HaruKorean.com - When an additional tool becomes essential!

안녕하세요!

Recently I've told you that I won a 1-month membership of Harukorean.com when I bought 'Talk to me in Korean' Level 1's book (read the original post here). Frankly speaking I didn't buy the book thinking about HaruKorean (actually, in that moment I thought that this site was kind of needless and unhelpful). But... since I won the membership I gave it a shot.

There I could access the 10-minutes podcast lessons - Interesting, but why should I pay US$61.99 (for 12 months access) for something like this? But I continued discovering the site... After which lesson you can write a sentence about the vocabulary or grammar learned from that lesson and it will be correct by a native teacher. After you do this 2 things occur:

1. You can see now the correction of other students' sentences. In other words, you can learn with yours and their mistakes.
2. You earn points (for finishing one lesson, for writing sentences and for sharing them). With them, you can compete with the others users/students. It's a tool to motive the learning and I liked it.

OK, so if I pay almost US$6 per month I get 10-minutes podcast for lessons and a native will correct my sentences. I was not convinced yet...

Anyway, I listened 8 podcasts and wrote 8 sentences from Level 1 (really beginner). For my surprise, just 5 sentences from 8 were corrected... Besides correcting the wrong sentences, the teacher even suggested other forms of written for some of the right ones, giving new possibilities for me to express the same idea. I was able to write a reply for one correction and he replayed back, solving my doubts! It was AMAZING!!!

For my surprise and total regret of my arrogant and rude misjudgement, this site is completely AWESOME and EXTREMELY HELPFUL! After my membership expires I will renovate it, because this kind of learning tool is ESSENTIAL if you are like me and don't have anyone to teach you or correct your mistakes.

TTMIK and HaruKorean teams, please forgive me!

죄송합니다

So, visit HaruKorean.com and try it yourself. Pay for just one month if you are not sure of its usefulness. I'm sure you will not regret it and it will help you to improve a lot your Korean.

See you soon! 안녕히 가세요!

카카우

Books for Begginers II

안녕하세요!

My new book have just came! I`m bought the TTMIK (Talk to Me in Korean)`s first book (Level 1) with a lot of expectation at My Korean Store. As I bought it during the period of pre-order, the book came autographed by the entire team - see photo below, and I won an one-month signature from HaruKorean. The quality of it is amazing! The paper and the printing are of great quality. A CD follows the book, and the audio is very clear and doesn`t leave anything without explanation.

 

In this book, all the Level 1 lessons from the site (talktomeinkorean.com) are compiled, including all the .PDF archives and workbook (which are free in the site). The book`s audio is different from the site. The last one is a podcast and in the book, it is more objective and summarized. So if you buy this book, you should listen both audios - it will improve your assimilation.

BEST POINTS:

• Paper and printing quality;
• Audios` quality;
• The romanization exists, HOWEVER it is very tiny under the hangul and in gray. So, if you are like me and simply hate romanization, in this book it will not distract you at all. But if you like it, you will be satisfied too.
• Samples dialogues are said in two speeds: the native one (very quickly) and a slower and clearer.

NOT SO GOOD POINTS:

• No really extra material comparing with the free version online;
• It doesn`t teach you hangul, so if you are more than a beginner, just like a newbie, this is not the book that you should choose to star learning Korean.

To sum up, I don`t think this book is the best one for someone who are really a newbie in Korean. You have to know hangul as its pronunciation at least. But I think it`s a great complementary material. The remain question is: Is it worth buying this book since the same material is available online completely free? If US$ 20.00 will not be missed, I think that you should buy this book. Because it`s a very book material and while you are purchasing it, you are also supporting the TTMIK team that actually do a awesome job with the site and the YouTube channel.

With all said, I`m still looking for the perfect beginner`s book. Today I will buy another one. Wish me luck! 

Bye! 안녕히 가세요!

카카우

Books for Begginers I

안녕하세요!

Finally the first Korean book I bought arrived - "Read & Speak Korean for Beginners"!! It cost US$20,00 and was printed in USA. It`s also included a 60-minute CD. However, I didn`t like this book very much for a few reasons. In my opinion:

 

1. It`s not for real beginners. You must be able to read and write Hangul before hand.

2. Romanization is used all the time.

3. The lessons are disorganized, without much logic. Anyway, they are little didactic to a self-taught student.

4. The audio lesson aren't clear enough. Either English as Korean pronunciation are weird.

5. Very few lessons are available.

6. What are the card games at the end of the book? They really think that it's essential?!

7. There are less than 90 pages of real lessons!

Anyway, the purchase was not worth it! I cannot recommend this book at all.

Besides this book, I purchased online another one. I'm looking forward to talk about it too. Oh, God, when will it arrive??

See you soon!

카카우

Learning Korean - Why? How?

안녕하세요! (Hello!)

I`ve intensely experienced this K-World for about 2 years. And I was very frustrated for not be able to understand anything, just relying on other people to transcribe k-dramas, k-musics, k-mawhuas, twitters and news into English (Google Translate doesn`t do a good job when we are talking about Korean -> English ㅜ-ㅜ). Therefore, I decided to learn Korean but, for that, I stipulated a few rules to not create addictions or crutches to memorize sentences or anything. I really wanted to learn Korean without romanization and understand the essential grammar before trying sentences.

With this in mind I chosen a paid online course to guide me (almost US$40/year). It was elaborate by an American who started to learn Korean from the scratch just like me. In this course, romanization is rarely used, the audio was recorded by a native Korean and each lesson has a quiz! Among all online courses, this was the most adapted one to my needs and requirements. Here is the link for it:

Learn Korean Now!

To complement it, I've watched the free lessons of Professor Rob Julien (an American who lives in South Korea teaching ESL). They are really good, but I just didn't pay for the complete course now, because it is more aimed for foreigners who lives in Korea. But I'm going to sing up in the next future, when I feel that my reading and listening skills have improved more. But you can try it in this link: Learn Korean Online.

Other tools to help in learning that I use are:

• Flashcard Machine - for vocabulary
• Korean Learning for Correct Pronunciation - for Hangul
• Forvo - for pronunciation of words
• Word Reference - English -> Korean dictionary
• Talk to me in Korean - to learn Korean from natives teachers

I bought 2 books, but they didn't arrive yet. When I got them, I will write a post about my impressions. I also bought a Korean keyboard on eBay, but you can also buy just Korean keyboard stickers.

If you speak Portuguese and your English isn't enough to follow the links above, there are 2 really good sites to learn Korean in Portuguese (Br):

• Aprendendo Coreano
• Aula de Coreano Hara Haru

I will write new posts about this topic very soon. So come back soon!

또 봐요! (See you later!)
카카우