Essential Principles Involved in Learning Korean

Posted by ROLLING KOREA on June 27th, 2016

Are you fascinated with K-Pop and Korean culture? Do you want to learn the Korean language because you want to stay in Korea on a long holiday, to work, to perhaps to study? Then it’s always a good idea to learn the Korean language. Keep in mind the following essential principles involved in learning Korean:

•    Learning a language requires repetition – Whether you like it or not, you will need to memorize foreign words to be able to use them. Expect to spend many hours with your dictionary.

•    Korean language immersion is a must – If you don’t constantly hear or use the Korean language, you will have a harder time mastering it. Make it a point to visit Korea or to surround yourself with Korean language speakers. This will familiarize your ears to the language. Since, Korea has its own set of alphabet (Hangeul), it will also help if you can know a few basic written words or phrases. This can come in handy when you are exploring Korea.

•    Don’t be afraid to make mistakes – One of the biggest hindrance to learning is being afraid of mistakes. Don’t take mistakes as a sign of failure but an opportunity to learn. If you are studying the Korean language and someone corrects your pronunciation, learn from it instead of being embarrassed.

•    Focus on conversational Korean – Don’t leave everything to books and memorization. The only way to find out if you actually learn the language is to use it in real-life communication. It’s a good sign if you are able to communicate with a Korean language speaker; it doesn’t matter if you sound a bit funny at first, as long as they understand you.

•    Be creative – It can be quite a chore to learn the language purely from books or audio tapes. You will learn much more when you watch Korean movies or listen to some K-Pop songs. The key is to mix things up a bit instead of drowning yourself in translation books.

•    Be open – To be able to learn the Korean language, or any language for that matter, you need to have the right attitude and mindset. If you keep thinking it’s simply too hard or if you let boredom get the best of you, then you’ll go nowhere.

Attending a Korean language institute specifically for foreigners can aid you in learning the Korean language. You can get the perfect balance of “classroom learning” and conversational language application.

About the Author:

Jae Jun Yeon is Graduated from Yonsei Univ and have degree in Economics. He is one of the senior Korean teacher of ROLLING KOREA, which is a language institute situated in the center of HONG-DAE.