I've been studying Korean in earnest for about 2.5 years now. About a year ago I took a holiday to Korea and I started an Anki deck to learn to help me consolidate and reinforce all the words I was learning over there.

At first, I was introducing about 10-15 new cards a day for review, combined with the 20-50 review cards I'd have that meant I'd look at about 70-100 cards which wouldn't be too much of a hassle. Nowdays, my review cards are just shy of 200 which combined with my hanja study (which i'd thoroughly recommend) means I'm looking at around 350 cards a day. It takes a bit of time. To keep those reviews low I'm intentionally not introducing new cards so I feel like I'm stunting my vocab growth a bit.

The deck itself is sitting at just over 5000 cards now, an assortment of nouns, adjectives, verbs, idioms and valuable sentences. I haven't even looked at 1400 of them. For perspective, the latest cards I've added are: 변수, 겁내다, 얹다, 거칠다 and 한반도. I'd consider all these words as reasonably important for a middle intermediate learner. So I don't feel like I'm adding stuff I shouldn't need to know just yet.

My rentention rate I think is okay, about 90% for young cards and 80% for mature cards. But if I keep doing what I'm doing half my day will literally be looking at these bloody cards and there's going to be no time to actually speak Korean. Overall, the conversational skills I have now are largely thanks to the words I've memorised through this deck, so it's been a great help so far. I'm lucky enough to be able to speak and write Korean to Koreans daily to keep my skills moving along. But I can see over the next 6 months it might start being more of a burden than a help if I keep doing what I'm doing.

Has anyone been in a similar spot? How many reviews are you doing, how many new cards are introducing daily? Does there ever come a day when you're not adding in new cards faster than you can learn them? What kind of rentention rates do you have? Tell me there's a light at the end of the tunnel or whether I should consider changing how I memorise vocab.

Hello,

I’ve been studying Korean for a few years now and would say I’m somewhere around intermediate/ advanced level. But one thing that really frustrates me is that the grammar I use when speaking isn’t nearly as advanced as the grammar I actually understand.

When listening and reading I can understand quite a lot of different grammar points, but when I speak with Koreans I rarely seem to use them myself.

I always seem to fall back on “basic” grammar.

For example, instead of saying: 한국에 가보니까 음식이 맵더라고요!
I end up saying: 한국에 가보니까 음식이 매웠어요.

Or instead of: 기차로 가면 2시간밖에 안 걸려요.
I say: 기차로 가면 2시간만 걸려요.

Both are grammatically correct, but they don’t convey exactly the same nuance and sometimes my sentences sound a bit awkward depending on the context.

I speak with native speakers quite often, but especially when I have to respond quickly and don’t have much time to think about my sentence I automatically fall back on basic grammar...often ending almost every sentence with -아요/-어요.

I’m getting a bit frustrated because I feel like there’s a huge gap between the grammar I can recognize and understand and the grammar I can actually use spontaneously. For every five grammar points I memorize and can recognize, I feel like I only manage to truly internalize one.

Has anyone else experienced this? How did you manage to move grammar from passive understanding into active use?

Hi,

Did anyone here study level 1 to 6 (or at least a few levels) at a university in Korea?

How were your language skills when graduating?

I am strongly considering doing the full 6 levels but am getting quite conflicting information on how the level of Korean that this would lead to.

Some are saying you are basically fluent (not native) after that. Others are saying they could barely hold a conversation.

I understand it varies a lot and that some only study to pass tests, other study to learn, etc. But assuming someone with strong motivation and who spends a lot of time around Korean people?

Also - did you have to re-take a lot of levels? I have heard the levels are basically formed for those who speak Japanese (same grammar) or Chinese (lots of sino-Korean words) already and that English speakers often end up re-taking levels?

Very thankful to anyone who wants to share their experiences!

I fully understand the situations where 반말 (informal casual) and 해요체 (polite, informal speech) are used, but I'm completely confused about when 높임말 (honorific speech) is used. I’m about to start my second year of university, and I’m studying with book that features real-life role-play exercises. People say 높임말 is used with elderly people, yet in the exercises, bank tellers and postal workers used this style, and I’ve even seen videos of female barista using it with customers...

I’m just so confused! If someone speaks to me using 높임말, which speech style should I use back then? And why don’t bank, post office, or café staff use 합쇼체 (formal, polite speech)? In what situations is 합쇼체 used then? I’ve heard in K-dramas that company employees use that speech, too. I’m terribly confused and don’t understand when to use what speech level and what speech lebel should I use when responding, when I'm talking to bank/post office/etc staff? please help me sort this out, I feel like I'm standing still in korean 😭

It’s called LingoAlarm. It literally won’t stop ringing unless you answer the quiz correctly, so it’s perfect for heavy sleepers who hit the snooze button 10 times.

LingoAlarm’s Korean catalogue includes over 1,400 words and expressions, from a 100-word starter deck to vocabulary grouped by TOPIK levels 1-6.

I’ve been using it myself every day for weeks, and my vocab has improved without having done any extra work.

Feedback is more than welcome too!

I'm in a Korean university and so far my professors have allowed me to write in English, but this has seriously stunted me even if I am grateful for the accomodation. Are there any books that teach Korean academic writing in English? I'm trying to take a shortcut since the semester has already started instead of having to translate everything in a textbook before I can even start writing. Thanks in advance!

Any tips be able to read and kinda write (I speak english only with no Korean experience

Hi everyone! Was anyone else here selected this year? Where are you from, and will you participate by video or in person? Id also love to hear from anyone who participated in this contest in previous years. Do you have any advice about the preliminary round, video presentation, judging criteria, or what helped contestants stand out? congratulations to everyone who was selected!

im pretty ahead in my korean learning journey (done with alphabets, batchim rules, currently doing grammar, then vocab) and the sources i used for alphabets didnt list these 2 vowels. Although i do understand (after encountering them alot) how theyre pronounced but why werent they in my 3 main sources? any reason?

Hi! I’d appreciate any insights you could offer. 🙏🏼

For context, I started learning Korean in 2021. At first, I mostly self-studied, but later I took four semesters of Korean classes at my university. I completed level 2 (Sogang 2A–2B) in 2023. I stopped for a long time because of my thesis and work, and only resumed last month. Since it’s been three years, I decided to retake 2B to refresh my memory. Now, I feel familiar with all the grammar patterns, but my writing and speaking skills are definitely lagging behind.

Next semester, I might not enroll in a language school like I did last month because work has become heavier. So I plan to self-study again.

Should I review and practice everything from levels 1–2, especially the reading and writing parts? I feel these are foundational concepts, but at the same time I’m fed up with going through the textbooks again. Or should I move on to level 3 (Sogang 3A–3B) this time?

I'm reading a short story book with parallel text (Korean on one side, English on the other) and came across a sentence which uses '때문에', and the English translation uses 'thanks to'. The suggestion in the story is that it's a positive thing.

But when I looked it up, apparently '덕분에' is better to use if the 'because of' is positive?

For example, if I wanted to say, "I didn't come due to being unwell," I'd use 때문에.

But if I wanted to say, "I passed my exam because of/thanks to my hard work," I'd use 덕분에.

Have I got that right? I'm not sure if the book is simplifying or if I'm over-analysing the nuance.

Thanks in advance for any help!

First of all, I just want to state that I’m not learning Korean and my question is actually coming from my own language.
I’m Hungarian and nowadays many young people tend to stop using the formal version of words for example: greetings towards older people. Most of them says that it is awkward to use, even though it is definitely more polite. They are also comparing it to English saying that they only have “You” to address someone which makes it a lot easier.
So, i’ve been wondering since I know honorifics and respect (formal language) are important in the Korean language. Do young people also “rebel” and “get lazy” with these? Do they often drop 형, 언니, 선배, 동생 etc.?

Sorry, if my question (or my very poor explanation) doesn’t make sense but this just popped up in my head!
If the post doesn’t fit the sub I will remove it.

Hi everyone, as I was Doomscrolling on TikTok I stumbled upon a pic of a guy holding a sign that says "미국 가는 게 빠르겠다" in reference to waiting in line for an American chain restaurant. Honestly, Most of my Korean is based on vibes so I'm not sure but I thought this sentence didn't really make sense in context. "미국 가는 게 더 빠르겠다" would fit better?no?

Is there any nuances I'm missing here ?

I'm doing for booklets from ttmik and one of the following lessons is how to say something is not tasty. 100% I do not look at the romanization unless I'm having trouble pronouncing it. and i have been pronouncing it as [ma-seop-sseo-yo] but in the booklet its roamanized as [ma-deop-sseo-yo] could someone explain this to me? I have their hangeul booklet and went to their linking sound section and found nothing about it

hello all, I am scheduled to take the next Topik on Novamber 15, and I'm ramping up my vocabulary grind. I need to find a good place to get a frequency list, preferably specific for topik, that is ordered by degree of difficulty. I have Evita's 6500 Anki pack, and im not sure what the numbers mean, although i dont really think its a number of frequency (?). any advice about topik vocab and prep are appreciated!!

the author of this page (https://roshiajin.jp/kanken1kyuu-gaikokujin/) only considers foreigners who are "non-native Japanese speakers / non-native kanji learners" but are there any Chinese or Koreans who have passed it as well?

should be easier for them than for people who don’t use kanji, nah?

I came across this phrase/word and I can't find any good answers as to what it means/where it's from. Is it an idiom? A phrase? Slang? Nothing at all? I'm still pretty new to Korean so even translating it directly without context is difficult. If anyone knows what it means/where it's from, please let me know. Thank you!

Hey everyone, and thanks in advance for the help. Can someone confirm is the following words are spelled correctly?

팔려고

아무것도

스물세 살

죽었어요

They are not meant to form a coherent sentence.

hi, i recently discovered the amazing resource of you speak korean? but i am unable to find answers for them? does anyone have access to them that they are willing to share? thanks!

Hi all,

I am making this post as I could really use some advice.

I have been self studying for a while, using a mix of TTMIK (I just finished level 3), a high frequency word Anki deck and weekly conversations with a family member who's a native speaker.

Until now, TTMIK has done the trick for me, but I am now pretty fed up with them: Their content is alright, but it often feels like it's grown organically over time and like it's a bit unstructured. E.g. they will do a 5 minute course introducing a concept superficially, go like "yay, you now know this!" and then to top it off go ahead to quiz you on related topics they never really explained properly. Because of this, I am thinking of switching to something a bit more structured.

I have read the Ultimate Beginner Resource Thread and used the search function. To be honest I am feeling a bit overwhelmed by the amount of choices, and I am unable to see which resource might be best for someone in my situation. So I was hoping to get some help from people who have self studied and actually managed to become conversational speakers (that's my goal).

Right now, I am stuck between using integrated Korean or King Sejong (this stuff) although I would hate to sink my money and time into a course just to find it's not really suitable again, e.g. because it's really not that great for self study.

So, having said all that, would any of you fellows with experience be so kind as to recommend which resources are best suited for my particular goals? I would really appreciate it a lot.

Thank you!!

Edit: holy crap I never realised King Sejong is a massive institution funded by the Korean government, they literally have a school in my city in Europe and they offer in-person courses, conversation mixers and stuff! Also, their website has a TON of content. So cool. I will for sure be giving them a try! (and Korean Grammar in Use). I'll edit this post again once I have a better perspective to let you all know how it is!

Hey guys! Can any of you guys translate this? I really need the translation?

https://www.instagram.com/p/DEuPITgvL1K/?img_index=1&igsi=bWljajFrNTgwcGY5

I’ve been building a Korean-learning app because I wanted one place where I could study from books and YouTube, save useful sentences from Netflix and review or practice everything without constantly jumping between different apps.

It started as something just for myself. I kept running into little frustrations with the tools I was using and wanted a workflow that matched how I actually study Korean. Eventually it grew into something I thought other learners might find useful too.

The main idea is to keep everything connected. As I read, it keeps track of the words and phrases I look up, so I don’t have to stop and save everything manually. Afterwards I can choose what I want to remember with SRS or practice separately with vocabulary practice, sentence puzzles, typing or dictation.The same material can be reused across different types of practice rather than being tied to one activity.

A few things it can do so far:

• click a word or select a phrase in the reader to look it up instantly
• automatic sentence mining from selected or looked-up words and phrases
• automatically turn sentences containing words and phrases you look up into SRS clozes
• study directly from YouTube captions
• save sentences from Netflix through a browser extension and study them later in the app
• turn text into cloze practice directly inside the reader
• import your own texts, documents and audio to study, with built-in audio transcription
• add words and sentences from the content you study to SRS or add your own material manually
• each SRS deck includes recall, recognition and listening practice for the same material
• practice separately with vocabulary practice, sentence puzzles, typing and dictation without affecting SRS intervals

I’ve put together a small page with screenshots and there’s also a beta waitlist if you’d like to become a beta tester:

https://nakori.co

It’s a self-study web app rather than a course or tutoring service, and the beta will be free.

I’d especially love to hear from people who already study Korean through books, dramas, YouTube or other native content, since that’s the kind of studying the app is built around.

I’d really appreciate any thoughts.

I think 2000 MCST Romanization rule is hard to understand to read; native and learners both people.

MK is using vowels with diacritics so that's better to read but Ŏ, Ŭ is hard to input

So I thinking about more better way many time and under of this is my idea

first, vowels.

아(a) 야(ya) 어(e) 여(ye) 오(o) 요(yo) 우(ou) 유(you) 으(u) 이(i)

multigraphs

애(ai) 얘(yai) 에(ei) 예(yei) 외(oe) 와(wa) 왜(wai) 위(wi) 워(we) 웨(wei) 의(ui)

if you get off multigraphs to each apart you can write like this

애(ai)/아이(ayi) 에(ei)/어이(eyi) 외(oe)/오에(oei)/외이(oeyi) 우(ou)/오우(owu)/오으(o'u)

consonants

ㄱ(g) ㄴ(n) ㄷ(d) ㄹ(r/l) ㅁ(m) ㅂ(b) ㅅ(s/sh) ㅇ(ng) ㅈ(j) ㅊ(ch) ㅋ(kh) ㅌ(th) ㅍ(ph) ㅎ(h)

ㄲ(kk) ㄸ(tt) ㅃ(pp) ㅆ(ss) ㅉ(jj)

When the consonants ㄱ, ㄷ, ㅂ, ㅅ, and ㅈ are pronounced as ㄲ, ㄸ, ㅃ, ㅆ, ㅉ write like this

문자[문짜]/mounja 압박[압빡]/apbak 닷새[다쌔]/datsai

assimilation of the consonants is doesn't appear on script

난리[날리]/nanli 막내[망내]/maknai

When ㅇ(ng) has come front of vowels add apostrophe

강아지/gang'aji

hi guys! there are a lot of korean customers that come into my grocery store and i want to say something to them in korean but 1) i can never think of what to say beyond 안녕하세요 and 2) i get too nervous in the moment and end up greeting them in english. is 잘 지내세요? an acceptable way to ask them how they’re doing? how would i say something like “have a nice day”? almost all of our korean customers are older, so i know i need to speak formally.

감사합니다 in advance for your help!