Learn To Speak Korean

Trying to learn to speak Korean without any experience with the language is a difficult challenge.  Unless you already speak a language with some similar roots, such as Japanese, or some dialect of Chinese, it is a daunting task to learn to speak Korean.  Indeed, learning any new language is always hard when you have no knowledge of a similar language.

There are a lot of classes and programs out there you can take to learn to speak Korean, just like any other language.  There are also some great computer based language learning programs to help you learn to speak Korean as well.  The one I recommend most is called Rosetta Stone.

Rosetta Stone is a fantastic interactive program and online resource to help you learn just about any new language you’d ever want to learn, including Korean.  Advertised in just about every magazine I’ve picked up in the last year, it is exploding in popularity everywhere around the world.  I’ve been using the program to learn Spanish, though the methods used in Rosetta Stone would be just as effective in helping you learn to speak Korean as well.

What you want to look for if you’re trying to learn to speak Korean is a program that starts you from scratch, rather than trying to translate everything from one langue into Korean.  Unless you already speak some Korean, or some similar language, translating is going to make learning to speak Korean take ages.  First of all, many things don’t translate form English to Korean or vice versa.  Secondly, translating is just an additional step you have to take that makes the whole process that much more tedious.  The nice thing about Rosetta Stone is that it teaches you new languages the same way you learn your first language; by associated images, sounds, and texts together without any memorizing or translating. 

If you’ve taken language classes before in high school or college, the methods used in Rosetta Stone or programs like it will seem a little unusual but it is a very intuitive style that will feel very natural to you in now time at all.  If you want to learn to speak Korean, I definitely recommend it.  Additionally, use whatever program you go with in conjunction with renting Korean movies, watching Korean TV (if you get it) or even better, hanging out with Korean people.  Learning the lessons in a program is one thing, but then hearing them in action in real life is another.