The BEST Free Korean Learning Resources | Fun & Underrated Tools to Get Fluent

Hello everyone! I'm sure by now you've seen my legendary how to get fluent in Korean within 12 months video. First of all, thank you so much for all the support under that video. This is only my second time making a Korean learning related video here on YouTube, but because of your big reaction on my previous one, I felt like I owe you another super useful Korean learning video. So I've already given you a foolproof plan to become fluent within 12 months. However, within the scope of the last video, I didn't really have time to share super super useful, fun, amazing resources with you that you can use. By resources, I mean apps, websites, things like that, that really really support you in your journey to becoming fluent in Korean. And I'm not talking about basic apps like Duolingo or Memrise. I don't have an issue with Duolingo and Memrise, but you don't need me to tell you to use Duolingo and Memrise, you know? I'm giving you the hidden gems that actually make learning fun and diverse. All of these resources are free, and I'm confident that they're super useful and you're going to be so happy about them. Before we dive into the free resources, I got my first sponsorship here on YouTube! Let me quickly talk about something that made a huge difference in my Korean learning journey. Preply. If you follow me on TikTok and on Instagram, you've probably seen me post about Preply over 10 times over the last year. I've shared about Preply so much because it genuinely helped me, and I will still post about them regularly. Now, I know this video is all about free resources, but hear me out. Preply offers one-on-one lessons tailored exactly to your needs and your schedule, whether you're a complete beginner who can't even read Korean yet, or you're super advanced like me. And unlike some platforms that just throw random lessons at you, Preply tutors actually adapt to your needs. That's how I managed to break through plateaus and improve. Plus, I have a special discount for you. Use the link in my description to get 50% off of your first lesson with a Korean tutor. So if you want that extra boost in your Korean level without wasting time or money, definitely check it out. If there's one paid resource worth investing money in, it's definitely Preply. Thank you, Preply, for sponsoring this video. And now, let's get back to all the amazing free resources you can use alongside Preply. My first recommendation is Orinidonga. You can basically translate it to children's newspaper, and that's what it is. Orinidonga is a website where you can find newspaper articles that were specifically written for Korean kids. I know you're not a Korean kid, but usually when we're learning a language, we are trying to learn like kids do because that's the way languages stick the best. When I was studying for the topic exam, the official Korean exam, I read an article on Orinidonga every day. And the way I went about it was that I would pick an article that I thought was interesting, and then I would look up every single word that I didn't know what it meant. And then I would study this vocabulary list of all the words that I had picked out. And this way, I could build up my newspaper-related vocabulary very fast. And also because it's a newspaper, you get to know interesting facts about Korea. It also has some like really cute topics like new scientific founds. It's not politically heavy or anything because it's for kids, and they don't want kids to be hit with the reality of this sad, sad world yet. So the articles are pretty fun to read. They're not depressing like the news these days are. Definitely check it out. The second resource that I want to recommend is Naver Webtoons. You guys have probably heard about Webtoons before if you were interested in Korea. Webtoons are basically a digital Korean-style comic comparable to manga. You can really conveniently read it by scrolling. So it's amazing to practice your Korean reading skills while you're outside, on the train, going to school, heading wherever. When you get Naver Webtoon, I recommend not reading like historical dramas or like really difficult dramas. I recommend going for something that's set in regular life. For example, lookism or anything like high school romance or things like that. Those usually use vocabulary that is very close to actual real-life Korean. In my case, I used to read 연애... Wait, what was it called? 연애협력이었나? 연애협력. Oh, yeah. When I was actively studying Korean, I was reading 연애협력 regularly. I don't know the English title. You're gonna read it in Korean, so you don't need the English title either. 연애협력. Translated, it means love revolution. Girl, it's amazing. I just love romance, okay? It's fun. It's funny. It's your usual high school drama, love story, comedy, all the good stuff. Honestly, reading 연애협력 on Webtoons, it really helped me speak Korean more naturally because there are expressions that you will never learn from textbooks and you probably will also never learn from any official learning resource because in Webtoons, the way the characters speak is how real Koreans speak to each other and some of these expressions, you will not see them anywhere. For example, 얘네가 뭐야? Like, you will not see 얘네. Or casual expressions like 나, you will never see them in textbooks. 너 뭐가 했지? Or like, when people say, what's he doing? They're not like, 그는 뭐 하는 거야? They're like, 걔가 뭐 하는 거야? 걔, 그 아이. Right? Things like that. Now, in case of Naver Webtoons, I didn't note every piece of vocabulary separately and then studied it because it's mostly daily language. What I recommend is just anytime you don't understand the word, look it up and once you've looked up the same word like three to five times, I think at one point, it will stick. I don't think you necessarily need to make a list and study it but depending on your level, feel free to... Yeah, that's right. When I suddenly started using like really Korean style slang SP was like, where did you learn all that? But sometimes I accidentally use expressions that were kind of rude. Yeah, proceed with caution. I'm going to assume that most of you are K-pop fans or K-drama fans and for those of you, I will recommend a really, really fun resource. Let's get to resource number three. This resource is perfect for the K-pop and K-drama fans among you. For you, I recommend reading entertainment news in Korean. That will keep learning fun and you will stay up to date on all the tea and all the gossip surrounding the celebrities here in Korea. If that's something of interest for you. Two entertainment news websites I can think of are either Dispatch. I'm sure you've heard about Dispatch. Just go on their Korean website to read the articles or also Star News or what you can also do is go on any regular Korean news website and go to the Yone section. The Yone section is basically where all the entertainment news surrounding celebrities is. I keep mentioning that you can look up the words that you don't know and for looking up words, I recommend the app Papago. I do not recommend Google Translate and I do not recommend any other translating app. I think Papago is the best to translate vocabulary on the go. Papago also always includes explanations and example sentences. So I think it's the best translator because it also gives you a bit of context. I'm also going to recommend an even more detailed translator in a couple of minutes. So keep watching. Now that we went through three resources that are good to practice your reading, I also want to recommend some resources that are good for your writing practice. So for writing practice, you remember in my Getting Fluent in Korean Within 12 Months video, I kept emphasizing that you should write a diary in Korean. Now you're writing the diary in Korean, but how do you know if you're making any mistakes or not? I personally think even if nobody's correcting your diary entries because it is something personal, it's super, super helpful. I don't think you have to have someone correct your diaries, but if you want someone to correct your diary entries, I recommend LangCorrect. LangCorrect is a website where you can submit a diary entry every day and then native Korean speakers correct it for you and it's free. That's crazy, right? Korean native speakers correct your diary entries, maybe for the tea, it's free. So try to write down super boiling hot tea so you always have a native speaker who agrees to correct it for you. Okay guys, I do have to admit though, I've never tested LangCorrect before because I personally never had my Korean diary entries corrected because I thought it was private. I've never had anyone correct my writing like that. However, I saw that a few of you asked for it, so I wanted to find a free resource that seems good. So LangCorrect seems pretty good. Or there are also a few renowned apps where you can just post your entries. However, I think this one is a bit more private, so definitely check it out. And if you have any feedback about it, please comment it below because I personally didn't test it. Sorry about that, but I want to be transparent with you guys. On this note, I also want to recommend Naver Dictionary. Naver Dictionary is so good. Whenever I look up a word, I look on Naver Dictionary if I want to see like a million example sentences. Naver Dictionary has so many example sentences. Naver Dictionary is available in so many languages, not just English, but like all the other languages that are out there. And the cool thing about Naver Dictionary is that it gives you a list of all possible translations that one single word could have. It also shows you the hanja writing of that word if it does have one. It also gives you like 50 example sentences of the expression that you're looking for. And you can also listen to all these example sentences. And guys, when you look up a word and you click on it, you can even choose if you want the example sentences to be elementary level, intermediate level, or advanced. And you can also choose if you want translations to be included or not, depending on if you want to study with these example sentences. That's so cool! There's also a section where you can practice conversation. You listen to the... There's also a section where you can practice your listening. You can practice your pronunciation by copying it. Naver Dictionary has everything. It has a reading section, a quiz section, listening, speaking, everything! I used to do the quizzes on Naver Dictionary all the time. You guys download it and try to explore all the functions. This video is too short for me to go through all the functions that are on Naver Dictionary. It's that comprehensive. So definitely check it out. It has literally everything. I've also gathered a couple of recommendations to practice your listening because I've seen a lot of you guys ask in the comments what kind of listening resources there are. So my first recommendation is the Talk To Me In Korean Iyagi series. You guys must have heard about Talk To Me In Korean anyway but I don't know if everybody's heard about their Iyagi series. The Iyagi series is very like daily live conversation that in my opinion is super easy to understand. The Iyagi series is basically a podcast and everyone on this podcast is a Korean teacher. So all of them have perfect pronunciation. It's really good for you to practice. And the cool thing is they also have downloadable transcripts so you can read along if you want to and go through all the vocabulary and study along. One app that I also want to recommend is Vlive. I used to watch Vlive all the time. It's where all these Korean stars go on live streams and I think it's a really good way for you to practice your listening not your reading along because I know when you watch a lot of Korean stuff a lot of times you will watch something with subtitles but on Vlive because it's live you have to listen. It's live streams by real people so usually it's very daily language and usually it's easy to follow. And at the same time you get to watch your favorite star so isn't that cool? Another listening resource that I recommend is KBS World Radio. On there you can listen to the news, you can listen to K-pop and you can also listen to online Korean classes. I think it's pretty fun and worth checking out. They have a lot of variety in their programs so definitely check it out and see if there's something that you're interested in listening to. Another, actually the best resource of them all I, me, yes me I'm going to upload vlogs only in Korean. So on this channel you will see vlogs where I only speak in Korean with SB or my friends or whoever so while watching a fun Korea vlog you can also practice listening to Korean. Yeah, don't forget about me when you check out all these resources. I'm here too. I mean in most of my vlogs that are already on my channel I use a mix of Korean and English however from now on I will be doing vlogs that are dedicated to only speaking in Korean so you get the most out of it. Not just entertainment but also language learning. Oh yeah, one tip that I have when you use any of these listening resources try to sometimes mimic what the people are saying and try to copy their pronunciation that way you will get more used to pronouncing in a natural way. I also have a few bonus recommendations. Number one is the MBC Documentary YouTube channel. On this YouTube channel you can watch documentaries about Korean culture, Korean history, Korean society and they also have subtitles. Because the topics are a bit more difficult I think the subtitles will help you follow along and also learn something about Korea not just the language. Bonus number two is On Demand Korea. On On Demand Korea you can watch Korean news, Korean dramas anything that's on Korean TV. Yes, for free. And bonus number three which is the final resource is Reddit. Specifically the r slash Korean subreddit. On this subreddit they have threads about anything related to learning Korean. They have lists and explanations about a bunch of different types of resources. I mean if you have Reddit you probably know how it works if you don't have Reddit. It's basically like a forum. So I recommend checking that subreddit out. Maybe it is for you. It's nice to, you know, get in touch with other people who are also learning Korean. It's nice to ask any of your questions. You can also ask for new resources on there. For example, you're like However, I don't have anyone who can check it for me. Can you guys take a look at this? And then you post it and they correct it for you. You know, it's nice. And everybody's pretty helpful over there. If someone's mean, please don't take it too hard. Reddit has some meanies but many people are nice. So there you have it. My top free Korean resources for every stage of your learning journey. As I like to say, no money, no current friends, no living in Korea, no problem. If you use these tools consistently, you will become fluent in Korean. Trust me. If you like this video, please like this video. Comment any questions that you might have. Please don't forget to subscribe. And also, if you haven't watched my 12 months plan to Korean fluency video yet, please check it out. Link here. This is the video. This is the only video that you need to become fluent in Korean. I'm just saying it's not a clickbait. Also, let me know in the comments if you are actively learning Korean right now. If you're participating in the Comment down below. Motivate each other. Show each other some love. Be encouraging. Don't be a negative Nancy. I know we can all do it and we can all get there. Thank you so much for watching. And we'll see you next week. Bye-bye. We'll see you next week. Bye-bye.