If you’ve been reading my books for any length of time (or have been active on my Facebook page), you’ll know that I’m learning Korean. I’ve been learning for a couple years now to indifferent success, and it has, predictably, bled through into my writing.
I have what I call my “kdrama series”, where I mess with kdrama tropes with as much glee as I mess with fairytale tropes in my retold fairytales, and in my UF I have a Korean character who refuses to speak English.
This means I always have to keep my Korean fresh, and keep getting better, to boot.
So at this point, you’re probably asking–how do you study Korean these days?
Honestly, it involves a lot of mumbling to myself.
Oh, you mean apart from that.
Well, these days I have a teacher. It’s going to sound really stupid to say so, but having a teacher makes a world of difference. You guys probably already knew that, but apparently I’m slow in the uptake. When I first began to learn Korean, I didn’t have the extra cash to pay for a tutor: things are different now, and I’m so glad I took the plunge!
I’m with Preply for lessons at the moment: you can buy bulk lots of lessons and get a reasonable discount, which I’ll be doing now that I know I learn effectively this way. I was looking for a male teacher in particular, since although female voices are pretty easy to understand, I struggle to understand male Korean voices. I also knew that I would want to select a tutor based on when they could tutor me, as well as the cost of the lesson. It was easy to refine my choices by all of those considerations on the Preply website.
With those criteria in mind, I narrowed down my choices to about three tutors. Each of the tutors also has a short video introducing themselves, so that you get an idea of how well they speak English, what their qualifications are, and how they propose to teach.
Out of those three, I found one had a voice I would find difficult to listen to for more than a few minutes, and another didn’t have enough of a grasp of English to effectively teach me.
And that’s how I ended up with Dylan. He’s an extremely patient and thoughtful teacher (he has to be, to teach me!), and he speaks at a really comfortable speed for me to be able to understand him during the lesson. So apart from recommending Preply as a good platform in general, I would specifically recommend Dylan as a teacher if you’re trying to learn Korean. You can check out his profile in the link above, or check out Preply to see what other languages you can learn through the link above that.
Finally, I’m writing what basically amounts to a diary entry every day in Korean, talking to the dogs in Korean, studying with the Sogang Korean books (also highly recommend them!), and still watching a lot of KDrama. Not to mention, of course, that one of my favourite bands is Day6, which basically means I get great music and Korean language exposure in one delightful package…
All of those things are great, and good–but the thing that has made me jump up a level in my learning has definitely been getting a proper lesson each week. The prices are not at all steep, and the accountability is A++
If you have any questions about my study habits or my experience with Preply (this is not a sponsored post, btw, I just love their service so far 😀 ) comment below and I’ll answer them.
Until next time, happy reading, everyone!
Very interesting. I bookmarked the Preply website for future reference. Guess my age is showing, I had no idea services like this were even available. Thanks!
It took me a while to find it, myself 😀 But so far I’m loving it! I usually get really stressed out when I’m trying to talk to people on the phone/video chat, but I’ve been very comfortable so far. I’m still bad at speaking aloud (written is, predictably, my best form of communication), but that is slowly changing =)
Really interesting! I’ve been trying to “study” Korean myself (with emphasis on the quotation marks) since I also love K-dramas. I might check out Preply when I get super serious about learning.
And JinYeong is precious, of course, and I love that he doesn’t speak English.
Preply is honestly the best site I’ve tried for language learning–though that could also be because I lucked out with a great teacher. Definitely check it out when you get to the serious learning stage!
(JinYeong is as fully convinced of his preciousness as you are, BTW 😉 :D)