Korea on my mind: Learning Korean - a few online resources

After two months of classes, exercises, repetitions and a lot of writing practise, I can honestly say that Korean is, hands down, the hardest language I've learnt. Not that I'm finished learning it, of course, but you get my point. Anyway, it was early on, when the classes had just started, that I came to realize that, in order to really learn the language, I would have to find a lot of extra material for self-study; as good as the weekly classes I attend are, they're just not enough.

Fortunately, nowadays it is super easy to find lessons, vocab lists and all other sorts of things in any language you may want to learn on the internet (whether this material is good or not, well, this is a whole different story), so that's where I headed.

I have to admit that, at first, it was kinda hard to find exactly what I wanted, because that search actually began way before I started the course, so I actually didn't really know what to look for, but, little by little, I came upon language forums and Korean blogs that put me in the right path. Now, even though my learning is in its early stages, I do have a better understanding and am able to So, below, you will find a small compilation of websites that may help you along the way.

The Sogang Korean Program is one of the most recommended all through the internet. That's actually the main reason why it made into this sort of top 5 list, because I found the first lessons, the ones on Korean sounds and alphabet, quite bad. And since pronunciation is my biggest problem so far, you may understand why I prefer other resources for that. Still, I liked the way they structured the lessons and I can tell it'll be quite useful as soon as I get to a higher level of understanding.

Professor Oh has a few videos on her YouTube channel in which she explains the basics of Hangul pronunciation. These videos were really helpful whenever I forgot how to say a specific character or in establishing more clearly the difference between some others. She also has a couple worksheets for download.

KBS World Radio also offers Korean lessons. The best thing here is that they have the explanations in 10 different languages! The grammar explanations are brief (I love loooong explanations that cover all rules and exceptions), but they have lots of example dialogues with audio for lots of different situations.

Korean Flashcards was one of the first sites I visited and I really liked the way they organize and present information. They focus on, surprise, surprise, flashcards and also explain basic, intermediate and advanced sentences word by word. I kinda like their layout and the way content is presented, but there are no pronunciation features.

One more vocabulary resource, the Flashcard Machine is quite useful once you already know how to read Hangul, obviously.

Now, there are some other sites I visit every once in a while, but, depending on what I am after, they are a bit deficient. I also imagine that, for intermediate and advanced students, these three below are lacking. Click on the images to go the sites and, should you know some other good learning resources, share them via e-mail!