How I Learn Korean Vocabulary

Learning a wide variety of Korean grammar structures is vital for anyone who wants to achieve a high level of fluency. Different grammar structures can indicate whether a sentence is a command or request, indicate the past, present, and future tenses, indicate expressions of opinion or surprise, pose questions, and so much more.

However!

There are so many times when I just don’t have the right vocabulary to talk about specific items or topics, or when I can’t understand what I’m listening to or reading even though I know the grammar structure being used!

That’s why learning and studying vocabulary has always been my favorite language learning activity. While knowing various grammar structures is certainly important, I’ve always felt that knowing a lot of vocabulary would be more useful for me in the long run. Since I know enough Korean grammar to express myself and get by in my day-to-day life, I prefer to focus most of my energies on acquiring more vocabulary so that I can understand and talk about a wider range of topics.

So today, I’m going to introduce some of my favorite books, apps, and methods for studying Korean vocabulary! There are so many great vocabulary resources out there, so keep reading if you’d like to learn more!

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[Review] Power Up! Korean Vocabulary

Yesterday, I finally got through to the end of one of my study materials that I’ve been holding on to for a very long time! I started working my way through this book months ago and I feel very satisfied having finally gotten to the end. It’s quite a small book, so it only made a very small dent in my large pile of Korean textbooks, but it’s a dent all the same.

Power Up! Korean Vocabulary is published by Korea University and includes 500 useful Korean vocabulary words as well as an illustrated index with even more words. Today I will be going into detail about the structure and contents of this book, as well as my preferred methods for studying with this text.

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Getting Back into K-Dramas with “Strong Girl Bong-Soon”

There was a time in my life where I easily binge-watched entire dramas because I couldn’t get enough of the larger-than-life plot lines and characters. But life, as it does, gets in the way and over the past few years I’ve lost touch with the whole world of k-dramas. Which is such a shame, because I actually really love dramas! They’re fun, fantastical, romantic, unbelievable, hilarious, colorful, and endearing.

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My Korean Language Journey Thus Far

Hey guys, it’s Veronica.

I’ve been studying Korean off and on for a few years now so I thought it was time to take a look back at my journey and to also refocus my goals for the future. I’ll be sharing some information about why I first became interested in Korean, different methods I’ve used over the years, how I’m learning currently, and what I want to accomplish in the future. I won’t be sharing very many specific resources in this post as I plan to make more focused posts (and videos) about each category of learning materials like apps, books, websites, and more, so please keep an eye out for these topics in future posts. Until then, if you are interested in hearing how I got started and my journey thus far, please read on!

(I also made a video about my journey, so if you’re a TL;DR kind of person, you should scroll down to watch that instead of reading through the following novel. Haha!)

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Holy crap…

I just finished making a Cram deck for the Day 1 vocabulary words from TOPIK in 30 Days…and it took me over an hour and a half I think. I wasnt timing it but my body is sore now hahaha.

Just to give you an idea, each chapter has 33 base or root words, and some of the words have several stem or related words. So in total, I made 101 flashcards for all of the words.

Hopefully next time I can do this faster because as of now I’m still pretty slow at typing what I’m reading in Korean.

But yay! I’M FINISHED! And ready for the week ahead.

My Korean Study Plan

I’ve been living in South Korea for about 8 months now and I don’t really feel like I’ve been progressing as quickly as I should be. It’s been harder than I anticipated to learn and study Korean, since at work I mostly speak English (I’m an English teacher after all) and I hang out with English-speaking friends. But I had a kind of breaking point recently, and it was because of something seemingly simple.

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