A language learners’ forum

My 14 year old daughter has become obsessed with K-pop and since she knows I study languages she has asked me for ideas to learn Korean. I've been impressed by the fact that she can sing along with her favourite songs.

She wants to get a book she saw on Amazon called "Learn Korean with K-pop", but it looked to me like that wouldn't be a good starting place (from what I understand you need to know how to use the Korean script throughout). My suggestions to her were to start with Duolingo, and then we'd look into getting a beginner's book. After she finishes the beginner's book I said I'd get one of the K-pop books.

She has been doing Duolingo on and off for three weeks, but she feels it's going too fast. I've found videos that teach the script on Go Billy: https://gobillykorean.com/category/learn-hangul/. The speaker has a strong American accent and I'm concerned that he pronounces the Korean sounds with his accent. Can anyone comment? I've also considered his book which has pretty good reviews, Korean Made Simple https://www.amazon.co.uk/Korean-Made-Simple-beginners-learning/dp/1497445825/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1530773920&sr=8-2&keywords=korean. Again, any comments would be useful.

We also got the first 5 lessons of Pimsleur from Audible, but neither of us could tell with confidence what sounds the Korean speaker was making. I reckon it might be useful once she knows the alphabet and core vocabulary.

So if you have any advice, suggestions or comments on the resources I've mentioned, I would love to hear it!

How about LingoDeer instead of Duolingo, before starting a real coursebook?

I've been playing with their Japanese course and I think this app is far superior to Duolingo, when it comes to asian languages. There are more types of exercise, the grammar notes are considered an integral part of the product, the script is being taught early and you can switch whether to see the latin transcript or not. The creators really made an app that is primarily for teaching the south east asian languages, Japanese, Mandarin, and Korean.

I don't know how far it leads. Lingodeer says and users on the internet seem to agree the Japanese course right now covers more or less the same stuff as Genki I and leads to N5. And the staff is working on more advanced content, with the intention of making Lingodeer a good resource up to the intermediate level. I don't know the Korean levels, but I guess the intention will be similar.

It definitely goes slow enough and progressively, which was definitely not my impression from the Duolingo course (I think they should have invested much more time into the asian courses, they look as just a way to not allow Lingodeer enter the market comfortably without competition).

I am in general not that much for apps, they cannot take the place of normal courses in my opinion, but I am completely convinced they are a good way to test one's real interest in a language and learning it and Lingodeer may actually teach quite a lot as a bonus.

The only thing I dislike is lack of SRS (it seems there is none and the reviews are more just flashcards) but that is no different from Duolingo and there are other SRS.

There's a free website called: Learn Korean through K-POP

For starters I think it would be a good idea to get a general idea of how the language works. For this, the Learn Korean through K-POP has a small section about the korean script and another small section about K-Grammar Basics. And this website also has complementary vocabulary courses at Memrise.

There is also a great free series called "Korean for Overseas Korean". This series is designed for korean kids living abroad. There are 12 books in total (the latter six are more targerted toward teenagers) and each book comes with audio and a workbook. You can find it in the official website, in this section: KOSNET Resource. The first part of the first book of the series teaches the korean script. In the same website but in a different section you can find multimedia courses like these: Sejong Korean.

A good grammar series is: Korean Grammar in Use. It has 3 books. The first book comes with a good general introduction to the language.

And there's an interesting book called "K-POP DICTIONARY" which covers about 500 words/phrases related to the kpop world.

EDITED: I forgot to mention that there are 3 versions of the "Korean for Overseas Korean" series: two are bilingual (english-korean/japanese-korean) and the other one is monolingual (korean only). The "korean only" version is the one that comes with audios, but all the versions follow the same curriculum (just with some smalll variations) so your daughter could read first the chapters of the english sections and just use the korean version for the audio part.

Also, in the same page of the resources I linked for that series, there is another series of textbooks with bilingual and monolingual versions, and the english-korean one does come with audio. The series is called "Customized Korean" and is also designed for korean kids living abroad, but it is more focused on elementary school kids (though I'm using the bilingual spanish-korean version and I enjoy it a lot ).

If you want to download the material you first need to sign up (which is completely free).

If you allow your daughter on Tumblr, there are a lot of resources on there. A lot of aspiring Korean speakers and k-pop fans write blog posts with vocabulary break-downs of popular or new songs, and sometimes go into grammar points. There's a lot of "Learn with BTS" posts since they're likely the most popular group in k-pop. There's a few videos like that on YouTube, too. If she has a blog and starts to follow Korean langblrs (Tumblrs dedicated to learning languages, in this case Korean), those posts will start to pop up.

Here's a couple examples:
1. Vocab with BTS
2. Korean Study Tips
3. Kimmy-Trans

I just searched "learn korean with k-pop" in the search bar. BTS came up first in the results either because they're the latest and greatest, or because Tumblr has a weird search algorithm.

I wouldn't recommend solely learning grammar through k-pop, though, because k-pop, just like dramas, uses strange vocabulary and structures. It is more poetic and strict than actual conversation. They can be really casual with addressing their subjects in songs, and there's more to the language than just '사랑해'. I've heard good things about TTMIK Iyagis for listening practice. I think if she wanted to keep with the theme of watching what she likes to learn, though, she could always watch Weekly Idol or similar shows to test her comprehension. It has more realistic conversation. Korean has an elaborate honorific structure that I still haven't conquered (granted I haven't put much time into it) so you need to be aware of it while you're watching or even before you watch to make sure you've picked the right content for practice.

Also, good to remember:

ロータス wrote:Woah there. OP, maybe create an account and pick some people to follow yourself before sacrificing your daughter to Tumblr. If you use Tumblr's search bar, DO NOT SEARCH JUST THE WORD "KOREAN"(this goes for all East Asian languages). Have to add 'korean learning' or 'korean langauge'. Tumblr has a problem with ...adult content using common tags for views.

Ha, I didn't mean to lead anyone astray. 'Korean langblr' might work. That's how I tag my posts on my langblr. I just searched 'Korean resources' and that gave some good content. If you're really worried about what your daughter might see, you can install the x-kit extension on Google Chrome (if you use that) and block content based on tags. Knowing the specific tags, though, is key.

Everyone's experience is different but if I were to start again I would use free resources to learn the alphabet and simple grammar points or expressions (lingodeer app, Korean from Zero). Then I would buy Korean Grammar in Use and Yonsei Korean Reading 1 (mostly for vocabulary because KGIU doesn't introduce many new words).

Did you look through the "Master List of Resources" at Korean?

https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 466#p65393

There's a website called langintro that taught Hangul in a rather intuitive way:

Langintro

ロータス wrote:

eido wrote:If you allow your daughter on Tumblr...

Woah there. OP, maybe create an account and pick some people to follow yourself before sacrificing your daughter to Tumblr. If you use Tumblr's search bar, DO NOT SEARCH JUST THE WORD "KOREAN"(this goes for all East Asian languages). Have to add 'korean learning' or 'korean langauge'. Tumblr has a problem with ...adult content using common tags for views.

There's a safe search mode that's on by default which usually blocks such content.