Learning Korean

Once you have been in Korea for a while, you will almost certainly want to learn at least basic Korean. The good news is that this is not anywhere near as difficult as it may appear on first sight. Most foreigners find that they can master the alphabet within a few weeks. It is in fact praised by linguists as being one of the most logical in the world, being invented by the then king of Korea in 1444 as a language that was easy enough for everyone from nobility to peasants to learn.

Once you learn the phonetics of each of the letters you will suddenly realise that many signs and posters use Konglish, a cross between English and Korean. The words that previously looked alien will fast morph into familiar letters and sounding them out you will recognise English words. From there its an exciting and rapid upwards learning curve.

Many people begin by posting the Korean letters with their approximate English translations in areas they see everyday. When I first moved to Korea, my apartment was covered in post-it notes; the back of the fridge, the bathroom mirror, the kettle etc.

Below are some resources on the web to get you started;

Let's Speak Korean archives

ITESL