone later will be really beneficial!
There are a lot of beginner level podcasts on YouTube. (Choisusu is one.) You could try some of those.
Subscribed to Choisusu, thank you! This might be even more preferable to me than the full-fledged online courses other folks have been suggesting, because I can really go at my own (slow) pace without embarrassment.
Check out the Learn Korean in Korean channel too (1-A playlist).
Try to find news in Korean. World news, local news, etc. it may not always be the most interesting but itâs something you hear every day and it changes every day so youâre not necessarily hearing about the same topics constantly. News casters speak clearly for you to understand and depending on the story theyâre reporting on, you will get some visual references as context clues if you donât understand something. Maybe hire a teacher/tutor. Even for just a few times a month or year so you can get some experience practicing a full conversation with them. If you keep the same one youâll prolly develop a rapport good enough that youâre not just doing small talk when you have a lesson with them.
I love that KorTV history show, all of the old folks on there speak slowly and repeat themselves often. đ
LOL! KorTV history it is. Is it on YouTube?? (Thanks for your suggestion!)
https://www.kortv.com/ Iâm not sure but it has its own streaming site, itâs the âK-Heritageâ channel.
Thank you for your response! Hahha you just reminded me, when I was studying French in high school, I subscribed to Le Monde and would watch their online clips in their sh\*tty Flash player (this was circa 2009...) My teacher joked that I sounded like a French broadcaster when I did oral presentations đ Hey, if I could sound like a Seoul TV broadcaster I'd be \*ecstatic\*. Re: what you said about the newscasters speaking very clearly and with good diction, absolutely, that makes total sense. Any particular newscasts that you enjoy? Even better if they have a Youtube channel. Re: the tutors, do you think once a week is enough? I really don't have more time to commit than that, and I don't want to waste my or the tutor's time of that's not going to be often enough to get into the rhythm.
my studying looks the same as it did back then: 97% reading 2% listening 1% language exchange (talking/typing back and forth with natives). On average I study \~3 hours a day (over 1k hours a year, not including casual korean immersion) It took me about 6 months to become conversational, 1.5 years to be decent at it, 3 years for basic fluency. Currently I'm probably closer to C2 than I am to C1 with 4 years of studying under my bellt
Wow, conversational in 6 months?? That's very impresive. So, did you feel that even with 97% reading you were able to speak fairly naturally? And, what specifically would you focus on reading? I find that I have a poor colloquial understanding of Korean, I could probably conjugate most things using "regular" rules but then I'll read something in Korean and I'm like "wow, the way I would have said 'X', I would sound like a complete doofus".
Naturally? No, but I was able to understand most of what the other person was saying and I was able to respond with basic sentences. I quickly improved though due to how desperately I didn't want to look foolish speaking the language - that driving force itself was probably more of a help to me than the actual speaking was. Basically you get what you put in and I put my heart and soul into the language and threw everything I had at it.
Well said. Thank you for sharing, and keep up the good work!
Take a class or hire tutor. I suggest you to learn korean for take TOPIK (Test of Proficiency in Korean). Why? Bcs when you learning for TOPIK test, your study will be more structured and covers all aspects (reading, writing, listening, and speaking).
Oh wow, this is the first time I'm learning about TOPIK! I'm more familiar with HSK (for written Chinese). I checked out the study topics, you're right. It's a nice structured rubric for what I need to learn, which fits an overly structured person like myself just fine. :) Any suggestions on classes or places to find tutors?
Hello! Sorry, I don't know what classes or where places to find tutor in your region, because I live in Indonesia. But if you want to learn, I suggest you to go to website King Sejong Institute (owned by Korean Government), TTMIK (Talk To Me In Korean), and howtostudykorean. For youtube you can check channel Prof. Yoon's Korean Language Class. He has playlist for learn TOPIK. [TTMIK] (https://talktomeinkorean.com/) [King Sejong Institute ](https://nuri.iksi.or.kr/front/main/main.do) [how to study korean] (https://www.howtostudykorean.com/)
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