Korean

Korean (한국어, 조선말)

Spoken by:	~ 78 million
Spoken in:	South Korea, North Korea, People's Republic of China
Language family:	Isolate

Korean text

Korean Handwriting

Korean is the official language of both North and South Korea. It’s also spoken in neighboring Yanbian, China. Some 72 million speak Korean. There are 2 standard dialects: Seoul (South Korea) and P'yongyang (North Korea). 

Grammar

Korean Grammar is different from English. The sentence order is SOV (subject object verb), and uses particles which attach to nouns to give it meaning. There are many levels of speech but only 4 are used in everyday life. Adjectives don't necessarily exist, only as descriptive verbs that have to be conjugated. There are two number systems: Native/Pure Korean Numbers (하나, 둘, 셋) and Sino Korean Numbers (일, 이, 삼). Each number system is used for a specific type of thing (age, money, things, time). There are no genders. Plural nouns aren't as widely used as one might think, even though they do have a particle for it (들). It can be assumed plural without using the plural particle through context.

Orthography

Korean uses 19 letters in its Hangul; ㄱ, ㄴ, ㄷ, ㄹ, ㅁ, ㅂ, ㅅ, ㅇ, ㅈ, ㅊ, ㅋ, ㅌ, ㅍ, ㅎ, ㄲ, ㄸ, ㅃ, ㅆ and ㅉ. The vowels are ㅏ, ㅑ, ㅓ, ㅕ, ㅗ, ㅛ, ㅜ, ㅠ, ㅡ, ㅣ, ㅐ, ㅒ, ㅔ, ㅖ, ㅘ, ㅙ, ㅚ, ㅝ, ㅞ and ㅢ.

Common difficulties

The Foreign Service Institute has classified Korean as a "Super-Hard" language. It is estimated that learning Korean to a Professional Working Proficiency in the language (a score of Speaking-3/Reading-3 on the Interagency Language Roundtable scale) will take an average of 88 weeks (2200 class hours).

Resources

The Foreign Service Institute offers a course in Korean.

Sublearning - Korean to English movie subtitle flash cards

Pimsleur offers a course in Korean.

Duolingo offers a course in Korean.

Rosetta Stone offers a course in Korean.

https://www.howtostudykorean.com/ A website with a lot of lessons.

https://explorekorean.net/ Korean Lessons

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sx0yyQqkpqo&list=PLbFrQnW0BNMUkAFj4MjYauXBPtO3I9O_k&ab_channel=LearnKoreanwithGO%21BillyKorean A collection of chronological videos that teach Korean from the ground up.