In what order should I learn/study Korean?
Korean, South Korean-hangugeo; North Korean: chosŏnmal, is an East Asian language spoken by about 77 million people and 5.6 million consider Korean as a Heritage Language. It is the official and national language of both Koreas: North Korea and South Korea, with different standardized official forms used in each country. It is a recognised minority language in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture and Changbai Korean Autonomous County of Jilin Province, China. It is also spoken in parts of Sakhalin, Russia and Central Asia. The English word “Korean” is derived from Goryeo, which is thought to be the first Korean dynasty known to Western nations. Korean people in the former USSR refer to themselves as Koryo-saram and/or Koryo-in (literally, “Koryo/Goryeo person(s)”), and call the language Koryo-mal. Of the 3000 languages in use currently, Korean is known to be the 13th most commonly used language. Languages that don’t have their own alphabet and characters have known to have merged in another or vanished over time.
Historical and modern linguists classify Korean as a language isolate; though it is commonly included by proponents of the Altaic family and, it does have a few extinct relatives, which together with Korean itself and the Jeju language (spoken in the Jeju Province and considered somewhat distinct) form the Koreanic language family. Korean presence or influence is strongly found in the Khitan language (different from Mongolian or Tungusic languages in vocabulary). Lesser-known Dravido-Korean languages theory, suggests Korean relationship with Dravidian languages in India. Some of the common features in the Korean and Dravidian languages are similar vocabulary, being agglutinative, following the SOV order; nominals and adjectives following the same syntax, postpositional particles, anàd modifiers preceding modified words by default in both languages! Korean has also been disputed to be related to Japanese due to some overlap in vocabulary and similar grammatical features that have been elaborated upon by few researchers. Korean definitely has similarity to Chinese restricted to the script only! That being said, the linguistic homeland of Korean is suggested to be somewhere in Manchuria.
Modern Korean is understood to have descended from the Middle Korean, that emerged from the Old Korean, which itself, culminated from the Proto-Koreanic language, that is suggested to have its linguistic homeland somewhere in Manchuria. Whitman (2012) suggests that the Proto-Koreans, who were present in northern Korea, expanded into the southern part of the Korean Peninsula at around 300 BC and coexisted with the descendants of the Japonic Mumun cultivators (or assimilated them). Both had an influence on each other and a later founder effect diminished the internal variety of both language families. Chinese characters arrived in Korea with Buddhism during the Proto-Three Kingdoms era (1st century BC) and were adapted for Korean that came to be known as Hanja, and remained as the main script for writing Korean for over a millennium alongside various phonetic scripts that were later invented such as Idu, Gugyeol and Hyangchal. The majority of the population remained illiterate, as Hanja remained reserved for reading and writing by the privileged elites – the nobles!
It’s not very clear if Hangul was designed as a system to read and understand Hanja or to replace it completely. But, King Sejong the Great, of the 15th century, personally developed an alphabetic featural writing system, (Hun Min Joeong Um meaning correct sounds to educate the people- known today as Hangul) consisting of 28 basic characters, as he strongly believed that restricted use of Hanja, had resulted due to inadequacy to write Korean. Today only 24 are in use with 14 consonants and 10 vowels.
Learning a language requires a learner to be proficient in all four parameters - reading, writing, speaking, and listening. Let's now see what you order you can follow to get a good grasp of the language.
IMHO, I suggest you start by actively listening to, as many relevant audio resources you find – online, in libraries, repeatedly until the pronunciation, the accent, the pitch, the tone and the speed gets embedded in your subconscious. This will help you train your ear, identify spoken words and get you ‘in tune’ with the speech. After multiple listening episodes, take the transcript of the audio clip and read along maintaining the same pronunciation, accent, pitch, tone and speed. You could listen to Podcasts, News, Audiobooks, Korean songs, Talk Shows, Documentaries and much more!
KPop songs, YouTube videos, MyLanguages Korean Audio Lessons, KoreanClass101, Audiobooks, FluentU, Iyagi (Talk to Me in Korean), Learn Korean the Easy Way
are a few of the top valuable, effective and interesting audio language learning programs that will catapult your learning!
In order to really understand a language, you have to practice your ability to hear it and speak it, which are exactly the skills that audio programs test you on. A few major benefits that these audio programs offer are: convenience to learn at your own pace and full control of your own learning without depending on a teacher; enabling a learner to do as much or as little as they time for, a learner can choose an audio content that matches with their needs and interests, without feeling embarrassed in front of a teacher or other students. With no force to learn via boring textbook lessons, a learner is free to take risks and experiment with his way of learning by rewinding and listening to the same audio over and over again until needed (and nobody will get impatient with you). So I recommend you all Korean language learners, and start your lessons with confidence with these audio language learning programs!
With this in process, the second thing learners must learn of a language automatically becomes Speaking; Shadow what you have been hearing all along in the audio clips now with the transcript. Speak as though you delivered the original dialogues. loud and clear.
You have so far mimicked words as you heard them or from the transcript now it’s time to learn by writing Korean alphabets. Practice writing the Korean alphabet. They are fairly easy and a lot encouraging once you get the hang of it! Start by learning the vowels and consonants present in the language, moving over to two-letter and three-letter words. Spend considerable time mastering it before moving on to our last stop!
Reading! Read what you are writing in the Korean script after regular intervals to memorize the Korean alphabets and get a grasp on the pronunciation, the accent, the pitch, the tone and the speed. Read children’s storybooks without feeling awkward. Try reading words of a Korean magazine or newspaper and keep finding new articles to read each day from a list of topics you would like to read – food/travel blog, politics/history, etcetera.
Finally,
Remember learning Korean gives you potential access to over 70 million native Korean speakers worldwide. Korean culture is known to be one of the friendliest and most respectful cultures in the world. Korea is a major player in the world economy, so if you are aiming for a career that involves Korean, I suggest, go for it! While Korean a great language to learn – it’s also one of the most difficult ones to master, for a native English speaker (along with Japanese and Finnish). Besides, there could be another great need for Korean speakers with international capabilities when (and if) NK either falls apart or opens up. So what are you waiting for?
Start learning from today!
There’s an amazing new way to learn Korean! Want to see what everyone’s talking about!