Korean is hard. I gave it a shot but along the way I met many language learning failures. Looking back, here’s what I did and what I should have done.
I, like so many kids in the UK, struggled with learning languages. By the end of two years of German learning I could comfortably say “Ich höre Popmusik mit meiner Schwester” and nothing more. I was certain that this phrase would be no help if I chose to visit Germany. Therefore, I quickly stopped focusing on the language. I passed my German exams (barely) and happily plodded on with my life.
Five years later and a plane ride to Korea, I realised that maybe I should have practised my language learning skills a little more at secondary school. I was determined to learn the basics at least. However, secretly I knew I wanted to become proficient in Korean and hold meaningful conversations with my friends and colleagues. Long story short, after two years in the country, that didn’t happen. I learnt a lot about the language learning process along the way. Yet, in the end I just couldn’t crack the code. Now I look at other language learners with a renewed awe and admiration. Just how do they do it? Well, here is what I did, and here is what I should have done.
What I did to learn Korean
italki lessons
One of the first things I did when I moved to Korea was start italki lessons. These were brilliant. I found a tutor who was really helpful and understanding. Every week I’d log online for 30 minutes to work through some Korean grammar and practice some pronunciation. As a beginner, this was great way to start my language learning journey on a strong footing. But I began to feel frustrated at the pace that I was going. I didn’t realise I couldn’t learn all of Korean in three months.
I started using the Talk To Me In Korean books to jump ahead and learn new grammatical structures. This extra study was great in the sense that I looked really intelligent in class. It also meant that I was constantly reviewing material. But I quickly lost motivation with the italki classes. Not to mention I’m stingy with money and didn’t always have time for a lesson in the week. If I were to begin learning Korean again, I would have complemented my italki lessons with vocab learning instead of grammar learning. With this method, I wouldn’t have gotten bored so quickly and would have had more words to use in conversation during class.
HelloTalk
Next, I tried joining HelloTalk. I’d heard some good reviews about it from other friends who were learning Korean. Therefore, I thought I’d give it a shot. I was certain that this app would be a game-changer because of all its cool features. HelloTalk connects language learners across the world in mutual language learning partnerships. I wanted to learn Korean so I was paired with someone who knew Korean but wanted to learn English. In the app, you can send audio and photos, and there’s also an inbuilt translator and correcting functions.
After I used it for a few months, I came to the conclusion that I don’t like it. It was difficult to find genuine language partners on the app. Plus, maintaining conversations with my low level of Korean was exhausting. When I did find helpful partners, it was disheartening to have my baby Korean critiqued. Nonetheless, I persisted with HelloTalk and even met some language exchange partners in person. Yet, on these meet-ups I didn’t end up speaking a peep of Korean. After all, my reading skills were far higher than my speaking. Used diligently, HelloTalk can be a really nice way to learn how to speak Korean naturally. However, it wasn’t helpful for me in the early stages of language learning.
Daily Korean journal
After my experience with HelloTalk, I wanted to avoid people. Entirely. I also had an unbelievable amount of stickers that my students had gifted me at school. Putting these two variables together, I decided to start a daily Korean journal. I thought that this would be a great method to learn how to express myself in Korean. I was also hopeful that it would keep me entertained longer than my previous methods had. Within a week I was overwhelmed. I enjoyed learning new grammar and vocab with the journal, but it was very time-consuming to write an entry, self-mark it and then review it everyday.
I also got a teensy bit sidetracked with decorating my journal with the stickers rather than studying. As I progressed with my language learning journey and got the opportunity to ask native speakers some questions, I also realised that my early entries were unnatural uses of Korean. My writing sounded like an AI translator rather than a human. Nonetheless, I’m happy that I tried journaling and, although I couldn’t stick with it, I still have my journal tucked away as a nice memento for when I go home.
TOPIK I mock papers
All I’ve ever known is exams. GCSE exams. A-Level exams. University exams. Therefore, it felt natural to use the TOPIK mock papers to study Korean. The TOPIK exam (Test Of Proficiency In Korean) has two levels: TOPIK I and TOPIK II. TOPIK I is easier and aimed at beginner language learners, while TOPIK II is noticeably more difficult and is aimed at Intermediate to Advanced learners who might need Korean for work or study. I obviously focused on the former with my toddler speaking skills.
Each exam is set out in the same way with a reading and listening section getting gradually more difficult as you progress through the test. I found that all of the mock papers had very similar questions, grammar and vocab words. It was so formulaic. But it was so useless. After I missed my TOPIK I test by mistake (I’m directionally-challenged – you can read about it here), I gave up. I knew that I enjoyed studying for the test because it was too easy and didn’t challenge my speaking skills at all. Looking at the TOPIK II, I was aware that the jump to this test would require me to learn a lot more vocab, prompting me to start my Quizlet and Anki sets.
Quizlet and Anki
I started learning and reviewing vocab far too late. I was able to get by on the words that I’d picked up on the way, but formally learning vocabulary was a whole new can of worms. My friend had recommended Anki to me so I tried downloading this software to review vocab. I liked how this tool ran through vocabulary and would repeat the words I couldn’t lock down. However, I didn’t like the interface and so I was quickly uninspired by it. I swapped to Quizlet instead, tempted by the test and game features on the app. I stuck with Quizlet for a little longer than Anki, flicking through my flashcards on the bus, but I found I was spending more time inputting words than learning them.
With both apps, I struggled to find a good list of words to learn. Some lists were too simple, filled with words I had already picked up. Other lists were full of complex words I couldn’t see myself using in English, let alone Korean. I found it frustrating when I would close the app down, take a walk outside and see a sign with ten unfamiliar words on. Now the correct thing to do would have been to take a photo of the sign and put the unfamiliar words in my set for later study. Yet, I was unmotivated and overwhelmed by the 1,000,000+ words in the Korean language. If I had started these sets at an earlier date, I would have felt less like I was playing catch-up and may have had an easier time choosing the words I needed to study.
What I should have done to learn Korean
More speaking practice
The number one thing I wish I had done more of from the offset is speaking practice. Now I think this is the most difficult area of a language to study as it’s best done with other people. Yet being in Korea, with thousands of native speakers around me, I didn’t use the opportunity wisely. I would always make excuses for reverting back to English – I don’t know enough words, I can’t express myself properly, it will be too awkward. My lack of confidence and fear of making mistakes held me back from practicing Korean in this way. I felt like I had a lot of language knowledge in my head and would often understand if I was spoken to, but I couldn’t respond quickly enough.
If I were to start my language learning experience again I would be more proactive with speaking to my Korean friends and colleagues. This would also help me to make better connections at work. I would actively look for language exchange partners who would be open to listening to me muddle through Korean sentences and offer me pointers. Now I know for next time that language learning is about making mistakes. Don’t be afraid like me. Go out and talk to people and exponentially improve your pronunciation, listening, and vocab skills.
Imitation
As well as speaking more, I should have used imitation more frequently during my independent study. Although I knew this was a useful method, I usually put off imitating the videos I watched because I often studied during work. Weirdly, I didn’t like the idea of my colleagues hearing me whispering under my breath in Korean. This lack of imitation meant I had next to no speaking practice. During imitation you closely copy phrases from a video or sound clip, making sure to follow the intonation and pronunciation of the words, helping to build more fluency.
I wasn’t stuck for resources either. Any YouTube video of my favourite idols or the latest Netflix K-drama would have done for my imitation practice. I could have even used my much-beloved TOPIK I listening exams to copy simple Korean sentences. But I avoided all of these resources and marched on with reading and listening practice. Note to self: it’s difficult to get by in Korea if you refuse to talk.
Daily practice
Life gets in the way of so much. I work, I exercise, I sleep, I eat. By the time I’ve done all those things, I don’t really feel like knuckling down to do some Korean study. But any amount of language practice is a useful amount. And I mean active practice. I used to try and reason with myself that because I heard Korean everyday from my students or colleagues or from random strangers on the bus, I was basically refining my listening skills so I didn’t need to do more. That’s cheating. And was a big reason I didn’t progress very quickly with my studies.
Use the time you’re commuting on the bus to flick through some vocab sets or take a moment to journal your thoughts in Korean on your phone’s notes page. Don’t be lazy like me and think that living in Korea is enough to learn Korean. Daily practice keeps your mind focused on the language and lets you constantly review what you’ve learnt the day before. It’s difficult but makes a world of difference to your language learning journey.
Re-watching Korean shows
One simple way I could have reviewed what I was learning was to re-watch Korean shows that I loved. While in Korea I must have watched at least 50 different shows and movies, each with different characters, plots, and therefore words. By already knowing what was going to happen and the characters intonation, I could have relied less on the English subtitles and focused more on actively listening or reading the Korean subs.
I went so far as to download a Google extension named Language Reactor (would recommend). This web extension let me see English and Korean subtitles at the same time on YouTube and Netflix videos. But it never saw much use as I constantly picked something new to watch instead, or I fell asleep mid-episode. (Side note: it wasn’t helpful to try studying at 10 o’clock). At this time of night, I also didn’t feel like pairing my imitation skills with my re-watched episode. I was really getting nothing done. I felt like episodes were dragging because the language in them was still too complex for me, and I think I used the extension a total of two times before switching it off. If I had paired re-watching videos with a higher focus on learning vocab, maybe I would have had more fun using this method.
Less grammar, more doing
I hit the ground running with my Korean learning. I’d picked up a textbook within the first weeks of arriving in Korea. Even before officially making the move, I’d scrolled through online language learning sites to learn Hangul and familiarise myself with some basics. But since the start, I chose to study grammar. Not to say that wasn’t helpful, particularly with Korean’s multiple levels of formality and verb endings, but it shouldn’t have been the only way.
I needed less grammar and more doing. I needed to go out and talk to native speakers, and actively imitate videos. Also, I needed to pair my grammar with vocab. This would help me to fill the blanks in a grammatically perfect sentence. I would also learn a grammatical rule through a book and not truly understand it because I hadn’t heard it in real life. Truth be told, knowing I would eventually leave Korea held me back from being proactive in my studies. I spent a lot of time learning Korean, but I didn’t use it wisely.
What should you do?
Different study methods work better or worse for different people. Just because HelloTalk didn’t work for me doesn’t mean it won’t be helpful for you. But I failed in learning Korean so that you don’t have to. I’ve accepted that I’ll probably never get past a low-intermediate stage, but that bothers me less nowadays. I also know that I can pick the language up again at any time with the benefit of hindsight. There are lots of resources out there to help you learn a language, but it’s often choosing the right materials and using them correctly that can make or break how you respond to the language. Unfortunately, I chose wrong and struggled, but you don’t have to. Stick with it and adapt, and you’ll find yourself conversing in Korean in no time.
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