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1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:09,542 Hi guys, In this video, I wanna talk about how I would learn Korean if I had to start it all over again from scratch. 2 00:00:09,542 --> 00:00:12,612 So I started learning Korean when I was 13 years old. 3 00:00:12,612 --> 00:00:16,783 And it took me years to get good at it. 4 00:00:16,783 --> 00:00:21,454 It was because I didn't know how to learn, I didn't have any experiences, 5 00:00:21,454 --> 00:00:24,491 so it took me a very, very long time. 6 00:00:24,491 --> 00:00:29,262 But after working as a Korean teacher and a Korean interpreter for many years, 7 00:00:29,262 --> 00:00:33,967 now I think I know that I didn't have to waste so much time. 8 00:00:33,967 --> 00:00:38,038 So in this video, I hope that after you finish watching this video, 9 00:00:38,038 --> 00:00:44,611 you'll know what you should do, what you shouldn't do, and the orders of things, 10 00:00:44,611 --> 00:00:48,715 how to prioritize things when you learn Korean 11 00:00:48,715 --> 00:00:55,955 so that you can learn in the most efficient manner and the fastest that you can. 12 00:00:55,955 --> 00:01:06,299 So in this video, I'm going to put all the links of materials, resources that I talk about in the description. 13 00:01:06,299 --> 00:01:08,935 So feel free to go there and take a look. 14 00:01:09,436 --> 00:01:14,941 So the first step that you have to take before learning Korean is learning Hangul. 15 00:01:14,941 --> 00:01:17,811 Hangul is Korean alphabet. 16 00:01:17,811 --> 00:01:22,649 Maybe many of you think that Korean alphabet is like Chinese or Japanese, 17 00:01:22,649 --> 00:01:26,719 where you have to memorize the characters and the strokes and stuff like that. 18 00:01:26,719 --> 00:01:34,561 Actually, no, Korean alphabet is super easy. It's the easiest alphabet that I've ever seen before in my life. 19 00:01:34,561 --> 00:01:43,136 It only has in total 24 letters, and everything are combined in a very effective manner to create sounds. 20 00:01:43,136 --> 00:01:50,109 So, for example, in English, you have the word "live" and sometimes it's "live" 21 00:01:50,109 --> 00:01:54,614 but like, you know, like how can you know which one to say. 22 00:01:54,614 --> 00:02:01,054 In Korean, there's nothing like that, so it's always written like it sounds. 23 00:02:01,054 --> 00:02:07,060 And since it's just 24 letters, if you try really hard, within 3 days, 24 00:02:07,060 --> 00:02:10,597 you can read, and you can recognize the sounds. 25 00:02:10,597 --> 00:02:16,135 And actually, within only 5 minutes, you can understand the concept. 26 00:02:16,135 --> 00:02:23,009 I'm gonna put a link to a very famous video that teaches you how to read Korean in just 5 minutes. 27 00:02:23,009 --> 00:02:28,248 The video is not complete, but it has most of the idea, 28 00:02:28,248 --> 00:02:32,085 and I'm gonna give you the second link to the video, which is more complete. 29 00:02:32,085 --> 00:02:34,153 And it takes you 30 minutes. 30 00:02:34,153 --> 00:02:37,490 So see how easy it is to learn Korean (Hangul). 31 00:02:37,490 --> 00:02:42,162 It's very important to learn to read because many times, 32 00:02:42,162 --> 00:02:47,767 the English alphabet doesn't represent the sound that the Korean makes. 33 00:02:47,767 --> 00:02:52,839 For example, the word "gul" (글) in Hangul. It's not "gul". 34 00:02:52,839 --> 00:02:58,244 If you look at the English alphabet, then maybe "gul" but actually, it's "gul" (글). 35 00:02:58,244 --> 00:02:59,279 That is the first thing. 36 00:02:59,279 --> 00:03:06,286 And the second thing is in order to be able to dive into real material. 37 00:03:06,286 --> 00:03:10,590 You need to learn to read Korean, or else you will be very dependent 38 00:03:10,590 --> 00:03:17,497 on the romanized book or learning books which is very limited. 39 00:03:17,497 --> 00:03:23,770 One tip that I have for you when learning to read Hangul is the pronunciation. 40 00:03:23,770 --> 00:03:30,243 In Korean letters, there are letters that are very similar in the pronunciation. 41 00:03:30,243 --> 00:03:33,913 The difference is usually just the stress. 42 00:03:33,913 --> 00:03:41,221 For example, this word 자, 차. All have different meanings. 43 00:03:41,221 --> 00:03:45,058 "ja" means to sleep. "cha" means to kick. 44 00:03:45,058 --> 00:03:50,663 So many times, people pronounce this wrong, and it will change the meaning, 45 00:03:50,663 --> 00:03:56,002 and because of that, Koreans might not be able to understand what you are talking about. 46 00:03:56,002 --> 00:04:04,010 For example, if you say "자자" instead of "찾아" then it would mean 47 00:04:04,010 --> 00:04:07,880 "let's sleep together" instead of "find". 48 00:04:07,880 --> 00:04:11,584 Another point that I want to mention is the double consonants. 49 00:04:11,584 --> 00:04:17,156 In Korean, there are 5 double consonants, and you have to be able to pronounce it well 50 00:04:17,156 --> 00:04:25,398 because, for example, if you say "달라" (dalla) this is different - means different. 51 00:04:25,398 --> 00:04:29,502 And if you wanna say "to follow", it's "따라" (ttala) 52 00:04:29,502 --> 00:04:37,543 because the double consonant here is "ㄸ" and "ㄷ". "다" and "따". very different. 53 00:04:37,543 --> 00:04:39,646 I'm going to put a link on a video 54 00:04:39,646 --> 00:04:44,884 that I think you will find helpful on this topic in my description. 55 00:04:44,884 --> 00:04:51,224 So, in summary, the first step is to learn how to read hangul which is Korean alphabet, 56 00:04:51,224 --> 00:04:53,893 and also work on your pronunciation. 57 00:04:53,893 --> 00:04:59,032 But at this point, you will not be able to understand any text just yet. 58 00:04:59,198 --> 00:05:02,702 Second point. After you know how to read Korean already, 59 00:05:02,702 --> 00:05:06,105 now you should start learning the Korean basics. 60 00:05:06,105 --> 00:05:12,178 So you should buy a 101 book that will teach you the basic grammar, 61 00:05:12,178 --> 00:05:17,150 the basic sentence structure, the basic words, 62 00:05:17,150 --> 00:05:21,888 and a 101 book can be any kind of book that you can find, 63 00:05:21,888 --> 00:05:25,792 but it's very important that you find a book that has audio 64 00:05:25,792 --> 00:05:31,197 because you will get used to listening to the sounds of Korean. 65 00:05:31,197 --> 00:05:36,002 At the end of this point, I'm going to recommend some books that I like 66 00:05:36,002 --> 00:05:40,440 but right now, let me talk a little bit about Korean grammar. 67 00:05:40,440 --> 00:05:47,847 Korean grammar is very different from English because all the verbs are at the book of the sentence. 68 00:05:47,847 --> 00:05:51,751 Similar to the way Japanese and Turkish languages work, 69 00:05:51,751 --> 00:05:55,555 if you want to say "I go to Korea", 70 00:05:55,555 --> 00:06:03,863 it would be "I Korea to go" 나 한국에 가. 71 00:06:03,863 --> 00:06:05,531 Let's make the sentence a bit longer. 72 00:06:05,531 --> 00:06:09,602 "I go to Korea with a friend", 73 00:06:09,602 --> 00:06:16,142 In English, as you can see, "with a friend" is added to the back of the sentence. 74 00:06:16,142 --> 00:06:30,389 However, in Korean, it would be "I friend with Korea to go" 나 친구하고 한국에 가요. 75 00:06:30,389 --> 00:06:34,060 So the word "go" which is the verb here, 76 00:06:34,060 --> 00:06:40,199 would always remain at the back of the sentence, no matter how long a sentence is. 77 00:06:40,199 --> 00:06:45,605 This is why Koreans say that you have to listen until the back of the sentence 78 00:06:45,605 --> 00:06:48,975 to understand what the sentence really means. 79 00:06:48,975 --> 00:06:54,280 And in order to change the tenses, from past tense to present tense, present tense to future tense, 80 00:06:54,280 --> 00:07:00,319 and the feeling and the mood of the sentence like to make it a question or a statement, 81 00:07:00,319 --> 00:07:03,623 everything is done at the back of the sentence. 82 00:07:03,623 --> 00:07:10,129 Let's take the word "buy" as an example - which is "사" (sa). 83 00:07:10,129 --> 00:07:12,665 If I want to say "will buy", 84 00:07:12,665 --> 00:07:20,940 I will start of with "사" plus "ㄹ 거예요". Which is "살거예요". 85 00:07:20,940 --> 00:07:26,312 So it's "buy" + a conjugation for future tense. 86 00:07:26,312 --> 00:07:34,520 If I want to say "bought", it would be "사" plus "ㅆ어요". 87 00:07:34,520 --> 00:07:41,194 So it's "샀어요", which is "buy" + conjugation for past tense. 88 00:07:41,194 --> 00:07:49,836 If I want to say "if I or somebody buy", it would be "사" plus "면", 89 00:07:49,836 --> 00:07:56,709 becomes "사면", which is actually "buy" plus a conjugation for if. 90 00:07:56,709 --> 00:08:02,148 If I wanna say "because I or someone buy" 91 00:08:02,148 --> 00:08:12,925 I would say "사" plus "기 때문에" which is "buy" plus conjugation for "because". 92 00:08:12,925 --> 00:08:16,429 I love Korean grammar because it feels mathematical. 93 00:08:16,429 --> 00:08:21,300 So this is probably the hardest point when you are learning the basics of Korean 94 00:08:21,300 --> 00:08:24,937 because it's so different from English. 95 00:08:24,937 --> 00:08:30,977 While learning grammar, you will also be learning basic sentences and basic vocabulary. 96 00:08:30,977 --> 00:08:37,416 I recommend learning words that you can use to describe yourself. 97 00:08:37,416 --> 00:08:43,022 What you wanna do, what you like to eat, if you travel to this or that place, 98 00:08:43,022 --> 00:08:49,996 because this is the stuff that you will get to use when you first encounter somebody 99 00:08:49,996 --> 00:08:54,867 when you are in a real conversation with Korean person. 100 00:08:54,867 --> 00:09:01,274 Ideally, you will get a teacher or person, or friend to help you 101 00:09:01,274 --> 00:09:05,912 create and write a story about yourself because many times, 102 00:09:05,912 --> 00:09:11,584 what you get from basic books are stories about someone else, not about yourself. 103 00:09:11,584 --> 00:09:15,454 So in a real conversation, it's hard to take that story 104 00:09:15,454 --> 00:09:20,126 that you learned from the books to use it in a real conversation. 105 00:09:20,126 --> 00:09:26,299 So I really recommend creating a story about yourself. 106 00:09:26,299 --> 00:09:30,870 One tip that I have for you when learning from basic books is that 107 00:09:30,870 --> 00:09:36,242 most of the books start of teaching you a basic formal Korean. 108 00:09:36,242 --> 00:09:41,514 Let's take the word to drink "masida", this is the dictionary form. 109 00:09:41,514 --> 00:09:47,019 Usually, they will teach you to conjugate "masimnida" 110 00:09:47,019 --> 00:09:50,456 but in fact, this is not so used. 111 00:09:50,456 --> 00:09:55,962 Mostly, if you work in military or if you watch like a military movie 112 00:09:55,962 --> 00:09:59,599 when they talk between the military guy, you know very manly, 113 00:09:59,599 --> 00:10:02,635 in a very manly manner, then you might hear it. 114 00:10:02,635 --> 00:10:09,141 But in a normal conversation with friends, with 99% of the people that you encounter, 115 00:10:09,141 --> 00:10:16,248 you will use the "yo" form, which is "masyeoyo" not "masimnida". 116 00:10:16,248 --> 00:10:21,954 So it's very important that you know how to conjugate the "yo" form very well 117 00:10:21,954 --> 00:10:26,359 because this is the form that you will use to talk with people. 118 00:10:26,359 --> 00:10:33,065 Tip 2 that I have for you is practice conjugations a lot 119 00:10:33,065 --> 00:10:35,468 because after you know the basic sentences, 120 00:10:35,468 --> 00:10:39,538 you know the basic words like "I love eating pizza", 121 00:10:39,538 --> 00:10:43,876 "I love traveling with my family" and sentences like that, 122 00:10:43,876 --> 00:10:48,881 you will usually talk in a very stucky manner 123 00:10:48,881 --> 00:10:53,786 and you, your sentence doesn't end well mostly it's because 124 00:10:53,786 --> 00:10:59,125 you don't have a stronghold of the conjugation yet 125 00:10:59,125 --> 00:11:03,763 because this is the probably that most my students face because they know so many words, 126 00:11:03,763 --> 00:11:07,400 they can understand but when they have to speak, they can't, 127 00:11:07,400 --> 00:11:14,940 and they don't know why and I always say it's because your conjugation is still wacky. 128 00:11:14,940 --> 00:11:18,377 So I will tell them to practice their conjugation, 129 00:11:18,377 --> 00:11:21,514 and after that, they will improve so much faster. 130 00:11:21,514 --> 00:11:23,616 So after having said all these things, 131 00:11:23,616 --> 00:11:30,956 one of the books that I recommend that covers the basics and also the grammar is 132 00:11:30,956 --> 00:11:32,725 "Talk to me in Korean". 133 00:11:32,725 --> 00:11:35,461 So to summarize the second point, first is 134 00:11:35,461 --> 00:11:40,433 you have to get a good 101 book that covers basics of the Korean, 135 00:11:40,433 --> 00:11:43,903 of the grammar points, and simple sentences. 136 00:11:43,903 --> 00:11:48,741 The second is you should focus on making your own story. 137 00:11:48,741 --> 00:11:51,277 You should be able to talk about yourself. 138 00:11:51,277 --> 00:11:57,049 And the last point is focus a lot on conjugations. 139 00:11:57,049 --> 00:12:02,788 So the last point is the most fun point after you know the basics. 140 00:12:02,788 --> 00:12:08,661 So after you know the basics, now you can stop relying on the 101 books 141 00:12:08,661 --> 00:12:14,967 that I was talking about in the second point and start enjoying the real and authentic material. 142 00:12:14,967 --> 00:12:18,571 Actually, this is the part that took me a very long time. 143 00:12:18,571 --> 00:12:23,909 I was wasting a lot of time on trying to finish the whole course. 144 00:12:23,909 --> 00:12:29,615 In the past, I was using a book from "Yonsei" university, 145 00:12:29,615 --> 00:12:32,885 and there were 6 books, I think. 146 00:12:32,885 --> 00:12:39,425 And I was trying to finish all the books. I was not thinking about learning from authentic materials. 147 00:12:39,425 --> 00:12:44,964 So even after many years of learning, I was still stuck in the fourth book. 148 00:12:44,964 --> 00:12:49,935 And then after that, I started letting go of the 101 books 149 00:12:49,935 --> 00:12:54,974 and started learning from the transcript of videos, 150 00:12:54,974 --> 00:12:58,511 and I started improving so so much faster. 151 00:12:58,511 --> 00:13:04,650 So at this point, I recommend not to use 101 books anymore. 152 00:13:04,650 --> 00:13:11,090 You can use the 101 books still but don't think that it's that important. 153 00:13:11,090 --> 00:13:18,664 The more important point is videos. Nowadays, there are videos on YouTube that you can get the transcript. 154 00:13:18,664 --> 00:13:22,635 There are many channels that you can find the transcript, 155 00:13:22,635 --> 00:13:26,105 and I'm going to post a link in my description as well. 156 00:13:26,105 --> 00:13:32,511 But the importance of getting a video with transcript is that you can study. 157 00:13:32,511 --> 00:13:40,319 At this point, at this stage, just listening to audios or watching videos without subtitles 158 00:13:40,319 --> 00:13:43,956 is kinda useless because you will not be able to understand. 159 00:13:43,956 --> 00:13:52,798 So I want you to study, to print out or highlight the words or study 160 00:13:52,798 --> 00:14:02,441 and translate from Korean to English and really dive into the real conversation. 161 00:14:02,441 --> 00:14:08,414 And when do you know that you are ready to take in the authentic materials? 162 00:14:08,414 --> 00:14:14,453 It's when you can hold a simple conversation, you can already talk about what you want, 163 00:14:14,453 --> 00:14:19,291 what you like, what you need, and you can talk about the past tense, 164 00:14:19,291 --> 00:14:22,561 you can talk about the present tense and future tense. 165 00:14:22,561 --> 00:14:27,733 That is very important, and this is the point that you know that you are ready. 166 00:14:27,733 --> 00:14:33,138 Some people ask me if I also use special notebooks, and colored pencils, 167 00:14:33,138 --> 00:14:38,744 and also stickers, to write notes when I was learning Korean. 168 00:14:39,345 --> 00:14:40,479 And the answer is 169 00:14:40,479 --> 00:14:44,450 NO. I don't really take cute notes. 170 00:14:44,450 --> 00:14:50,723 Usually, my books will look very messy because I will write straight into the textbook. 171 00:14:50,723 --> 00:14:54,827 And when I have the book online, I just take notes online. 172 00:14:54,827 --> 00:15:00,766 So the way I usually learn actually is I like to listen a lot, and I like to read a lot. 173 00:15:00,766 --> 00:15:09,308 This is how I retain vocabulary and I also made a video about this a few months back. 174 00:15:09,308 --> 00:15:13,612 I'm gonna put a link to this video in my description. 175 00:15:13,612 --> 00:15:17,983 So I really recommend you guys to learn how to type in Korean 176 00:15:17,983 --> 00:15:21,987 because I think it's really useful in order to search, 177 00:15:21,987 --> 00:15:26,792 in order to keep vocabularies, to create flashcards for yourself. 178 00:15:26,792 --> 00:15:32,498 And if you want to see an in-depth video on how I learn languages from scratch, 179 00:15:32,498 --> 00:15:36,969 I'm going to put a link in the description. Go and take a look. 180 00:15:36,969 --> 00:15:39,638 So thank you guys so much for watching this video. 181 00:15:39,638 --> 00:15:46,645 I really hope this video has helped you to know which steps to take when learning Korean. 182 00:15:46,645 --> 00:15:51,917 So to end this, I want to summarize all the points that I talked about. 183 00:15:51,917 --> 00:15:58,590 The first thing that you should do is learn to read Hangul, the Korean alphabet. 184 00:15:58,590 --> 00:16:02,094 And focus a lot on the pronunciation. 185 00:16:02,094 --> 00:16:08,367 And the second thing is learn the basics, get a book that will cover the basic grammar 186 00:16:08,367 --> 00:16:15,407 and the basic vocabularies, and that comes with this has to be the audio, 187 00:16:15,407 --> 00:16:21,380 you need a book that has accompanying audio so that you can listen to the real Korean. 188 00:16:21,380 --> 00:16:28,821 The last point is letting go of the basic books and start learning from the authentic material. 189 00:16:28,821 --> 00:16:32,691 This is the key to speed up your Korean learning. 190 00:16:32,691 --> 00:16:38,263 So thank you guys so much for watching, and I'll see you guys in the next video. 191 00:16:38,263 --> 00:16:43,402 If you guys have any questions, feel free to write in the comment section, 192 00:16:43,402 --> 00:16:46,171 and I will go take a look, and I will answer. 193 00:16:46,171 --> 00:16:48,007 Bye bye, see ya!