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With more than 71 million people worldwide who speak Korean, an increasing number of providers are offering lessons to help people progress in their use of the language. Whether you have ancestry in North or South Korea, have business interests in Korea, or you're fascinated by K-Pop music and want to sing along fluently, these language programs can teach you how to speak, understand, and often write in Korean.
You may not know that Korean differs significantly from Chinese and Japanese in terms of its writing system. Where Chinese and Japanese both use a character-based method, Korean is based on an alphabet known as hangul (or hangeul). Here, symbols represent consonants and vowels much like the English alphabet. This can make the learning process easier for students, as they only need to memorize symbols and their pronunciation rather than thousands of characters.
Monday, January 25th
Rocket Languages uses a wide variety of methods to help students converse in beginning to intermediate Korean and has more than 120 hours of language lessons. Because of its many positive customer reviews and affordable pricing backed by a 60-day money-back guarantee, Rocket Languages is our top pick for Korean lessons.
When you think of language instruction outside of a traditional classroom, you probably think of Rosetta Stone. Their Korean language lessons are comprehensive and use audio, video, and written lessons to help learners of all types. Regular pricing can be expensive, but Rosetta Stone frequently offers discounts to make their programs more affordable.
Transparent Language offers Korean instruction through an online subscription geared towards adults, and with a KidSpeak desktop program for Windows computers. Overall, Transparent gives learners less formal direction within the structure of their lessons than we found with other programs, so Transparent Language may be best suited for self-directed students who can motivate themselves to progress through the program.
Living Language makes use of today's modern tools-tablets, mp3 players, and so on-to put Korean language lessons at arm's reach. They also have print and audio instruction for students who prefer a more traditional approach. Unfortunately, Living Language does not offer their most robust package, Platinum, to Korean language learners at this time.
Pimsleur is known for delivering foreign language instruction via 30-minute audio lessons. If you find that you learn from what you hear, rather than what you see or read, Pimsleur is a proven way to approach learning the Korean language. On the other hand, if you need to be able to recognize written Korean as well, Pimsleur may not provide the instruction you seek.
Pronounced "link", LingQ teaches Korean by making use of Korean texts and native speaker "helpers", who work with students to give them more native-quality speaking and reading ability. We feel that LingQ's point-based, pay-per-use system for making those connections leaves students unsure of how much it will actually cost to learn Korean, and the lack of an English transliteration of the Korean text increases the difficulty for students.
When choosing a Korean language program, you should have your language goals in mind. If your primary focus is to master conversational language - perhaps you'll be teaching English in Seoul for six months, or just visiting on an extended vacation - you may not need to focus heavily on understanding the written language, and an audio-based approach may be the perfect fit.
On the other hand, if you expect to use the Korean language in a variety of settings and need to be able to read and write in Korean as well as speak it, be sure to choose a program that will address those needs. No matter what your goals are, the best Korean lessons use a variety of strategies to help learners, from flashcards and images to audio lessons and pronunciation practice.
What should you look for as you compare Korean language programs? There are several factors to consider, including the following:
TopConsumerReviews.com has reviewed and ranked the best Korean Lessons programs available today. We hope these reviews help you learn Korean quickly and easily!
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