It’s always a voice, isn’t it?

I really am just a sucker for someone with great oratory style.

And Korean is no different.

While you might think ‘Oh god, it’s going to be about that Kyungsoo bloke again, isn’t it?’ You’d be wrong.

Because while Kyungsoo’s voice sings to my heart, another sings to my soul.

This one.

This is the voice that made me want to learn Korean. If I could pick a voice to listen to forever, this would be it. I can’t explain why. Not even close. But there you have it. End of story.

Or really, just the beginning.

I started a basic attempt at Korean back in 2020, meaning I have been learning for just under 2 years now. If I am honest with myself, I should have learned far more than I have. Actually, let me rephrase that, I could have learned a lot more by now. However, between two jobs, Uni and, you know, life; that hasn’t been the case. Having said that, when I sit back and really think about it, I am proud of how far I’ve come with my language skills and the sheer determination that I have shown in continuing to push myself forward. 

I have never before, not for one single second, been interested in learning a language. With the exception of the torture of mandatory French and German lessons at school, I have not ever made an attempt to learn one (and in case you are interested, after five years of studying German, all I can remember are the words for cheese, potato and hospital. Take from that what you may).

If asked, I would say I consider myself linguistically challenged. Add on top of that a giant helping of laziness that comes from the fact I speak English (now considered the lingua franca of much of the world) and even larger British serving of total fear of looking a complete plonker when trying to speak a foreign language….and there you have it.

New language? No, never, thank you very much. 

Oh, but for that darned voice…..

I will admit that given my penchant for Korean entertainment, there are definite upsides to trying to learn the language.

To watch a drama and be able to glance away from the screen for a few moments and not lose the plot? To be able to get up and make a cup of tea and only have to listen to what is being said, instead of having to be constantly glued to the TV? These are things I dream of.

It would also be nice, not to mention time saving, not to have to plug every Korean sentence I see into a translator to work out what my favourite actors or singers are up to.

And maybe, to a much lesser extent, I would like to listen to my music and understand the lyrics a little more fully (although honestly, I enjoy not knowing what is being sung, I like to just have the melody and voices take me where they may).

And with those things in mind, I took the plunge into the world of learning Korean.

I started where everyone does by learning the alphabet. Well, learning Hangeul anyway, the Korean written language. Which looks less like this and more like…안녕하세요.

Yeah, I couldn’t have picked a harder language to start with if I tried. Well, I could actually, Mandarin, but as far as toughness of language learning goes, Korean is right there near the top.

So, the alphabet. Consonants and vowels. I started by learning to recognise them visually and practicing how to sound them out. I won’t lie, I felt 50% amazed and in awe of myself that I learned to recognise and pronounce things like 가, 왜, 빵 and 눈; but also 50% thinking what an absolute idiot I felt, and probably sounded like, trying to do so.   

I learned the basic format of the written system, how it is based in syllable blocks and which letters can go where and why. I discovered that there is a particular way each letter is written, a specific order and routine to each stroke of the pen.

Starting to feel pleasantly surprised and pleased that I had mastered some basic concepts, I then hit my first (of many) stumbling blocks with Korean. Feeling a miniscule amount of smugness thinking I had acceptably grasped the basic pronunciation of letters, I moved on to slightly more complicated words with multiple syllables, which brought the realisation that the rules of enunciation were rather like moving goal posts. Rather than letters or blocks sounding out singularly as I thought, multiple syllables meant the sounds of one block flowed into the next, completely altering the sound of the word. Basically, what I thought I knew, I didn’t.

This brought me to my biggest realisation regarding learning Korean (and probably every language) – with every new word I memorise, with every new grammatical concept I learn, with every new piece of information I gain, there will always be another level of detail to add at a later point.

Slowly but surely I gained basic skills in the language. I scoured the internet for resources that fit my learning style and ability. I found self-directed lessons that covered basic principles of particles, tenses, time and location and numbers (of which Korean has two systems…of course it does). I found a flash card application for my computer and began using it religiously every day, adding new vocabulary when I could and testing my skills daily.

As I have already admitted, the time I have spent on my learning has been patchy, but at least it has been continuous. Since I began my language journey, my interest has not faltered nor waned. In fact, my desire to learn and progress grows all the stronger, but is of course tempered by the amount of free time available to commit to it.

Late last year, after feeling I had accumulated as much knowledge as I was likely to on my own and deciding I needed more guidance, I opted to find an online tutor for one hour a week and to sign up for a live online Korean class run by the Korean Embassy in London.

At the time of writing, I have now passed my Level 1A Korean Language Class and am currently halfway through my Level 1B course. My current vocabulary flash card list stands at 967 words; however, with terminology I know but have not recorded there, my current vocabulary is probably around 1000 words. That’s just over beginner level, but not quite enough for full everyday conversation. It should be enough to get by with while travelling though.

I can read basic paragraphs of text in my textbooks and either fully understand the content or hit it pretty accurately. For instance:

타완 씨는 무슨 음식을 좋아해요?

저는 김치끼개를 좋아해요. 

I can read, pronounce and understand this.

Additionally, if I were to listen to someone says this (albeit a little slowly), I would also understand and be able to come up with my own response from the words and grammar I know.

And for me, a language newbie, a first-time linguistic learner, that makes me happy. I am nowhere near any type of proficiency, but I can mangle together a basic sentence with the best of them. I can make enough sense that my tutor can understand my simple intentions. I know enough vocabulary and grammar to feel confident occasionally yelling at my Netflix subtitles for poor context translation.

And the very best part of it all? I can’t wait to learn more. I can’t wait to get better. I can’t wait until I feel I can open my mouth and say something with some level of fluidity. I can’t wait until I can speak with a Korean person in Korea and be able to have an interaction, no matter how small, in their own language. And deep down I really hope those things happen. I really hope that I am still this invested and excited to learn, even if it takes me the next 10 years to do so. 

 

So, what can I tell you overall about my Korean learning? What advice can I give you if you are thinking about sticking a toe into the language learning pool?

Well, my experience so far has been that learning Korean is a long, hard, and never-ending journey (I have purposely avoiding using the word slog here). There are some days when I have a linguistic breakthrough and feel certain I can achieve my goal to speak Korean (one day, in the far distant future) and other days where I feel I haven’t moved an inch and question why I am punishing myself by even attempting this.

And while there are many, many times that I have thought to myself “This language is making itself far more complicated than it needs to be”, there are an equal number of times that I have been in a state of fascination over the structure or sound of it. Where the overwhelming awe and enchantment of this particular language comes from, I do not know. I can’t say whether it is simply stems from the fact I love learning in general, and maybe if I had found a different language to focus on, I would feel the same wonderment and curiosity as I currently do. But the sheer level of fascination does sometimes take me off guard and even the simplest of things tickles me when I learn them. When this happens I feel a ridiculous amount of happiness – it’s like a pure shot of bliss.

I guess it is this feeling that compels me to continue every day to practice my vocabulary flash cards, to keep straining my ears while watching TV to try and recognise words and sentences I may have memorised, and every week attending class and tutoring to try and move just a little further forward, even if it ends up taking me a lifetime to achieve. 

For anyone thinking about learning Korean (or any language actually), my biggest initial piece of advice would be to work out what your motivation is and how motivating that factor really is.

Learning a foreign language will not happen overnight (unless you have some magical talent) and unless you have unlimited time and resources at your disposal, it will take a fair amount of time to learn. That means you have to have staying power. Lots of it. In my case, I watch nothing but Korean TV. Every day I am constantly reminded how desperately I want to learn Korean. Every time I hear a new word or phrase on TV and suddenly realise I just learned it in class, my motivation is given a boost. I can measure my progress almost daily simply through drama.

Which leads me to my next piece of advice – work out clearly what your goal is. What are you truly aiming for? This will also help motivate you. Start with small goals. ‘I want to learn how to say please and thank you’.  ‘I want to learn 100 words’. ‘I want to be able to order coffee and cake’. Then kick up to some medium and longer term goals. For me, while I wish to beat my subtitle nemesis long term, travelling to Korea is my medium term goal and therefore much of what I am currently learning has to do with very functional language for my upcoming trip – transport, food, money, directions. 

I would also advise starting slowly and with all the free resources you can find before jumping in and spending money on your language hobby. I was about a year in before deciding to commit to a paid class and tutor. I was sure by then this wasn’t another fleeting idea of mine, but something I really wanted to try. I have not actually bought any other resources; no books, no apps, no memberships.

And my biggest piece of advice, and one I forget a lot of the time, is to remember that learning a language should be fun. If it is nothing but a painful curse to you, I suggest you save yourself the pain. I have studied and taken a lot of courses over my life, and a fair number of them I have actively disliked or not cared a jot about (mostly things required for work). Studying Korean is the first time where I have wished I had more time to devote to learning. In my opinion, all learning should be like that. So if this isn’t how you feel, maybe you might want to find something else that makes you feel that way instead.

Finally….for those wishing to attempt some Korean, here’s the resources I have used, and a few others that I know are often recommended (but I haven’t personally tried).

How to Study Korean – I can’t recommend this site enough. This is where I learned everything to start me off. And I know it was worth it because when I took my first Korean class, I was already quite ahead of the class in terms of vocabulary and basic grammar. I only went up to lesson 9 in Unit 1, but if you went further it would be well worth it. There is also an associated YouTube channel that has some good practice exercises on it as well.

Memrise – this goes alongside the How to Study Korean website. I love memrise. It helps you practice listening, speaking and reading skills. I highly recommend using it. You can log in and choose Korean as your language choice and find all types of word lists to practice. 

Anki – this is the free flashcard database/app I use. I downloaded it onto my computer. I use mine with pictures instead of words though. I put the picture on the front, Hanguel on the back. The reason I like Anki is that it will show you a card and you get to decide how well you know the word (easy, medium, hard). Anki then shows them to you based on this choice. If you decide a word is easy, you might not see it for 5 days, if you decide it’s hard, you’ll see it again tomorrow.  Just be aware, Anki is not the most intuitive to set up/use, but if you play with it for a bit you will get the idea and it is worth it.

Papago – probably the best Korean to English translator out there. It has a desktop and an app version, I use both. The app has a really useful picture and voice functions – take a picture of Korean text and it will translate it, speak into it in English or Korean and it will translate (fairly well – I was pleased when it recognised my Korean 🙂 ).

Naver Dictionary – does what it says on the tin. I find it useful for checking correct spelling/definition when doing my flash cards.

Haguel writing strokes – good to use when you first start to learn to write Hanguel.

First Tutors – this is the website I found my tutor on, I like her very much. I got to browse through the Korean tutors for free and see their profiles, when I was ready to try and contact some I had to pay £15 to the site which I felt was worth it. You can then contact the tutors directly. Some will offer a free or half price first lesson to see how you work together and decide if you want to continue. Most rates seem to be between £20-£35p/h.

Korean Embassy London – I have been taking my live online class through them. I would fully recommend you not take a course as a totally new learner with no knowledge of the language. It is labelled beginner, but you need to at least be able to read Korean (i.e. sound it out, even if you don’t know what you are reading) and I suggest you have a decent basic vocabulary. The lessons run at a very fast pace and without a decent starting point you will be lost out, get unmotivated and probably quit. This happened to a few people in the class I took. You have been warned.

Talk to Me in Korean – people rave about this, some swear by it, I personally didn’t get on with it. I had a hard time with the fact they seem to jump in and start with whole sentences as their learning style. I personally needed to start right from the most basic bit of learning the alphabet and build up. Everyone is different I guess, so it might work for you.

I hope that some of these resources may be of use to you, but no matter what you choose to try, I wish you all well on your journey of discovery into the Korean language. I hope you find it as fascinating and exciting as I do and if you ever want to ask questions, please feel free to get in touch.

화이팅!