Some of you might be wondering about my Korean skills and how they have improved since coming here. I know I have briefly mentioned it in previous posts, but every week I study for at least a few hours. It is important for me to make the effort to learn more and try to use more Korean when I am interacting with other people where I live.

While my family was here, I was forced to use a lot more Korean than I usually do. While sometimes it was stressful, it did help me become more comfortable with it, and it boosted my confidence in myself because I knew I was capable of doing things on my own.

So what does studying entail? Well for starters, in the mornings I usually listen to a podcast: Talk to Me in Korean. They are pretty fun and give bite sized lessons and teach one grammar point in about 10 minutes. There is also a website that has PDF versions of their lessons. About a month after I came to Korea, I was also paying for lessons once a week from a friend of my supervisor’s. But I discovered that trying to study for 2 hours after a full work day was a lot, so I decided to study with my friends on the weekends instead.

I have two different textbooks with accompanying workbooks that I use. One of them is titled Integrated Korean and the other is 서강 한국어. Each textbook has writing and listening sections along with translating sentences and learning vocab. At the beginning of each chapter of Integrated Korean, there is a sample dialogue of what I will be learning in the chapter.

One of my friends who I study with is Korean, and she kindly donates her time to help us learn and to correct our sentences and test us. So she will read the sample dialogue to me and have me translate what it means in Korean. Even though most of the time I am able to translate it before I do any of the work in the chapter, it is still hard for me to create my own sentences using the grammar points.

When I am not using textbooks to study, I am still immersing myself in the language every day. I hear people around me speaking it, of course, but I also listen to Korean music (kpop) and watch Korean dramas (kdramas). There is a specific website I use (with a VPN) to watch kdramas, and along with the English subtitles, they also have the Korean subtitles, so I can listen to the pronunciation while reading it in Korean and having the sentences translated into Korean for me. I think that has really helped me improve as well.

If any of you are interested in what I listen to, or the shows I really like, don’t hesitate to contact me! I will be more than happy to recommend some things.

So yes, my understanding of Korean has improved greatly since coming here, but I am still not satisfied with my speaking skills. But, I will continue to improve each week! 화이팅!

Wish me luck! Thanks again for reading. 읽어줘서 고마워요. Stay safe and stay happy. 안전하고 행복하게 지내라요.