Resources to Learn Korean by Yourself
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So, you have decided to start learning Korean by yourself—congrats! But now you are probably thinking: where do I find quality resources to guide my learning? Today I’m thrilled to share some of my top favorite resources that have helped me reach an intermediate level in Korean.
Talk to Me in Korean Books
Korean Stories for Language Learners
My First 500 Korean Words
(future updates)
These resources are some of my favorites that I have invested money into while learning a language on a budget. They have truly helped me so much in knowing where to focus my time. Ready to dive in? Let’s get into it!
Talk to Me in Korean Books
These books are probably the most popular series among Korean language learners, and for good reason. The series consists of 10 levels ranging from beginner to advanced. Within each level, you have the main textbook as well as an additional workbook to further practice the grammar principle from each chapter.
The main textbook is laid out by highlighting a key term or grammar point then breaking it down and explaining its use and examples. Then the lesson finishes with a few exercises for you to test your understanding. There are audio files paired with the example sentences used that you could access on their website to hear the natural pronunciation.
The workbooks, typically start with a review of vocabulary and then have a writing section that tests your ability to use the lesson’s grammar point with different vocabulary. Next is a comprehension section that includes questions about the grammar point and/or example sentences for you to finish. Last is a Dictation section where you listen to the corresponding audio files on their website and write down what you hear.
Some pros for the series are that they work to bring in fun elements to short lessons that keep you engaged and motivated to keep learning. A con I find with the series is that without the corresponding workbook, there is not much practice. So you will then either need to spend the money for the workbook or have a good system in place to practice and have your work checked, especially as you get into the higher levels.
Overall, I find that these books are a great starting place for beginners and can help deepen knowledge for all levels. They are a great resource for understanding Korean in short simple lessons and are a top resource for learning Korean for a solid reason.
Korean Stories for Language Learners
This book contains 42 Korean folktale stories. It starts with shorter, simpler stories and works up to longer, more complex ones. If you want a supplemental resource for practicing your reading skills in Korean, then Korean Stories for Language Learners could be a great resource for you.
Each story is broken down as the story in Korean and then the story in English. Then there is a vocabulary section with keywords and their English translations. Next, there are a few comprehension questions and a writing activity. The writing activity helps to encourage you to write something that relates to you based on the story. As the stories get more complex, they also include some pre-reading questions and cultural notes. They also have online audio files for each story to hear the Korean read aloud.
For the pros of this book, I find that it is a fun resource that can give you some insight into the culture and history of Korea. That being said I think a con of this book is that it is for the more intermediate to advanced learner. The language used is not the same that is used in everyday speech. So if you are looking to just have conversations in Korean I would find other resources more suited to that such as TTMIK’s Real-Life Korean Conversations for Beginners. I can see this being a fun resource in a group or classroom setting where you can talk about the reading and help each other understand the reading.
All in all, a fun resource, but not a necessary one for the beginner. As someone who like to learn about cultures this still is a favorite resource of mine for seeing a bit deeper into the folk side of Korea’s history.
My First 500 Korean Words
This book is part of the curriculum from Talk to Me in Korean. The 500 words are split over 50 days with ten words each day. My First 500 Korean Words is filled with everyday vocabulary you may want to know as a beginner learning Korean.
Each day starts with a double checklist of the ten words that will be gone over in that section. One check box is for marking ones you already know and the second is for marking them learned. There is then a warm-up activity with a short paragraph in English with the vocabulary words placed on top of their corresponding English words. Next is a breakdown of the words, their meanings, and related words along with their meanings. Then there is that warmup paragraph again, but this time in Korean with no English (a translation is provided at the bottom of the page), the vocab words are highlighted. The next page is a fun section with a matching of the English and Korean vocab and then a crossword. The section ends with some sentences that leave blanks to be filled in with the vocabulary learned. Again they provide online audio tracks for the book.
Pros are there are multiple ways to learn the vocabulary. I also like that you can learn more than just the 500 words with the related words. Cons are it can be overwhelming to see all the related words, you aren’t prompted to make your own sentences, which for me, helps me to remember vocabulary the best.
I think it is a great resource for knowing a starting place for learning vocabulary, but it should be used in conjunction with other resources to help you use and remember the words that are learned.
Go Billy’s Beginner Korean Course
If you are looking for a great FREE resource to start learning Korean, then Go Billy’s Beginner Korean Course on YouTube is the place for you. Billy has been teaching Korean for many years and has a Korean learner he can help teach how to avoid common pitfalls you may encounter on your Korean journey.
Most of the videos are under 10 minutes and focus on teaching Korean in easy-to-understand chunks. The first part goes over learning Hangul (the Korean Alphabet). His methods are some of my personal favorites for getting down your Korean pronunciation. After teaching the key beginner phrases he starts teaching grammar points and building vocabulary learning into each lesson. There are moments where he has you pause the video to practice yourself. He also adds additional native readings of the text in some of the later videos. Additionally, he has the Korean Made Simple textbooks you can check out. I have not personally used them so I can’t comment on how they are laid out.
Pro, each lesson is short, but filled with a mix of reading, writing, listening, and speaking practice. Cons, no textbook or pdf for the course.
Overall, this is my favorite beginner resource I used. Go Billy’s YouTube Channel also has a ton of other great resources and weekly live streams on various topics for all Korean proficiency levels.
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