So you’ve decided to learn Korean! I congratulate you on your decision, and welcome you on your new journey. As for me, I first learned Korean while living in Korea in 2005. Upon returning home, I chose to major in Korean at my university in 2008, and it’s been nonstop fun ever since. I’m happy with my decision to pursue Korean education as a career, and hope to be able to help many others see their Korean abilities improve as we study this wonderful language together here in this book.
What to Expect
This book was designed with you, the learner, in mind. As such, I’m assuming that you have never studied Korean before, and will begin teaching from the very basic of basics, working our way up from there.
First time language learners, Korean beginners, and curious minds of all ages – yes, even those of you who may think "I’m too old to learn a language" – were in my thoughts while writing this book. This book was designed specifically for you.
If you’ve already studied some Korean before, that’s great! Don’t worry. I have you in mind as well. In addition to covering the basics, I always make sure to add in a little more in each chapter. Through my personal and academic studies of the Korean language, I’m finding the majority of resources out there for teaching Korean often fail to present concepts in their correct forms – to put it simply, I find lots of mistakes in Korean being taught in other textbooks and on web sites. As such, it’s likely that you’ll learn something new through this book, even if you’ve already studied Korean before up to any level.
Concepts are laid out in their simplest way possible at first, for the beginner. "Advanced Notes" sprinkled throughout each chapter add information that beginning Korean courses might not teach at first, but are still important. Sometimes these will even contain advanced-level material if I feel that it’s something that even beginners should know. "Culture Notes" will deepen your understanding of the Korean language, because you can’t speak Korean well without knowing a thing or two about Korean culture. I didn’t even know where Korea was on a map before I started studying the language (Note to self: North and South Korea are very different!).
Do not expect to be speaking fluent Korean by the end of this book. There is simply too much that needs to be covered before you will be able to converse in Korean without any difficulties. However, I promise that if you follow this book well and practice what you learn, you will be able to gain quite an extensive introductory knowledge of the Korean language through this book. And, you will be able to fill in the gaps that most Korean learners face later on in their studies.
And I’ll be there the whole way, holding your hand through each lesson – figuratively, of course. I’m not really going to hold your hand the whole time (I’m sorry, but that’s just creepy).
How to Use This Book
This book builds upon itself with each chapter. I recommend that you take your time going through each lesson, in order. Don’t move on to the next section until you feel comfortable with the last one. Each lesson builds upon knowledge learned from the previous one, so skipping a lesson could lead to problems understanding concepts in later lessons; this negative result would obviously compound the more lessons you skip. In short, do all of the lessons and all of the exercises in order, or at least do all of the lessons if you’re in a rush and feel confident enough to skip the Practice sections.
If this is your first time learning Korean, I recommend reading each "Culture Notes" section, but skipping the "Advanced Notes" sections, as these are not designed for first time learners. If this isn’t your first time studying Korean, I recommend reading the additional "Advanced Notes" in each chapter. In addition, if you’ve already read this book once before, I would also recommend reading the "Advanced Notes" sections on your second time through.
As you complete each chapter, refer frequently to the vocabulary lists in the back of the chapter, or the Glossary in the back of this book as necessary. If you are having trouble understanding a sentence, or creating a sentence for the Practice sections, it might only be due to not knowing the appropriate vocabulary word.
Take notes along the way as you complete each chapter. Practice reading, writing, and speaking as much as possible. If you have a friend who can speak Korean, practice speaking and listening frequently.
In addition, if you notice a grammar form you are not familiar with, I would recommend proceeding through the book more slowly. This book builds upon itself, so if you have missed something, and if it does not appear in the chapter you are currently reading, it may have been skipped from a previous chapter. There is no need to rush through the basics of the Korean language. It will take time to become familiar with using the Korean alphabet, and to become used to hearing the sounds of the language – this is normal. Once you have learned the basics, it will become much easier, and faster, to move forward and acquire new concepts.
Also make sure to download the free audio files for this book at gobillykorean.com.
How to Study Korean
I’m not the authority on how your brain will learn this language the best, but I do have a few suggestions. Try some of them, and use what works for you.
1. Quiz yourself frequently on words you are learning, or have somebody else quiz you.
2. Force yourself to create sentences using the words and grammar forms that you are learning.
3. If you are fortunate enough to live in an area with many Koreans (such as in Korea, or a major city), make friends and practice speaking the language as much as possible.
4. Keep a regular study schedule. Even if you only have 30 minutes a day, 5 days a week, stick to it. 30 minutes a day for 5 days is better than studying 150 minutes at once. Shorter, frequent study is also easier to manage if you have a busy schedule.
5. Write vocabulary words you learn on sticky notes, and place them over things and places that they correspond to. For example, you can write the Korean word for "pencil" on your favorite pencil, or the word for "friend" on your best friend’s forehead.
6. Grammar is more important than vocabulary. A beginner with a strong understanding of basic Korean grammar will sound worlds better than a walking dictionary that can’t construct a coherent sentence.
7. Brush Up Your English Grammar.
"This is a Korean book! Why do I have to learn English grammar?" Many concepts in Korean are much easier to explain and understand if you have a basic grasp of English grammar. Could you learn that the Korean word 사과 meant "apple" in English, without knowing the English word "apple" beforehand? As such, you’ll need to be familiar with words such as verb, adjective, noun, and others, in order to better learn the Korean language. Here are a few English concepts I use in this book which you should be at least familiar with before starting:
Subject / Object / Noun / Adjective / Adverb / Verb
I’ll also be covering necessary grammar words as they come up throughout the book, but knowing what they are in advance will help make concepts easier to digest once we get there.
Welcome to Korean and Korea
To everyone who’s learning for their first time, welcome! To everyone else, welcome back! Before we dive into the language, it’s important to first know a few things about the country that speaks it.
Korea is located to the west of Japan, and it shares a border with the eastern part of China.
Originally, Korea was one country, but the end of the Korean War in 1953 resulted in the two sides separating into North Korea and South Korea. "Why?" To put it simply, North Korea and South Korea had some serious disagreements that led to the Korean War starting in the first place.
Both North Koreans and South Koreans speak the same Korean language, but decades of being divided from each other caused separate dialects to emerge, and the way each country spoke the same language began to become more different. For comparison, you can think of North Korean speech to South Korean speech as being what British English is to American English; people from both countries can understand each other fine, but have their own distinct differences in pronunciation, and vocabulary.
For this book (and like most other Korean language books), we will be learning the Korean language as spoken in South Korea. But before we dive into Korean, let’s start by learning a little bit about the country of South Korea.
•Full name: 대한민국 (shortened to 한국)
•Population: 50 million
•Current capital: Seoul
•Language: Korean – of course!
Korea shares a lot of its history with its neighbor, China. A large portion of the Korean vocabulary originally came from Chinese as well, although the sounds of these words were changed as they were brought into Korea. Still, although Korea has adopted much of its vocabulary from Chinese, and some of its grammar from Japanese, it is unrelated to either languages; Korean is completely unique from any other language. This makes it even more interesting.
We’ll be learning to speak Korean through this book, as well as read and write it. If you can’t yet read or write Korean, no worries! We’ll be covering everything about the written language in the next few sections.
Approximately 80 million people speak Korean natively worldwide. Including non-native speakers, and people currently learning to speak Korean (such as yourself), that number is much larger.
Korean Sentence Structure
The Korean language works differently from other languages. For comparison, let’s take a look at a simple sentence in English:
"I kicked the ball."
The English language uses a S.V.O. sentence structure – Subject, Verb, and Object. This means that the subject comes first ("I"), followed by the verb ("kicked"), and then the object ("the ball").
However, the Korean language uses a S.O.V. sentence structure – Subject, Object, and Verb.
Here’s the same sentence written again, but using Korean sentence structure:
"I ball kicked."
저는 공을 찼습니다.
You’ll see in future lessons how sentence structure works, and it’s not that complicated once you’ve practiced with it. As I mentioned, there are over 80 million people speaking Korean currently, and I’m sure that you can learn it as well.
Why Korean?
But why are you learning Korean?
•Business?
•Travel?
•Making friends?
•Dating?
•For fun?
•"Because I can, that’s why."
All of these are great reasons to study Korean. No matter your reason, you’ve truly chosen a fun, interesting, and useful language. I hope that this book will help you reach your own goals for learning Korean.
Note About the 니다 Form
If this is your first time learning Korean and you have never heard of the 니다 form before, you can feel free to skip this section and begin learning the Korean alphabet. I would like to discuss my usage of the 니다 form in this book.
This book has been designed to help people to learn the Korean language clearly and correctly, including proper grammar rules, and is not a phrase book. As such, I’ve chosen to introduce the 니다 form (a very polite way of speaking) first and foremost in this book, and only introduce the 요 form (used for the majority of informal speaking) toward the end, beginning with Chapter 19.
As a disclaimer, the 니다 form is not commonly used in real, regular Korean conversations. This is because it is a formal form, and is used most often for formal and business situations. I also discuss this in detail, including when to use the 니다 form, in Chapter 19. In addition, the 니다 form can sound awkward when used to friends or to people who are younger than the speaker. Regardless, I felt it was best to introduce it first for several reasons.
However, the 니다 form has several advantages over the 요 form for first time students of the Korean language.
1. It’s simpler to learn, helping to ease the learner into Korean, to save mental resources for focusing on adjusting to the Korean alphabet and grammar.
2. It’s better to be too polite than to be rude.
3. Students who have just begun studying Korean will likely not be able to hold a full conversation, so knowing the 요 form is unnecessary for introductory concepts.
While some students of Korean who have already passed the basics may see the 니다 form as useless, or counterproductive to learning Korean, I strongly believe that it is not, and decided to structure the book in this way after intensely comparing the options.
While studying the 요 form first can help to adjust the learner to conjugating and using it, it has its own share of problems that I feel outweighs its benefits – at least in the beginning.
1. It requires knowledge of several rules in order to conjugate. This can be intimidating to first time learners.
2. Although it is not rude in itself, when used in situations where formality is required, the 요 form can sound rude.
3. It should not be used to ask questions to people who are older. As such, the learner must also learn honorific grammar and vocabulary in order to properly speak using the 요 form.
Nevertheless, I understand the importance of knowing the 요 form in order to hold a real conversation in Korean. Although it is introduced late (Chapter 19), I have included every conversation from every chapter re-written using the 요 form in the back of this book, for practice and also for study.
My ultimate goal is for this book to give you a comprehensive introduction to the Korean language – consider it a solid stone step up a tall mountain. I hope that you can trust my methods long enough to be able to take over on your own.
Good luck in your language learning, and feel free to contact me with any questions or comments at any time (just please don’t call me late at night when I’m sleeping).