Where do you start when you want to learn a foreign language? With the alphabet of course!
First posted in Dutch on September 21 2021 and updated on November 20 2024.
In order to master Korean, I first had to learn Hangeul, Korean script. In order to learn, I went looking for a publisher/platform that suited me best. At one point I was hesitating between two brands. Through the grapevine, I heard from a Korean woman that she recommended Talk To Me in Korean for people who want to learn the language. Coincidentally, that was also one of the brands I was hesitating between. The other brand was Go! Billy Korean.
Talk To Me in Korean (online learning platform) makes a lot of Korean study books and I find them so easy to use. Clear explanations that are short and powerful make the lessons easy to follow. I think it is important that the lessons are explained quite simply, so that I can pay attention more easily and it also makes learning enjoyable for me. I am very happy that Talk To Me in Korean was recommended to me, because it is exactly what I was looking for.
I did a trial lesson online and I liked it immediately. I bought a number of books via a German online bookstore. Koreanbook.de is the only one in Europe that sells their books and I like to order with them cause I don’t have to pay for customs.
To learn Hangeul I bought Become a Hangeul Master by Talk To Me in Korean. They explain everything briefly and concisely at a leisurely pace. They even make mnemonics so that it is easy for you as a reader to remember! I have found that very useful and still use it a lot. I sometimes forget how to spell u or o in Korean, but then I think of the mnemonic and I know it immediately.
It was very strange to learn grammar and spelling from the English language. When I learned English I could learn it from Dutch, but for Korean there is no other option for me than to learn it from English. You can see in the picture above that I wrote the Dutch word for vowels under vowels, because I did not know or was actually not aware that vowels meant vowels. In several places in the study book I have also added the Dutch translation, so I understand the material better.
The book is very pleasantly structured. You start with the basics, the alphabet, and slowly but surely you go one step further, but the alphabet remains central. By means of short quizzes in the field of reading, listening and writing you can see how far you have come after each chapter. When you have completed a part there is a big test, they are challenging and go a step further than what you have learned in the chapters. This way you can immediately test whether you can already apply what you have learned. In the last part of the book you get to know different handwriting, which is very nice if you want to reach a higher level within the language.
Thanks to Become a Hangeul Master I have laid a good foundation for my Korean. The lessons stick with me because they used short explanations and where necessary they used mnemonics. At the same time, the tests challenged me to apply the knowledge I had acquired. From time to time I still pick up the book if I don’t understand something or to repeat grammar and spelling lessons.
Of all the books I could have bought to learn Hangeul, I am very happy that it is Become a Hangeul Master by Talk To Me in Korean.
Love,
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