It would be great if we had the option to play the videos at different speeds.

Thar would be nice.

Thank you for your feedback. Currently, all the words and sentences are written only in 한글 from Level 4.

@Erv N Thank you for you long study epistel. I loved it. This is very, very useful and I’m glad you have written it down here. Back to being motivated to repeat it all the stuff I’ve learned for another 2 times before moving on to the next level.

Hello Aaron, I am a native speaker of English (PhD in English) and Spanish (both parents are Latinos and I lived and studied in a Spanish speaking country for a bit) and am fluent in German (lived in Germany many years and can read books and converse well in German, depending on the topic). Although I am just a beginner in Korean (I took a year off from learning Korean as I’ve been working on a novel), I recently rejoined TTMIK as a premium member and am happy to have done so. Please let me share with you the method I am following to learn Korean, as well as my rationale. Basically, I’m using the method I used to learn German as a young adult stationed in Germany when I had zilch knowledge of the German language but became truly fluent (that is, I can read, write, and speak German about 80% as well as my native English and Spanish). This method has proven to work for me in the past, so I will pursue the same method when learning Korean: (1) First, master Levels 1 through 10 of the grammar textbooks without detouring to study from other books by TTMIK or other publishers. As you mentioned in your post above, TTMIK’s My First 500 Words (which I also own, by the way; it’s great) in part presupposes ample Korean grammatical knowledge. And though the TTMIK authors make a concerted effort to provide you key Korean grammar in that book, it was and is beyond the scope of that book to teach you grammar systematically. Going back to the TTMIK grammar textbooks (Levels 1 through 10), if you’ve noticed, throughout the TTMIK grammar textbooks there is ample vocabulary being taught, so you are not “losing out” from learning Korean vocabulary at all as you focus 100% on learning the Korean grammar using the TTMIK grammar textbooks and online courses (which mirror the textbooks). The caveat I am trying to share with you is that I believe it is very easy to confuse oneself with too many language learning resources and to form a “start-stop-restart-restop” pattern with one language-learning method (e.g. going through all 10 Korean grammar textbooks) by habitually switching to other language books and methods The end result is that you will end up spinning your Korean language learning wheels and paradoxically learn less Korean, and more slowly, if you emotionally wish to rush through your Korean language learning. To confess, I myself made this same mistake with Korean, also buying a plethora of Korean language books from TTMIK, Darkwon, Tuttle, Hollym, New Ampersand, Yonsei University Press, Sogang Press, and the list goes on and on. So I kept dipping into these books, and as a result stopped studying the TTMIK grammar books after Level 2, and just stopped even studying Korean at all for a year. I recently rejoined TTMIK and completed my review of Level 1 in only two weeks (it’s easier to review than to learn initially). What I did was visit Amazon and buy lots of Korean Writing Practice Notebooks: Hangul Manuscript Paper published by Kim So-Yuen (they’re the best because they have those little squares so you can write the different Hanguel letters in separate sections of the same square/syllable block in a neat fashion) and as I reviewed all of Level 1, I wrote down, using a ball point pen, ALL of the Korean words and sentences starting from Lesson 1 of Level 1until the last lesson of Level 1. What I found is that following this method — a method I used when learning German — has allowed me to retain most of the Korean vocabulary words that I would previously recite immediately after memorizing them, but would forget one week or so later (not all of them, but most of them were forgotten). With the “notebook writing method” I’ve described here, I’m able to retain about 80-85% of the vocabulary, even after just one session of slowly writing down & pronouncing all of the words, phrases and sentences in the Level 1 lesson chapters. Before going to Level 2, I will follow the same method I used to master German, and re-review all of Lesson 1, to ensure I have fully internalized the Level 1 lessons, which not only includes the grammar explanations, but the ample Korean vocabulary taught and contained in those chapters. In essence, you are studying each Level at least twice: the first time to gain a general grasp of the lessons; the second time to start cementing your knowledge. As I did with German, I will actually review the lessons in each Level a total of three times: once to gain an overview of the Korean grammar at that Level; a second time to write down all of the words, phrases, and sentences; and a third time to internalize all of the Korean grammar and vocabulary in my LONG TERM memory. This may seem like a slow process, but it will actually save you time because you won’t end up always forgetting what you learned only a week ago. And since TTMIK’s grammar lessons are progressive — i.e. it’s structured in levels, from 1 to 10, 10 being the most complex — it pays larger dividends to study the language carefully and systematically and not haphazardly in some self-imposed rush (unless you need to master Korean to impress potential in-laws; that was a joke, by the way). After you do (1) all of what I’ve said before, then you can (2) learn from any of the wonderful vocabulary books published by TTMIK. The First 500 words, which you already own, sounds like a great start. There is also TTMIK’s two-set My Weekly Korean Vocabulary (Books 1 and 2). I think it’s better to do more studying with fewer books than try to fly through a plethora of Korean language learning books in a superficial way. For German, I used a book called Deutsch: Schritt fuer Schritt (German: Step by Step) which consisted of 25 chapters or so. I actually read and re-read and re-read that basic German grammar textbook a total of four or five times, always starting with the first chapter and continuuing until the end. I also ended up earning a minor in German by taking other courses, but that first textbook was the key. I was able to learn the complete German grammar and also lots of German words, phrases, idioms, etc. In fact, I still remember 97% of the German I learned from that one thick college German textbook despite having lived away from Germany for many years. Again, it’s better to go more slowly and methodically and truly master what you’ve learned than try to rush from Level to Level.

Oh, I almost forgot. Before I resumed my Korean language studies by reviewing TTMIK’s Level 1 grammar textbook, I actually reviewed all of the nuances of Korean pronunciation by going through the entire TTMIK website course, Korean Pronunciation Guide (25 videos or so), which does a splendid job in teaching you the many Korean pronunciation Batchim (final consonant) exceptions, exceptions due to Korean cultural agreement or change (e.g. the way one says “nu-ga” instead of “nu-gu-ga” is both a grammar convention and cultural convention), and so on. As I reviewed Level 1, I could easily know why certain words were pronounced differently than written due to Batchim pronunciation rules exceptions such as lenition, fortis, special rules with “hieut”, aspiration, etc. etc.

So I might recommend that you (1) review Korean Hangeul and pronunciation so you master all of the rules and exceptions, (2) complete the entire 10 Korean grammar textbooks (there’s tons of vocabulary in them), and (3) continue with other Korean language learning books: vocabulary, idioms, etc., etc. Best wishes from a fellow-Korean learner who wishes to become fully quadrilingual one day! — Ervin in the U.S. (P.S. Pardon my typos. It’s 1:08 a.m. here and I’m tired)

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