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?
