Hey y'all! So here I'm going to give you tips to help you on your Korean Journey! They're just what helped me, and what other people have said helped them. There is also some basic facts about South Korea for you.
Remember, I'm not very fluent in Korean myself, this is actually just notes for me that I thought I'd share with you guys. If you are fluent in Korean and notice some mistakes, please do not hesitate to comment or reach out so I can edit and fix the error.
By the way~
I'm Xia, and you should totally check out my other works! Okay, self promotion over, let's learn some Korean
~Basic Facts about South Korea~
- South Korea is known as Hanguk. The full name is Daehanminguk, and isn't commonly used. However, you'll hear it at celebrations or other patriotic/formal events. In everyday life you'll hear Hanguk.
~ The alphabet is known as Hangul but the language itself is Hangugeo
- South Korea is 100,210 km² and is slightly larger than the US state of Indiana
- The population is 51,71 million
~ The capital of South Korea is Seoul
- The number four is considered unlucky, and is avoided.
- However the number seven is considered very lucky.
- Taekwondo is the National Sport.
- Age works differently there. You're one years old the day you are born, and add a year each January 1st. So in my country, I'm Fourteen, but in South Korea I'm Fifteen. To find out yours, use a Korean age calculator on the internet.
- Korean Culture is very different to the Western World's. I mean, it's an Asian country, of course it's very different. But, I'll go into differences and do/do not's on my Etiquette chapter, but I thought I'd make this very known.
~ People love coffee there! Coffee shops are everywhere and are so cute and aesthetic-
~ Politeness is key! It's better to be too respectful than coming across as rude. I mean, this goes for everywhere- but especially in Korea.
~Korean Learning Hacks~
Here are my favourite hacks for Korean learning
- Watch something Korean related everyday. If you forget to practice or don't have motivation, listening to a K-Pop playlist and learning the lyrics or watching a few episodes of a K-Drama will help you hearing phrases you recognise, help with pronunciation, see how natives speak it. It's really really good! If you can, practice and watch, you'll see results in your Korean learning faster
- Get an exercise book or a journal, and copy down what I've put in my chapters. Writing it down helps your memory, and you now have a hard copy to refer to whenever. You can make it aesthetic and add/delete bits. I'm also going to write all of it down myself to help my memorisation, so you aren't alone.
- Screenshot the chapters. Internet isn't going to be everywhere, and having the information on your photos means you can revise whenever.
- Annoy your friends. Text them in Korean, insult them in Korean. Just basically, use Korean whenever you can with them, even if it makes them angry.
- HiNative is a great way to check if something is correct or not with actual native speakers. It's really nice and always good to do if you aren't 100% sure on something
- Practice something everyday. If that's checking your screenshots, rapping Jennie's verse in 뚜두뚜두, full on revision, texting your friend 안녕. DOES NOT MATTER! Practice = Improvement. It's more beneficial to do five minutes a day than fourty minutes a week.
- Watching YouTube videos on how to make your Korean better. If that's pronunciation, memorising Hangul. YouTube will have people way more fluent than me, so it's a good idea to get some more tips from them.
- Download a Korean keyboard on ALL your devices. This will help so much- it's not a really a tip, more a necessity
- Interate Korean as much as you can. Example, change contact names from Dad or Mum, to their Korean translation
Please support and interact! I'd love to know if this helps- also if you could comment your age, country and fluency level, I would really appreciate that so I can see how many people are learning this language! Don't feel pressured to share though-