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Review: Korean Hanja Bible for Teachers

Kim — Wed, 18 Aug 2021 14:00:00 +0000

Do you like characters? In this Korean Hanja dictionary, you can look up 2355 Hanja and find out what Korean words they are used in.

Why learn Hanja (Korean characters)? It’s not about the Hanja themselves, but about creating understanding. By learning which characters a Korean word of Chinese origin consists of, you will learn new words faster. Let’s take 정 (正) as an example. This part means “correct” and you can find it in words like 정확하다, 정각, and 부정. If you know that correct is a possible meaning of 정 (not the only one), you can sometimes guess the meaning of words you encounter for the first time. You can also infer these meanings by looking at many Korean words, but this is less efficient.

As a Korean language learner, you don’t need this rather expensive book at all. This Hanja Bible is only for those with an (unhealthy) academic obsession with characters and languages (like me!). In this book, you will find an overview of all these characters that are hardly used in everyday life, except for the occasional character in the newspaper (like north 北) and the characters for big (大), middle (中) and small (小) in markets. Hanja is used more in academic books, but most non-Koreans are unlikely to read them. Thanks to the invention of Hangul, Korean is quite easy to read.

Content

Let’s take a look inside.

Hanja

In this Hanja Bible you will find 2355 Hanjas arranged by school level, spread over 1227 pages. The Hanja for the lower levels are more detailed than the later ones. This is only natural because the last few hundred characters in the book are less common and occur only in a few words such as place names.

For each Hanja you see:

The shape of the character plus a drawing of the stroke order and the number of strokes.
The radical.
The Chinese character it corresponds to and the Pinyin. If only they’d included the Japanese characters and pronunciation this book would have been perfect.
The pronunciation and meaning of the character. For 正, this is listed as 바를 정 and 정월 정, where the first words indicate the meaning and the second words indicate the pronunciation. These descriptions help you talk about the characters and distinguish them from other characters pronounced 정. The meaning is further illustrated in a short text box that often includes English translations of the examples.
A list of Korean words in which this character was used as the first or second character. These examples include the Korean word in Hangul, the Korean word in Hanja, the separate meanings of both characters used in the word, an English translation, and a Korean explanation of the meaning.

The design of the entries is very pleasant and you can easily find the information you are looking for. The use of red, black and gray ink, the indents, squares and bold formatting is excellent. The book is quite large, so you will not carry it with you everywhere, nor will you use it anywhere but at a desk. But the positive side of this is that the book has a lot of information and the font is large enough that you can read the text from a distance and tell the characters apart.

Addendum

In the first part of the addendum, you can read more about the origins of Hanja and how they are constructed. This section helps teachers explain the material to their students. What may be more interesting for Korean language learners is the second addendum which explains different ways Hanja can be combined to make Korean words, whether it is a verb plus a noun, an adverb with an adjective, or some other combination. The third addendum lists the four character idioms (사자성어) both ordered by school level and alphabetically.

Since this book is aimed at teachers, most of the information in the addendum is intended to be imparted in the classroom. However, the following sections are also incredibly useful for foreign language learners: they address common mistakes made by Hanja learners.

The fourth section contains some characters with more than one pronunciation. Remember how the negative (不) before a word can sometimes appear as 불 or 부? Don’t worry, it doesn’t get as bad as it does in Japanese.
The fifth section then explores the characters with multiple pronunciations some more by listing the most common mistakes made by not using the correct alternative meaning.

Section six is perhaps my favorite addendum because it lists characters that are very similar and are often confused with one of the others. A perfect study tool to help you finally tell these characters apart. If you are also learning Japanese or Chinese then it will be very helpful if you improve your character recognition skills in this way.

Indexes

At the very end of the book you find two indexes (sections seven and eight):

Hanja ordered by school level
Hanja ordered by pronunciation

Both indexes list the Hanja’s pronunciation, character shape, school level and page number. You will use the second index the most because it is perfect for quickly finding characters and also for studying a specific morpheme. If you want to know what meanings to expect for words containing the 정 element, you can study the thirty characters pronounced 정. Don’t let this number discourage you: not all of them are used often.

Interested?

Are you interested in learning more about Hanja at a more academic level? Then this resource is perfect for you. If you are a casual learner, then you can safely ignore this book. You can buy the Hanja Bible for Teachers from Gmarket.

Also read: Best Textbooks for Learning Korean

The post Review: Korean Hanja Bible for Teachers appeared first on Where to Kim?.

Learn These 8 Advanced Korean Grammar Points before Reading Your First Novel

Kim — Wed, 24 Feb 2021 15:00:00 +0000

Advanced and uncommon Korean grammar points that you should know as an intermediate learner of the Korean language. Very useful when you start reading novels!

It is tempting to start reading a real Korean novel when you’ve only just started to learn Korean. As a beginner or lower intermediate Korean language learner, you have probably studied lots of grammar, but you are as well-versed as your textbook or grammar book decided to teach you.

Upon starting to read novels that aren’t meant for young kids, you’ll come across many more grammar points – some more frequent than others – that can prevent you from understanding the nuances of the story.

Below I’ll explain some grammar points that I wish I had known before I started reading. Some of them were not easy to look up (and took time away from reading), and other endings kept confusing me because they looked so similar to grammar points I did know.

Still, the biggest challenges are offered by the stacking of ending upon ending. When you’re just starting out, be happy with capturing the general idea of the sentence, and aim for a full understanding of the nuances when you return to the book after reaching a more advanced knowledge of the Korean language.

Also read: Where to watch Korean stories and songs for children?

Grammar points

1) -구 instead of -고

The ending -구 is a written substitute for -고 and reflects how the ending -구 is pronounced in many areas. In the first example below you will also see 같애 for 같아. In the second example you can see the use of 니 that is more commonly written as 네 or 너의, and -대루 for -대로. All this has to do with the everyday pronunciation of Korean.

Examples from 종이밥 by 김환영:

그리구 어떨 땐 껌 씹는 것 같애. “And sometimes it’s like chewing gum.”
으이구. 니 맘대루 해라. “Aigoo. Do as you please.”

2) -소/-오 instead of -아/어요

If you have ever seen a Korean historical tv drama, you’ll have come across this ending. -소 (after consonants) and -오 (after vowels) are used in 하오체. This is a Korean speech level that is very common in historical tv dramas and in books. In manhwa, you’ll often find this ending as well, for example when deities are speaking among each other.

It is a polite ending that a speaker uses to pay respect to the listener without humbling himself. You can compare this ending to the textbook ending -아/어요.

Examples from 해리 포터 혼혈 왕자 by JK Rowling:

걱정할 것 없소. “It is not something to worry about.”
다시 만나서 반갑소. “Let’s meet again.”
그렇소. 물론이오. “Yes, of course.”

3) -곤 하다 versus -군

-곤 하다 is used to express an action’s repetition. This can either be that someone has a habit of doing something, but also that a person never does something. This grammar point is in the last chapter of Korean Grammar in Use Intermediate, but I wish I’d learned this grammar point before starting my first real Korean novel as I came across it very frequently.

Example from Korean Grammar for International Learners:

기회가 있을 때마다 그 친구를 만나곤 했어요. “I used to meet that friend whenever I had the chance.”

Try not to confuse this ending with -(는)군 / 구나 / 군요 which is used to express surprise.

Example from 해리 포터 저주받은 아이 by JK Rowling:

고맙군, 친구. “Thank you, friend.”

4) -자꾸나 and -자

Let’s compare the above -구나 to -자꾸나. -자꾸나 is similar to the ending -자 that means “let’s”.

Example from 해리 포터 혼혈 왕자 by JK Rowling:

“자, 그럼 호그와트에서 다시 보자꾸나, 해리. “Okay, let’s see each other again at Hogwarts, Harry.”

5) -느니 versus -(으)니

-느니 means “rather than” or “instead of”. It is used to indicate that the second clause is preferable to the content of the first clause. When -느니 is used twice it indicates a choice or a deliberation on which option is better.

Example from 해리 포터 저주받은 아이 by JK Rowling:

죽일 수도 없는 사람을 죽었느니 살았느니 할 수 있는 거요? “Can you live rather than kill someone that you can’t kill?”

Don’t confuse -느니 with -(으)니 that implies a result (“since”, “and so”) and can be compared to -(으)니까 in one of its uses.

6) -길래 and -기에

The ending -길래 is used to signify that the content of the preceding clause is the reasoning for what is said in the following clause. You’ve probably come across -기에 already: both patterns are interchangeable.

Example from 세가지 소원 by 박완서:

그러고 나서 얼마 안 있다 슬기가 잊어버리고 안 가지고 온 준비물을 가지고 슬기 엄마가 학교에 오신 적이 있길래 선생님은 혹시나 슬기 아빠가 슬기에게 너무 무심한 게 아닌가 걱정이 되어 넌지시 그 그림 얘기를 하셨습니다. “It’s not long after that, that Seulgi’s mother came to school with the supplies she forgot and didn’t bring, so the teacher hinted at the painting because she was worried that Seulgi’s dad might be too indifferent to Seulgi.”

7) -다니 versus -더니

You use -다니 to express that you are surprised about something and can hardly believe it. The disbelief part of the meaning makes this ending different from the exclamatory -(는)군 discussed above or -네요 that can be used to express surprise when you learn something new.

-더니 on the other hand is used to express some past experience that is relevant to what is said in the following clause. This past experience can either be the cause of what follows or simply a recollection used as an introduction to express an observation or the result of changes that happened over time. What is important is that this past experience is something the speaker directly experienced or witnessed.

Examples from 복원가의 집 11 의뢰 71 by 김상엽:

심지어 왕실의 친척인 진씨 일족을 건드리다니. “He even touched the Jin clan, a relative of the royal family.”
왕실에 충성적인 척하더니 전쟁 준비를 하고 있었다 그건가? “He pretended to be loyal to the royal family and was preparing for war. Is that it?”

8) -끼리

This ending means “among” or “between” and is often used after nouns referring to persons. It often bears a nuance of exclusivity: the persons mentioned and no one else.

Example from 해리 포터 저주받은 아이 by JK Rowling:

쟤랑 볼드모트 아들은 저희끼리 놀게 내버려 둬. “Let him and Voldemort’s son play amongst themselves.”

Did you come across any grammar points that you chose to ignore when you first started reading novels in Korean?

The post Learn These 8 Advanced Korean Grammar Points before Reading Your First Novel appeared first on Where to Kim?.

Where to watch Korean children’s stories and songs online?

Kim — Wed, 27 Jan 2021 15:00:00 +0000

Learn Korean with songs and stories for kids. This way you can start improving your Korean language skills with real content as an intermediate learner.

Every language learner – be it Korean or another language – reaches a point where he or she is temporarily stuck between an intermediate and advanced level. This is a plateau that is hard to escape. Textbook stories start to bore you, but real Korean tv shows and movies still confuse you. Does this sound familiar?

While it is getting easier to follow Korean tv shows with English subtitles, you are not maximizing your full learning potential by doing this. If you want to take it one step further, you can watch Korean tv shows with Korean subtitles. This is possible at Netflix and Viki. Viki has a handy learning mode, but for it to be effective you have to choose a language you don’t know as the second subtitle. Otherwise, you can just lazily guess the meaning from the translation. It is better to force yourself to only listen to and read Korean.

There is one other source that you can consider for your Korean learning material and that is Korean tv shows and videos for children. While using this resource, you can both experience the joy of being able to understand a story, and the frustration of not being able to 100% understand what a 3-year-old can understand without effort.

You can find stories and songs for kids on YouTube or a portal like Naver. Below I will share with you a mix of cartoons, songs, and fairy tales.

Korean stories and songs for kids

1) Kebikids YouTube Channel

The Kebikids (깨비키즈) YouTube channel contains many short clips about many different subjects. Not all videos have embedded subtitles (it is mostly the songs those containing songs do), but the auto-generated close caption can be of some help here (not completely accurate, but you’ll get the gist of the sentence).

While the Kebikids website is a bit easier to navigate, the YouTube channel is easier to access as you don’t need to create an account.

In the example below, you can learn all about the cold noodles dish Naengmyeon (냉면) while practicing your Korean listening skills.

2) Genikids YouTube Channel

At Genikids (지니키즈) you will find many more videos. The videos on this channel are often slightly – or an hour – longer than those on Kebikids. At the bottom of the page, you can find the GeniSchool History channel that can be very educational to Korean kids and foreigners alike.

3) Naver Junior Portal

Naver Junior is an amazing resource. On the Naver Junior portal, you can find a huge amount of videos including videos from Kebikids and Genikids. The fairy tales read out loud (읽이주는 돈화) are quite interesting.

4) Hello Jadoo YouTube Channel

At Hello Jadoo TV (안녕 자두야) you can watch cartoons and songs, many of them quite easy to follow.

5) Stories at Yes24

Yes24 is a portal like Naver. The stories on Yes24 are more advanced because the images don’t illustrate the meaning as well as the images in cartoons do. I used to really like this resource, but lately, I have been having some trouble streaming the videos.

6) Wekiz song YouTube Channel

A good YouTube channel for Korean nursery rhymes is wekiz song.

7) SkySea.TV YouTube Channel

On the SkySea.TV (하늘이와 바다의 신나는 율동 동요) channel you can find sing-alongs of Korean children songs.

8) Korean Fairy Tales on YouTube

The Korean Fairy Tales channel offers, as the title suggests, fairy tales retold in Korean. I recommend using this channel for listening only. Alternatively, you can block the English subtitles (scroll your screen in the right way) for better immersion.

This is only a selection of what’s out there. With the increasing popularity of the Korean language, many more resources are created every day.

What is your favorite YouTube Channel for stories, songs, and fairy tales in Korean?

The post Where to watch Korean children’s stories and songs online? appeared first on Where to Kim?.

Milestones to ace when learning Korean

Kim — Fri, 11 Dec 2020 15:00:00 +0000

Learning a language like Korean – a language that can be very unlike your own – provides a rewarding challenge. And with every challenge and success come milestones. Have you aced all milestones below? Are you stuck anywhere and need help? Let me know in the comments below.

1) When you finally understand how to use 것

This was my biggest hurdle as a beginner. 것 was literally everywhere and it seemed like the new uses just kept piling up until it suddenly clicked one day. Going forward I understood Korean sentence building. This was the magic key and still feels like my greatest achievement.

2) Mastering 것

After understanding how to use 것 in sentences you’ll come upon the next challenge: not forgetting to write the rest of the word group first. Even if your mind is aware of the fact that the other words should come first, your hand is not. The alternative is to come up with even more challenging sentence structures to fix your mess in an elegant way.

Did you master 것? Time to start using it many times in a single sentence. 것s within 것s. Good luck!

3) Escaping the dictionary

That first time that you can read a whole paragraph or page without a dictionary. It helps when you avoid onomatopoeia and mimetic word heavy texts with words like sparkling (반짝반짝) and smiling brightly (방글방글).

4) Guessing a word from the context

Now you can learn new Korean words from real texts!

5) Laughing out loud because of a word

Try reading fantasy. Magical terms rock. For example, 지팡이 for wand: 지팡이를 겨누어 (“he aims his wand at…”) sounds so charming.

6) Reading Hangul quickly enough to follow subtitles

Romantic comedies are your savior here. Maybe one step back: realizing Hangul is an alphabet and no longer identifying the frequent ㅇ with anything artificial and IT related. Don’t you agree that some words look like a computer chip? Think of the dots and lines…

7) Grasping 은/는/가/이

I’m not quite there yet, but am slowly making my way towards this one. I hang onto the thought that I can just drop them if the topic and subject of the sentence are clear (to me haha).

8) Korean abbreviations

Just when you thought you could follow conversations, they start shortening their sentences. Though if I analyze the way I speak my language, changing sounds and merging words to speak quicker: my speaking style is not Dutch-learner – and grandparents – proof at all.

9) Saying yes and no: 네/아니요

Brainbreakers. If you would affirm the truth of a negative question with ‘yes’ in your language, do remember to do the opposite in Korean. Do not follow your intuition. Yes?

It is easy to understand when listening to the conversation but can be quite hard when speaking.

10) Finding your nemesis everywhere

That one word that you just can’t seem to remember. You don’t want to know how many times I had to look up the word owl (부엉이) in Harry Potter. Seems like a word you would remember considering its frequency, right? I still can’t remember it.

11) Guessing genders

How are your guessing skills? Do you intuitively know if a person is male or female after reading his or her name? In my head, most personal names remain gender-neutral. And just when I think I know one, it is uncommonly used for the other gender.

12) Tense pronunciation

That moment when you thought you could hear the difference between ㄷ/ㄸ and the like only to find out that the ㄷ gets tense after certain consonants. Now you have to study the pronunciation rules once again.

What are your biggest challenges when learning Korean?

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5 Easy Practical Korean Conversations to try on your trip to South Korea

Kim — Wed, 09 Dec 2020 15:00:00 +0000

Easy Practical Korean Conversations you can try in everyday situations on your trip to South Korea. Make Koreans understand you in no time.

Perfect Korean sentences contain more words, but that is not what you’re going to use at your first attempts at conversation. What you need are the practical parts of the sentences, the triggers, so to say, which will help Korean people understand you if your pronunciation is a bit off.

My tip for you: stick to the basics. You can make your sentences pretty towards the end of your trip. Focus on communicating and getting your message across. It doesn’t matter if they don’t understand you the first time, just try again with the next person you meet. The less English they speak, the more willing (or adept at) they are to understand your Korean phrases.

And if nothing works, you can always resort to pointing and raising your eyebrows. The universal non-verbal language.

These practice conversations are meant for those who already have some basic knowledge of Korean. The expressions used are based on what I have heard Koreans say around me in all these situations.

1) Asking the price

이거 얼마예요? (igeo eolmayeyo?)
이만 삼천원 (iman samcheon-won; 23000)
감사합니다 (gamsahamnida)

Let’s break this down word by word.

How much is this thing? If the object is further away you can replace 이거 by 그거 (far from you near the listener, for example behind the counter) or 저거 (far from both of you). 얼마 means ‘how much’ and 예요 comes from the verb ‘to be’.

Pay attention to the first words of their response. This will be the number you need to process in your head. You can slowly repeat the number out loud to give yourself time to think. The shopkeeper can correct you if you didn’t hear it right. This might be hard at first, but you’ll get the hang of it after a few days. In the example: two (이) times ten thousand (만) and three (삼) times thousand (천) won (원). Pay attention to 만, 천, 백 (hundred) and 원 so you can chop the number into pieces.

Be polite when thanking the seller with 감사합니다. Unless you have a five-year-old kid in front of you in which case you can be less formal and say 고마워.

2) Buying tickets

세명 주세요 (semyeong juseyo)

At a ticket booth, you can order tickets by telling the salesperson the number of people in your group. For me, it was 세명 as I usually bought three tickets. For two it would be 두명. Add 주세요 for more politeness.

They’ll respond with the amount you need to pay, but it might be easier to find the individual ticket price at the information board near the counter. You can also just hand over one or more 10k won bills if you are lazy.

3) Saying how big your group is when entering a restaurant

They ask: 몇분? (myeotbun?)
Your answer: 두명 (dumyeong)

They’ll politely ask you how big your group is using the polite people counter 분. When replying you use the less polite counter 명 as the more formal one shouldn’t be used when talking about yourself.

4) Ordering food

4a) Full order

불고기 하나 순두부 하나 소주 하나 밥 두개 주세요 (bulgogi hana sundubu hana soju hana bab dugae juseyo)

This is just an example. If you say the above you will order one bulgogi, one sundubu, one soju and two bowls of rice. You can also point at the menu and say 이거 하나 for every picture or menu item you point at.

Of course, you can use more words to create a more textbook sentence (like using 하고 or (이)랑 in between), but this already works great wherever you go.

In theory, you should use different counters for bowls of food (그릇), glasses (잔) and bottles (병) etc. but make it easier for yourself and just use the general counter 개 for everything.

If you’re with two other people and they ask if you want three bowls of rice (세개) you can say 두개 if you only want two.

Also read: Best Textbooks for Learning Korean

4b) Asking for something else

불고기가 없어요 (bulgogi-ga obseoyo)
삼겹살 있어요? (samgyeobsal isseoyo?)

They might reply to your order by saying a menu item is not available (없어요). You can then reply by asking if they have something else – even something that’s not on the menu – with 있어요 in order to replace your original order.

Even when you visit a fish-only restaurant, you can always try asking for meat. Many restaurants can serve bulgogi, samgyeobsal, or tteokgalbi on the side.

4c) Confirming your order

네 / 아니요 (ne / aniyo)

Servers at a restaurant will often repeat your order to you. You can reply with 네 if it is correct or 아니요 if it isn’t.

4d) Adding something to your order

저기요 소주 하나 주세요 (jeogiyo soju hana juseyo)
네 (ne)

You can add another item to your order by first calling for attention with 저기요. Once they are at your table, or if it is quiet at the restaurant you can just ask for the extra item as soon as they look at you. They’ll confirm your order – in this example one soju (소주 하나) – with a short 네 or by immediately bringing it to your table.

5) Saying where you’re from

Country answer: 네덜란드 (nedeollandeu)
How long does it take to fly from your country to South Korea: 열 시간 (yeol sigan)

It helps if you formulate your answer and look up the words before the first Korean person has a chance to ask you this question.

Nearly every day some random person would ask me where I came from. Too unprepared to answer with a full sentence … (or rather too scared to raise their expectations) I would answer with the name of my country 네덜란드 (Netherlands). This was usually followed by an expression of ‘wow, that’s far’ and the question how long it takes to fly to South Korea from there. Ten hours (열 시간); that’s how long it takes in the most optimal direction.

Looking back at my trip, these were the Korean conversations I had most often. And with that I mean nearly every day, all five of them, sometimes multiple times a day. If you master these five situations, you will gain enough confidence to speak Korean on your trip to South Korea.

The post 5 Easy Practical Korean Conversations to try on your trip to South Korea appeared first on Where to Kim?.

Best Textbooks for Learning Korean (and other resources)

Kim — Fri, 28 Aug 2020 14:00:00 +0000

What are the best Korean textbooks for learning basic conversation, grammar, hanja, and pronunciation? Get a headstart learning Korean with these books.

Best Korean Textbook: Ewha Korean
Best Korean grammar study book: Korean Grammar in Use
Best Korean grammar handbook: Korean Grammar for International Learners
Good Korean phonetics and phonology book: The Sounds of Korean
Best Hanja resource: Hanja Bible for Teachers
Best Korean dictionary: Naver
Best Korean reading material: Ridibooks
Best (free) online course for learning Korean: Coursera’s First step Korean

1. Best Korean Textbook: Ewha Korean

The Ewha Korean textbooks are my favorite textbooks for learning Korean. The most important reason for that is that they’re great for self-study. There are some classroom dialogue exercises in the textbooks, but those are not frequent enough to frustrate someone studying Korean outside a classroom setting.

Another big plus is that almost everything, including the exercises, is in Korean from the start. Only the grammar point explanations and translation of new words are in English in volumes 1-1 to 2-2. From volume 3-1 onwards, there is no English in the book at all. And that is fine because you don’t need English explanations anymore by then.

The first time you have to work with an all-Korean new words list will triple the time you spend reading texts, but eventually, you’ll start to guess the meaning of new words from the context.

With every chapter the difficulty increase is just right: there is always a challenge with the listening and reading parts because you won’t understand 100% yet, but when you return to this chapter after finishing the book, these parts suddenly look easy to you, and you don’t understand why you struggled in the first place.

Buying tip

There are both textbooks and workbooks in the Ewha Korean series. If you know the basics, then I recommend buying the 1-2 workbook for spelling practice; you don’t need the textbook yet at this stage.

For volumes 2 to 3, both the textbooks and the workbooks are very useful because you need the repetition to learn how to spell Korean without making mistakes.

Frankly, the workbooks are only useful until volume 4 because the textbooks provide enough exercise by then. Even though I bought volumes 5 and 6 as well, by then, textbooks started to lose my interest, and I moved on to practicing with real Korean novels and a grammar book.

2. Best Korean grammar study book: Korean Grammar in Use

You can learn many grammar points from textbooks like Ewha Korean, but sometimes it can help to have the grammar points organized by usage. That way, you can easily compare which form you should use in which situation.

In the Korean Grammar in Use series (Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced), you get example sentences, do’s and don’ts, comparison with similar grammar forms, and information about more advanced use.

The most fundamental grammar points can be found in the beginner book, but you will often find the grammar points you want to know more about are in the next book (the level you are studying towards), so you won’t last long with just one volume. This is especially the case when you start to read original Korean novels.

3. Best Korean grammar handbook: Korean Grammar for International Learners

Korean Grammar for International Learners is an excellent resource for studying Korean. Sometimes you’ll find yourself reading a whole chapter so that you know what is out there. At other times, you’ll go directly to a grammar point for in-depth explanations. This book can look overwhelming when you’re a beginner, but the explanations are really clear, and you can just ignore the more complicated details as you’ll study these in time.

4. Good Korean phonetics and phonology book: The Sounds of Korean

I’m not saying this one is the best book, but it was the in-depth phonetics and phonology book I needed at some point. The Sounds of Korean provides an academic analysis and explanation of Korean phonetics. What’s so great about it? The way it shows that even though there is a ‘right’ textbook pronunciation, in real life, there is this bandwidth of acceptable pronunciations depending on the speaker. The pronunciation also changes over time and is different in every region.

Some parts are a bit hard to get through (statistics), but there are really handy chapters about prosody, phonological rules of Korean, and loanword phonology. I keep going back to the rules for lateralisation (nl > ll) and nasalisation (nl>nn) in Sino-Korean words and rules for tensification.

As you can deduct from what I like about the book, this book is perfect for people with a background or interest in linguistics. If you want a more exercise focused book, then you might be better off with Korean Pronunciation Guide – How to Sound Like a Korean. The Korean Pronunciation Guide has a more textbook type of layout with colors, example texts and exercises, and is more accessible.

5. Best Hanja resource: Hanja Bible for Teachers

Why learn Hanja (Korean characters)? It is not about the Hanja itself, but about creating understanding. By learning which characters a Korean word of Chinese origin consists of, you’ll learn new words quicker. Let’s take 정 (正) as an example. This part means ‘correct’ and you can find it in words like 정확하다, 정각, and 부정. When you know correct is a possible meaning of 정 (not the only one), you can sometimes guess the meaning of words you encounter for the first time.

The Hanja Bible for Teachers is not a book for everyone, especially not for beginners. In this Hanja handbook, you can look up Hanja by learning level (for example all characters for elementary school kids), by Korean pronunciation, and by four-character idioms (사자성어). You won’t use this book as your main resource, but if you love linguistics, this is a fascinating book to have.

Alternative: 이 단어 뜻이 뭘까?

There is no need to buy this book if you learn Korean to speak with locals when you visit South Korea. If you do want to study Hanja for the fun of it, then buy What is the meaning of the Hanja word in the textbook? (이 단어 뜻이 뭘까?) instead. This is a Hanja textbook for South Korean elementary school kids. It is fun to read, and it feels real because it was not made for foreigners, plus the illustrations are lovely.

6. Best Korean dictionary: Naver

The Naver dictionary is not a book, but a website and an app. If you are learning Korean you are probably using it already. The Korean-English dictionary is great for looking up words. There are plenty of example sentences for every word. It works well for jargon as well: just put in the whole phrase and see what Naver shows you. You might not get the translation, but the examples from VLive broadcasts and tv shows can often give you a hint of the meaning.

You can also use Naver to learn Korean. Today’s Korean Conversation exercises are great if you want to increase your vocabulary one subject at a time.

Naver’s dictionary is integrated into many other online Korean offerings, like the best source for Korean reading material: Ridibooks.

7. Best Korean reading material: Ridibooks

Via Ridibooks, you can buy Korean ebooks and also read many of them for free online (legally!). The offer of both well-known writers and unknown writers (with many followers) is large. Often the first parts of a book series (of authors unknown to me) and manga are free to read, and it is not expensive to buy the sequels. If you mainly use the books to learn Korean, then the free books will last you a long time.

8. Best online course for learning Korean: Coursera’s First step Korean

You might learn easier with video material. In that case, try out Coursera’s First Step Korean and its sequel Learn to Spreak Korean 1. The course instructors will teach you the basics of Korean with examples from everyday situations. The dialogue videos are especially handy as you can practice your listening comprehension (and tell yourself: if they can learn it, then so can I!).

That’s it: a book for every category to help you learn Korean. What is your favorite Korean textbook?

The post Best Textbooks for Learning Korean (and other resources) appeared first on Where to Kim?.

How to sign up for Ridibooks and download your first free Korean language ebook

Kim — Fri, 10 Jul 2020 14:00:00 +0000

Are you looking for Korean language books to improve your Korean reading skills? Then this post is for you.

Via Ridibooks you can buy Korean ebooks and also read many of them for free online (legally!). Find out how you can create an account on this Korean-only website.

The offer of both well-known writers and unknown writers (with many followers) is large. Often the first parts of a book series (of authors unknown to me) and manga are free to read and it is not expensive to buy the sequels. If you mainly use the books to learn Korean, then the free books will last you a long time.

How to sign up for Ridibooks?
How to find free Korean ebooks?
Buying, lending or downloading for free
How to pay for an ebook?
How to download a free ebook?
How to read your Korean ebook?
Using the dictionary
Reading 19+ content

How to sign up for Ridibooks?

1) On the Home screen, press 회원가입 to sign up

2) Then 일반 회원가입

3) Fill in your account information

Your ID should be 5-20 characters, all lowercase letters (our alphabet) or numbers. Your password should be at least 8 characters, using at least two of the following character types: lowercase letters, numbers and special characters.

4) Enter the number you receive by email within one hour to confirm your email address. Press 확인 to confirm

5) Success! Hit 완료 to complete

After creating your account, the next step is to find the Korean language book you want to read.

How to find free Korean ebooks?

1) Click on the menu button to see the category filters

2) Choosing a category

It opens with 소설 (novels). Here you can choose between different types of novels. For example 로맨스 (romance), 판타지 (fantasy), 만화 (manga), 라이트노벨 (light novels), BL (boys love) or 웹툰 (webtoon). For some, there is a further division between 단행본 (full length book) and 연재 (series; short books). All categories have their own subcategories as well.

3) Narrowing it down

Within each category, you can filter by 신간 (new books), 베스트셀러 (bestseller), 무료책 (free books) and 전체 (all books). The free books category is probably the most interesting to start with. Even without going to the free books page, you can see a 1권 무려 (1 book free) label on some books which means that you can read the first book for free. For series (연재; shorter ebooks) you can often read many parts for free. Look for the [any number]권 무료 or [any number]화 무료 label on the book covers.

Buying, lending or downloading a book for free

On Ridibooks you can buy (구매), lend (대여) or download books (다운로드) for free. Lending is the cheapest method, but might not be for you because you need to finish the book within a certain time period. For example, you can lend one of the books for three days or all 18 books for 54 days. This is cheaper than buying them.

As a Korean language learner reading a free book here and there will probably be sufficient. There are thousands of books to choose from!

Most books have a free sample (미리보기) that will help you choose.

How to pay for an ebook?

1) Buy a book

Navigate to the page of the book you want to buy and click on the blue 구매하기 button to buy it.

2) Select a payment method

You’ll probably need to select 해외 발행 신용카드, as you will pay with a foreign credit card. Unless one of the other payment options is available to you. For instance, you can link one of the other methods like Samsung Pay to your PayPal account.
Accept the terms and conditions (상품, 가격, 할인 정보, 유의 사항 등을 확인하였으며 구매에 동의합니다.)
Press 결제하기

3) Fill in your credit card details

You can then fill in your credit card information. The follow-up screens are in English.

How to download a free ebook?

Click on the 다운로드 (download) button next to a free book. You’ll get a confirmation notice on the top of your screen. You can find the manga and books you bought in your library (내 서재).

When browsing online: You can find the 내 서재 (My Library) button in the top right corner of the Ridibooks website. Click on the cover of the manga or ebook you want to download. You’ll find a download button (전체 도운로드) on the next page. This download button redirects you to the desktop app where you can click on the cover of the manga or ebook to download it.

When using the app: Go to your 내 서재 (My Library) using the button at the bottom left corner in your Ridibooks app (for Android at least). The download button is on the front cover of the manga or ebook in your library.

How to read your free Korean ebook?

After adding the ebook to your bookshelf, you can download the book in your Ridibooks app.

1) Login

2) Download

1) First login to your account

2) On the 내 서재 (My Library) page you see some free ebook suggestions from Ridibooks. Head to 구매 목록 (Purchase List) to find the book you just downloaded.

Click on the download button on the book cover and then click on the book to start reading.

3) Navigation

On the menu bar below you can have a robot read the book out loud (듣기), see the table of contents (목차), see your reading notes (독서노트), change the font and font size (보기 설정) and adjust other reading settings (뷰어 설정).

Using the dictionary while reading

If you come across a word you don’t know yet, you can easily look it up online while reading. For this, you need to have the Naver Dictionary app (iOS / Android) installed.

1) Highlight

2) Search

1) Highlight/select a word. As you can’t select words in Manga because the words are part of the pictures, you can not use the dictionary functionality while reading Manga.

Click on the three dots to show more options.

3) Choose 검색 (search).

3) Dictionary entry

4) Your phone will then open Naver to show you the translation. Make sure you have 영어사전 (English dictionary) selected. Unless you prefer the Korean explanation of course. Click on the arrow in the upper left corner to return to your book.

Reading 19+ content

If you like romance novels, then you’ll feel limited by the 19+ restrictions. Without a Korean bank account or phone number, you can’t get automatic age confirmation. You can however send a copy of your passport directly to their customer service and ask them for approval. Previously you could do this by sending an email, but now there is a special form for it. I have updated this blog post accordingly.

Some guidance for the Overseas Adult Verification Form (해외 거주 고객 성인인증 접수):

Name (이름): Fill in your name as listed in your ID.
Date of birth (생년월일): Your date of birth in the format YYMMDD, f.e. 881219 for 19 December 1988.
Type of ID (신분증 종류): Select your type of ID. You can choose between the following:
- Overseas passport (해외 여권)
- Overseas driver’s license (해외 운전면허증)
- Overseas residence permit (해외 거주 허가증)
- Another ID card that can be verified overseas (기타 해외 증빙가능 신분증)
Country that issued the ID (발행 국가): The country your ID is from. This can not be South Korea.
Expiry date (유효 기간): Expired IDs are not allowed, because they can’t be validated by Ridibooks. They don’t mention a date format, so I assume they’re looking for YYMMDD again.
Consent 1 (이름 및 생년정보 변경 동의): Your name and date of birth in this form must be the same as in the ID you attach. If not, you consent to them changing the name and date of birth in this request so that it matches what’s in your ID.
Consent 2 (개인정보 수집 동의): You consent to them collecting your personal information for processing this adult verification request. They collect your name, date of birth, overseas identification card, and address if listed. Their retention policy allows them to store your information for up to 30 days, after which it is destroyed.
Attach your ID (해외 신분증 첨부): Attach your ID here. The file must be smaller than 20MB. You must cross out all personal information (including your picture) except for your name and date of birth. All information related to your ID (like expiry date) must remain visible.
Send button (제출): Hit the send button to send your request.

If Ridibooks approves your request, you will see the 19+ content after logging out and logging back into your account after receiving an email about your approval. This can take up to three days excluding weekends and holidays.

Also read: Best Korean books with English translation

That’s all, let me know if you have any questions or tips for other Korean language learners.

The post How to sign up for Ridibooks and download your first free Korean language ebook appeared first on Where to Kim?.

How to read or buy Korean language books online from Europe

Kim — Wed, 25 Mar 2020 14:00:00 +0000

Are you looking for Korean language books to improve your Korean reading skills? Find out how you can read or buy Korean language books online from Europe.

In recent years I have collected quite a few books to practice reading Korean using “real” language instead of textbooks. In Europe you can’t just buy these books in a shop and in many online webshops you can search for a long time without finding what you’re looking for.

Still, I found some good websites where I could buy my Korean language books. I also started reading Korean books and manga for free online.

English translations of Korean books (literature) can often be found at Amazon or Bol.com. In my post about the best Korean books you can read more about the best translated books.

1) Ridibooks

Via Ridibooks you can buy Korean ebooks and also read many of them for free online (legally!). The website is completely in Korean, but it’s quite easy to create an account.

If you are reading via the app on your phone and also have the NAVER Dictionary app installed, you can press and hold a word in the book to instantly call upon the dictionary function. This allows you to quickly start reading real books, even books above your reading level.

If you like reading ebooks and you don’t need a physical book, Ridibooks is the best resource.

Pros

Gigantic offer
Lots of free manga and books
Samples of popular books

Cons

Navigation of the site and app is in Korean

2) Koreanbooks.de

This remains my go-to webshop for physical Korean books. In recent years, Amazon’s offer has grown tremendously, but Koreanbooks.de is usually cheaper (and easier to explore).

Koreanbooks.de doesn’t sell many books but what they sell should be enough to get you started. For beginners, Korean translations of Western comics and children’s books are especially interesting. For example, I started by reading a Harry Potter book.

If your Korean is at intermediate or advanced level, you can look at Korean literature and read original Korean-language work by, for example, Jeong Yu-jeong. The supply of textbooks is also quite large. I’m a fan of the Ewha Korean series myself, but I would advise you to compare the price of textbooks with those at Amazon because textbooks are usually cheaper there.

The price of the books is quite high compared to what you pay for them in South Korea, but if you add the shipping costs, taxes and book price together, ordering your books online from Koreanbooks.de is often cheaper than ordering books internationally.

Pros

Ships to Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Denmark, Liechtenstein and Luxembourg with DHL
Books ship from Europe: no additional VAT and import duties
Larger offer than Bol.com or Amazon
Good prices for literature

Cons

Higher shipping costs than usual within Europe. Shipping costs are 8.90 euros for 1-5 books and 15.90 euros for six books or more.
Delivery can take 5 – 10 days even when the books are in stock.
Credit card payment is not possible; only PayPal

3) Amazon

A few years ago Amazon was not a good option for Korean language books, but nowadays they have more books on offer. Prices of Korean literature remain high and some books are only available second-hand. Popular books are readily available however and this is where Amazon can be cheaper than Koreanbooks.de.

The translated children’s books are affordable and sometimes even available through Kindle Unlimited. For textbooks Amazon is the cheapest option.

Tip for Amazon.nl and Amazon.com: search for the words “Korean edition”.

Tip for Amazon.de: Filter on “Fremdsprachige Bücher” and then on “Koreanisch” to get a basic overview. From there you can choose different genres to filter out the English or German books about Korea. For bilingual books you can search for “Korean bilingual“.

Pros

Fast (and often free) shipping
Many payment methods
Study books are cheapest through Amazon

Cons

Small offer
Expensive

4) Twochois.com

Twochois is a webshop that sends books from Korea. They have a large selection of study books and a fair amount of choice in books based on TV dramas and movies. The best thing about this webshop is that you can order textbooks that Korean children use at school. There are also lots of photos of the content of each book so you know exactly what you’re getting. For example, a few years ago I ordered two books about Hanja (Chinese characters) and spelling.

Pros

Pay with credit card and PayPal
Basic price of the books is low
Large selection of textbooks and books based on films.
You can order a tailor-made package: they can order any book for you and send it to you.
Good service

Cons

VAT and customs clearance costs
High shipping costs (at least 20 euros)

5) Gmarket

Gmarket is a good option if you want to order books while on holiday in Asia and receive them there. Most sellers affiliated with Gmarket do not deliver internationally. I expect this to change, but at the moment Gmarket is mainly interesting if you can receive the books in South Korea.

Of course you can then also walk into a bookstore and pick out your books on the spot. For bestselling literature this is certainly the way to go, but the large selection can be overwhelming if you are looking for something specific (without any specific titles in mind) and want to have time left to go sightseeing. I ordered some books during my holiday in South Korea and had them delivered to my hotel: Hanja Bible for Teachers and four parts of 복원가의 집 (The Restorer’s house).

Pros

Gigantic offer
Standard book prices
Especially interesting if you don’t send the books to Europe but receive them in Asia
Pay by credit card

Cons

Most sellers do not send to Europe
VAT and customs clearance costs if you exceed a certain amount (when ordering from Europe)

6) Bol.com

A Dutch webshop to consider when looking for Korean textbooks; they can be cheaper than Amazon. The fact that a general search for books (literature) doesn’t give you a ‘Korean’ language filter says it all though.

Pros

Study books for good prices
Fast shipping
Shipping from Europe
Many payment methods

Cons

No literature on offer

The post How to read or buy Korean language books online from Europe appeared first on Where to Kim?.

Korean language Archives - Where to Kim?

Review: Korean Hanja Bible for Teachers

Content

Hanja

Addendum

Indexes

Interested?

Learn These 8 Advanced Korean Grammar Points before Reading Your First Novel

Table of Contents

Grammar points

1) -구 instead of -고

2) -소/-오 instead of -아/어요

3) -곤 하다 versus -군

4) -자꾸나 and -자

5) -느니 versus -(으)니

6) -길래 and -기에

7) -다니 versus -더니

8) -끼리

Where to watch Korean children’s stories and songs online?

Korean stories and songs for kids

1) Kebikids YouTube Channel

2) Genikids YouTube Channel

3) Naver Junior Portal

4) Hello Jadoo YouTube Channel

5) Stories at Yes24

6) Wekiz song YouTube Channel

7) SkySea.TV YouTube Channel

8) Korean Fairy Tales on YouTube

Milestones to ace when learning Korean

1) When you finally understand how to use 것

2) Mastering 것

3) Escaping the dictionary

4) Guessing a word from the context

5) Laughing out loud because of a word

6) Reading Hangul quickly enough to follow subtitles

7) Grasping 은/는/가/이

8) Korean abbreviations

9) Saying yes and no: 네/아니요

10) Finding your nemesis everywhere

11) Guessing genders

12) Tense pronunciation

5 Easy Practical Korean Conversations to try on your trip to South Korea

1) Asking the price

2) Buying tickets

3) Saying how big your group is when entering a restaurant

4) Ordering food

4a) Full order

4b) Asking for something else

4c) Confirming your order

4d) Adding something to your order

5) Saying where you’re from

Best Textbooks for Learning Korean (and other resources)

Table of Contents

1. Best Korean Textbook: Ewha Korean

2. Best Korean grammar study book: Korean Grammar in Use

3. Best Korean grammar handbook: Korean Grammar for International Learners

4. Good Korean phonetics and phonology book: The Sounds of Korean

5. Best Hanja resource: Hanja Bible for Teachers

6. Best Korean dictionary: Naver

7. Best Korean reading material: Ridibooks

8. Best online course for learning Korean: Coursera’s First step Korean

How to sign up for Ridibooks and download your first free Korean language ebook

Table of Contents

How to sign up for Ridibooks?

1) On the Home screen, press 회원가입 to sign up

2) Then 일반 회원가입

3) Fill in your account information

4) Enter the number you receive by email within one hour to confirm your email address. Press 확인 to confirm

5) Success! Hit 완료 to complete

How to find free Korean ebooks?

1) Click on the menu button to see the category filters

2) Choosing a category

3) Narrowing it down

Buying, lending or downloading a book for free

How to pay for an ebook?

1) Buy a book

2) Select a payment method

3) Fill in your credit card details

How to download a free ebook?

How to read your free Korean ebook?