Learning Korean
 

Hey folks, hopefully some of you people know about this.

I will be studying Korean at university in about two years (hopefully) for about 5 years+. I was wondering if any of you had some suggestions on books or programmes that will be useful for pre-studying? Meaning for studying before going to uni, so that I won't be all brainless to begin with.

Thanks.
:'D

Just learn the alphabet and be prepared for pronounciations not native in your language*.

* examples:
1. tensed stops (kk-, tt-, pp-)
2. j-, jj-, ch- pronciations are extremely different from English
3. be very careful for certain vowels

There are a lot of consonant assimilations between syllables in Korean. Be very aware of that if you want to talk like a near-native speaker.

Basically you will learn a Seoul-based dialect at your school. You might encounter several dialect speakers if you visit South Korea.

That's about it.

I'm curious if anyone here has studied Korean after learning Japanese to a pretty high level of proviciency. If so, was Korean easier to learn, having already gained a mastery of Japanese?

After I add a few more Japanese kanji and get my Spanish fluency back where it should be, I was thinking about adding German (my ancestral language) and Korean to my arsenal, but only under the assumption that Korean would be pretty easy after Japanese.

If not, I'll work on German and Dutch instead. Dutch is allegedly the easiest language for a native English speaker to learn.

I know a university friend who gave up Japanese for Korean. Now after three years of studying Korean, he's a near-native speaker. Oh, and he's German-Canadian.

But here are the problems: Korean is not really an optimal language for job applicant and you need to advance in Chinese characters (and I mean traditional, not simplified) if you want a better Korean proficiency.

Most people I know speak both and have been perfecting them simultaneous (native English speakers) and they say the Japanese is easier. But after one semester of Japanese and a few weeks on my own with friends, I found Korean much easier to to understand than Japanese. It may be that a person's ear is tuned better to one or the other. I am still wondering about that.

After I learn Japanese, I as well will be learning German; which is also my ancestral language. I've had a pretty easy time with Japanese so far. I taught myself katakana in no time and I'm currently teaching myself hiragana.

I've been told it's easier to learn hiragana first and then katakana, but I find it's better to learn katakana first. This way not only are you able to understand most of the words, but you are also able to grasp how the Japanese language is spoken and how it sounds. This is especially useful when learning Japanese words, not to mention how to pronounce them.

Just be aware that this "after I learn Japanese" point in time is probably a decade away. I studied on my own for four years before university and spent seven years since university working on it. I'm still not fluent.

That's 11 years. Granted, I have a high level definition of "fluent" which basically means "practically native except in highly technical situations."

Learn Chinese to read Korean? Surely you jest. :\

Apparently S. Korea still teaches 1800 kanji. No biggie for me. Between my knowledge of Chinese, Japanese, and experience reading pre-war Japanese materials, I think I probably already know almost all of S. Korea's kanji (hanja).

As for job applications, I'm not interested in that. I've got a law degree, and I don't plan on working on international deals with Korea. This is just for fun. As it stands, if I ever work on int'l deals, I'm already able for 2/3 of the world, seeing as how I speak Spanish and English. Throw in Japanese for grins.

Apparently, it's decreasing. I'm the last generation of taking Hanja seriously.

Actually, Danish (which is my native language) pronounces the sounds of the letters and such very similar to Korean. But thanks a lot : D