People always ask me, “How did you learn Korean?” I learned Korean during COVID-19 by watching a crazy amount of K-dramas. I watched maybe over 50 dramas. At that time, it was natural that I was into K-dramas, because K-culture was sweeping the world. Everybody was dancing to K-pop, and there were more and more Korean restaurants in town. This K-wave led me to naturally learn Korean through K-dramas. Today, I'll share three easy ways to learn Korean. I hope this helps you to be able to speak Korean while we are in Korea.
The first step of learning Korean is to learn Hangul. This step is the hardest. For me, it was difficult to learn similar vowels like ㅜ and ㅡ, ㅗandㅓ, because in Japanese we only have five vowels: a, i, u, e, o. But Hangul is just putting together the combination of vowels and consonant sounds. So I enjoy this step by thinking of it like a puzzle. If you think of it like a puzzle, learning Hangul can be more enjoyable.
This is one of my favorite K-dramas, Our Beloved Summer.
Then, find your crush. In my case, it's a K-pop idol. There are a variety of handsome guys, and they are tall and humorous. Even though my Korean understanding improved, it was difficult to understand the small nuances in their conversations. I wanted to understand exactly what they were saying in their language. So I started watching everything from YouTube content to variety TV shows that featured my favorite K-pop idol. So I recommend watching a lot of online content and TV shows with your K-crush.
It took years to master Korean but to be able to speak basic Korean doesn't take much time.
The moment when I realized my Korean was improving was when I could understand what Korean idols were saying during their live stream. In Korean, there are words that are based on Kanji (Chinese characters). So I also knew I improved when I started to correctly guess the meaning of words based on Kanji or context.
Talking to yourself is also a good way to improve your Korean. When you talk to yourself, no one judges you, so you can just do as you like and make mistakes without pressure.
I would talk to myself in Korean about simple things such as counting the number of steps on the way to school. This is because in Korean, there are two ways of counting numbers and counting my steps in Korean helped me practice. Also, I tried to imitate interesting lines from Korean dramas. For me, pronunciation is one of the most difficult points, so imitating lines and talking to myself in Korean really helped.
This semester, I completed a Business Korean Class.
“When you talk to yourself, no one judges you, so you can just do as you like and make mistakes without pressure.”