Korean and Spanish

[5HT]

I decided to learn Korean, so I'll be keeping a log here to keep myself motivated. I'm starting off with listening and phonetics, as ProfArguelles suggested here:http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=7606. For now, I'll be working through "The Sounds of Korean." It looks good from what I can tell -- explanations of how to physicially form the sounds, practice distinguishing minimal pairs, etc. I also have a couple of free textbooks that I found online ("Korean From Zero" and "My Korean"). Unfortunately, I'm really busy with school this year, but I'm going to try to study at least a little bit every day.

I also speak Spanish, but haven't actively worked on it for a long time. 90% of what I do in that language is just texting on WhatsApp and watching soccer, so I'm going to try to build up my vocabulary more (copy and pasting sentences into Anki) and working on my listening skills in other contexts.

[Elenia]

Great, another Korean new starter I'll be taking up Korean in the New Year, so it will be nice to follow another beginner's journey. What's your main reason/motivation for wanting to learn Korean? My motivation is at least five parts food

[5HT]

Well, I wanted to learn an Asian language just because I've never been to that part of the world before, so I was considering Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. It came down to Japanese and Korean, but I really could've gone either way. Either country seems like a cool place to visit, but BBQ > sushi, so there you go

[Elenia]

Well, I wanted to learn an Asian language just because I've never been to that part of the world before, so I was considering Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. It came down to Japanese and Korean, but I really could've gone either way. Either country seems like a cool place to visit, but BBQ > sushi, so there you go

Ooh, I am so glad someone went through the same reasoning process as me! I'm a sucker for sushi, but Korean portions tend to be bigger so that won me over

[Bylan]

한국어에 환영합니다!

I would also suggest beginning with Hangul as soon as possible. The sooner you can connect the sounds with the alphabet, the better off you are in the beginner and intermediate stages. Talktomeinkorean.com has a good Hangul teaching video series, and you can find a few others online.

The best Korean textbook I've ever found is You Speak Korean! by Soohee Kim. She was my professor at uni and she was the best Korean teacher I've ever had, hands down. Her books are full of perfect grammar explanations, and great translations. Free audio through the UW website, and exercises constructed to be done with a language partner or Korean friend, you can't find a better, more thorough Korean textbook for English speaking adults. You can find her books at www.paradigmbusters.com. You can see sample pages and read about the philosophy behind the books.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask me. I've been studying for 7 years >.<

화이팅!

[5HT]

Thanks for the tip, I guess I'll try to make some audio flash cards for Hangul and just drill them until I can associate the symbol with the sound, and vice versa. Glad to see there are so many other people here studying Korean!

I've actually been doing more Spanish lately. My Anki deck is up to 155 cards, doing about 5-10 minutes of review a day. Not exactly impressive, but it's better than nothing. Right now I have 2 major sources for new cards: a fairly comprehensive food list and El Pais. After the holidays though, I still plan to work mainly on Korean.

[Evita]

Thanks for the tip, I guess I'll try to make some audio flash cards for Hangul and just drill them until I can associate the symbol with the sound, and vice versa.

Someone has already made such a deck and shared it on Ankiweb: https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/2530965591

[burunduk]

한국어에 환영합니다!

The best Korean textbook I've ever found is You Speak Korean! by Soohee Kim. She was my professor at uni and she was the best Korean teacher I've ever had, hands down. Her books are full of perfect grammar explanations, and great translations. Free audio through the UW website, and exercises constructed to be done with a language partner or Korean friend, you can't find a better, more thorough Korean textbook for English speaking adults. You can find her books at http://www.paradigmbusters.com. You can see sample pages and read about the philosophy behind the books.

화이팅!

many thanks for the link. it is sad that the audio materials for the first two books are missing. i can't seem to find them anywhere.

[solocricket]

Best of luck with both Korean and Spanish! If you aren't familiar, Buenos Días America is a great Latinoamerican Spanish news podcast that might help you pick up some more vocabulary-- I listen to it almost every day

[5HT]

Well, I've been spending literally all my time preparing for an important exam I'm taking later this year. According to my Anki stats, I've spent an average of 4 minutes a day on Korean. I've definitely made some progress, but I'm planning on setting aside some time to drill Hangul for a few hours, then review everything daily for a week or so to solidify it. Then hopefully I'll be able to move on to more exciting aspects of the language.

edit: a little more specific. My Korean deck right now has a handful of symbol --> sound cards for Hangul, as well as sound-->symbol. I've also been adding in a few words from Evita's deck (only the ones that have accompanying sound though). I just downloaded a minimal pairs deck as well. For the comprehensive Hangul study I found this http://www.koreanwikiproject.com/wiki/Hangeul_step_1 on this forum, which I like because it has sounds and quizzes integrated into the explanations.