Steps to Learning Korean – From the Perspective of an American Who Has Been There and Done That

From the Perspective of an American Who Has Been There and Done That!

Korean is the easiest Asian language to learn how to read, but the hardest with its structure and design. When I was going through my trial by fire when I made it over to Korea, the first thing I did was learn how to read it. Their alphabet (yes, it’s an alphabet) is supremely easy.

All the squiggly letters (?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?, and?) are consonants. In order, they are b, j, d, g, s, m, n, ng or silent, a combo r/l, h, k, t, ch, and p. All of the consonants cannot be by themselves, so they need to be paired with a vowel. Their vowels happen to be straight lines (?,?,?,?,?), and they are u as in up, o as in shot, e as in eat, oo as in hook, and oh, as in … oh. That is as simple as it gets.

I knew that once I stopped mixing the u as in up, and the o as in shot, I was set, and could easily navigate their language, but my Korean friend warned me of things such as compound vowels, and they are as hard to pronounce as they seem. It’s like trying to differentiate between we and ui. But, even this can be done through careful observation and study.

The second thing I did was hop online to a site called Drama Fever, and checked out all the Korean dramas that they had. I submerged myself in plights of unwed daughters, baker kings, and girls in boy bands. There is such a great array of different dramas on that website that it’ll boggle the mind. Looking for something more mysterious? How about scary? Those kinds of stories can be found too.

A third thing that I went out of my way to do was visit the local Korean market. Here’s a funny fact, most small towns in America have them, especially around major cities like Seattle, Phoenix, San Francisco, Atlanta, Washington D.C. and New York City. Why? Because from the time that they’re born, they’re told that they want to come to America, so a lot of first and second generations of Koreans are around us.

In this fashion, from the comfort of my own country, I took my little book of phrases out, and attempted conversation. They smiled, waved their hands, and I even got pinched in the cheeks, and of course they attempted to correct how horribly I was befuddling their language, but I always got a nice?? as???, smiles, and a lot of chatter.

Classes in Korean can be found at many colleges and schools. Pairing good classes with experiences like mine with the alphabet, dramas, and real life conversations will have you speaking Korean in no time.

More info: http://classesncamps.com/steps-learning-korean-perspective-american-done/