First Language Post - Where to Start?
For this series, I will be posting resources and tad bits I find while learning Korean. I have not traveled yet so I will be trying use as much resources so I can see if I can make up not being fully immersed into it. So the first post, I figured I should start with what is fundamental to the Korean language. Every textbook or site I came across said to start with Hangul (한글). Hangul is the Korean alphabet. Textbooks usually brush over them in the beginning.When I first started learning, I learned the letters but I never really knew how they sounded. I had an idea of what most of the letters sounded like based on words I had already known but there were certain letters such as ㅡ (eu), ㅕ(yeo), and ㅜ (oo). Then there ones that sounded familiar to each other such as ㅂ/ㅃ/ㅍ, ㄱ/ㅋ/ㄲ and ㄷ/ㄸ/ㅌ for example. There were ones that also looked complicated like this, 위(oe). So I had taken classes to help me straighten them out.I knew that when class ends I would forget so I found an app called, "Memrise". This app has a lot of other languages and things you can learn but those will come in later posts. I have an iPhone so this is how the app looks like. It is available for both Android and Apple users.Because I had already starting using this app, I already have what I am learning. When the app is install, you make an account and to get you started it will ask, what would you like to learn. When you click on Korean, the first thing that pops up is the Korean Alphabet. If you are interested in learning other languages, it always recommends where to start which is great for beginners. Then from there you can choose other courses which I find very useful.
With the alphabet lesson, it starts pronouncing them so you can hear how it sounds like. Because I had already completed it, the screen shots I have is what it looks like when you are doing a review. It tells you what the sounds are spelled in English romanization. It helps to repeat after what it says and then fill in the answer because one it is correct it moves on to the next.
Here is what the complete alphabet looks like:
Let me know your experience with this app if you use it? What other apps or resources do you use to help learn the alphabet? Comment below!