For my Korean learners, in this post I will like to share you my learning journey of self learning Korean language all this while. Personally, I have been starting to learn and practice Korean for around 10 years, since I was 15. Starting to learn Korean was a very passionate push during that moment, I remembered I could take up more than 4 to 5 audio lessons in https://talktomeinkorean.com/, listening to Hyun-woo ssi and Kyeong-eun ssi voices. The momentum was great I can complete 3 levels in a month. The problem is always to sustain the fire after that.
challenges in self learning korean
- Keep up your learning consistency: I used to have a schedule to learn Korean every weekend, maybe 1 audio lesson per week. However, it was difficult to maintain the consistency as you will start to prioritize other tasks like homework, assignments or even hangouts. Therefore, self discipline is definitely THE KEY to ensure you always keep on the track of learning Korean and keep improving.
- Lack of 2 way interaction during learning: As most of the materials we find online and books are audios, notes or videos that only require your input of the knowledge, you could not get the most efficient way in learning the language with the ability to ask questions and feedback from a teacher. This can be tough to improve your speaking and writing, as these requires practices and corrections from a native speaker or a teacher. Korean pronunciation is one of the hardest element in this language, interacting with a teacher who can correct your pronunciation will be very helpful. Therefore, try to find a friend who has a better Korean than you, and practice it together. If you have a native Korean friends, just talk to them and you will sure master Korean when time goes!
- Other Korean learners to form a learning group: Self learner can be a lonely journey as most of the time you learn Korean by listening to lessons, practice your grammar, writing your essay alone without other friends and teachers. I was searching for other friends who could learn with me, so we can communicate and help each other in the learning, but most of them were not serious to learn a new language. It was until lately I able to find a group of Korean learners who have been learning Korean for years and similar like me eager to find friends to practice with. Therefore, it is better if we have friends to study Korean with us, so we can each practice together and motivated each other when we are out of the pace. Try to find other people through internet to interact with, like MyDaehan Korean Learning Community to keep learning Korean and share useful materials to each other!
Come and join us in our Facebook #MyDaehan Korean Learners Community í•śęµě–´ ë°°ěš°ë°© to build up your friends to learn Korean together: https://www.facebook.com/groups/294266961744949
ways to freshen up my Korean
I was now in the level 6 in TTMIK, which means my Korean levels are actually way more need for improvements. I learnt a lot of grammar, especially like tenses form. Tenses were always my weakness even in English because Mandarin (my mother tongue) do not have tenses system. I have forgotten a lot of the forms of tenses, and the formula of the changes of root words into the right tenses form. Korean grammar can be very confusing with the formal and informal expression, while there is also the very formal with the normal formal way to express the things. Besides, Korean particles are in various types while some of them sounds similar that you can get confused easily. These are the things that I learnt, but I just forgot because I didn’t have the chance to apply them in conversation and practice them in real life. Therefore, here are some tips I did to freshen up my Korean from time to time:
- Speak Korean with your friends! : I am very happy to find a group of Korean learning friends from this Author team, and we opened a private chatroom which most of our conversations were in full Korean. You can finally practice Korean grammars and sentence structure when you are chatting in Korean, while you can learn comprehension and new vocabularies when you listen to your friends.
- Write Korean when there is a chance! : You don’t need a reason to write Korean as a practice in your social media, or when your mood is good, you can even write a random essay using full Korean. This will helps you to apply what you learnt, while search for new expressions and grammar rules when you want express your feelings through writing. For me, you can practice by writing some short sentence in your Instagram stories, or in the status or posts; what I experienced is that there are actually friends who have come and give me feedback to improve my writing from there!
- Teach what you learnt to people : I found this method work perfectly for me, as whenever I prepare materials beforehand I record #JomKoreanwithMawen Hangul series, I will review back what I have learnt, and find resources from other teachers so that I can deliver the correct content to the viewers. As every time I prepared this, I re-learnt how to pronounce correctly, new tips in the correct pronunciation and also new vocabulary for better understanding. Therefore, I think it is very good if we can teach what we learnt to people, the concept of teaching doesn’t need you to be THE MASTER of it, but what I think teaching is like a co-learning session, which we learn new things together and put what we learnt in full practice.
I hope you will like this sharing and I will see in more learning post of Korean in the future! Good luck in your Korean journey. Do comment down below how you have been learning Korean so far!
—> Catch up my Korean learning series in MyDaehan & YouTube!
Melvin Tan
Content Manager (Language)
Online Supporter of Korean Embassy in Malaysia
Bio-science student in Universiti Teknologi Malaysia
Korean Enthusiasts
Korean learner for 10 years, but still amateur
Instagram: @tanmawen
MyDaehan 🍂 