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Background

How to study Korean. Hmm... I'm interested in learning Korean... I know how to read it... Maybe I'll click on that...

99.9999% of Korean grammar and 9000+ Korean words?! Whoah! That sounds way too good to be trustworthy and real. I am a devout completionist learner when it comes to languages, I learn every single word and grammar point until there is no more.

Question

Will How to Study Korean really make me a Korean-speaking master?

Will I need to supplement it with other things, or can the website do what it claims it does, and make you require nothing else. I don't believe it, because I think that listening practice, conversation practice and other real-life kinds of practices are really important in language learning, as I don't want to sound like a textbook.

Is it possible to learn Korean using only How to Study Korean?

Of course, I personally am not only going to use that site because I don't want to sound like a textbook. I'll supplement my learning with listening practice, a few native speakers, practice every day, conversational practice, etc.

But what are the answers to the above two questions?

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    I think the answer to the first question is fairly obviously 'no', to be honest; however good a resource is, and however easily you absorb it, you are going to have to take the time and effort to connect the knowledge you've learned with your own real life.
    – Нет войне
    Commented Dec 1, 2016 at 22:17
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    Frankly, the closer you get to a single source that would near 'completion' the nearer you are getting to an actual dictionary. They claim to have a fairly complete grammar, but what constitutes 'completion' in grammar is highly debatable. Regardless, the claim of only 9000+ words should be a giveaway to what the scope of the project is. Regardless of this though, it doesn't mean it wouldn't be a good starting place.
    – msg45f
    Commented Dec 1, 2016 at 22:54

2 Answers 2

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I learned Korean exactly with this website at the first point.

It actually don't really cover many grammars, at least not 99.99% as the writer quoted. It is definitely not the professional in terms of vocabularies and pronunciations.

However, by learning through this site, you will be able to communicate in complete sentence more easily. Plus, since it focuses on the "stem", it could help you to understand grammars that you may never have got in touch. That helps a lot in terms of understanding an article or conversations more quickly. You could utter a sentence just as a Korean does if you understand the concepts and practice.

So you should start learning grammar through this site first as grammar is the very way to go when learning languages. Vocabularies can be memorized by practice or recite, and don't need many guidance, but grammar is not.

Most importantly though, always practice. howtostudykorean.com only inspires you the way to correctly practice your Korean, but it requires your willingness to practice, after all.

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  • Haha, I'd learn every single word for every single lesson to utter completion. Did you start off with this site though?
    – Featherball
    Commented Dec 2, 2016 at 15:32
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Useful website, but quirky and unprofessional to say the least. I have read through the better part of it, and while it contains some very useful information and lots of examples, it also contains no shortage of errors and incorrect assumptions by the author which aren't always identified as the guesses that they are....so take it all with a grain of salt, and make sure and find other sources for anything you find questionable.

The guy did a lot of work, no doubt about it, but he didn't seem to really ground himself in some of the basics first.

I should add that you DO NOT want to learn 99% of Korean grammar, since 60-70% of it is so rare as to be a waste of time and a source of potential confusion as much as anything. What you want is to learn the 20-30% that covers 90%+ of what is usually used by most people these days. A book such as Korean Grammar for International Learners, while pretty complete, contains page after page of stuff you probably will never see, and certainly don't need to memorize! Consider that a reference! Anyways, this website doesn't begin to cover most of that...I don't even know why anyone would make such a ridiculous claim to begin with, really....?? But good thing it isn't true!

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  • interesting... any examples of the kind of errors/assumptions to watch for?
    – Нет войне
    Commented Dec 23, 2016 at 13:36
  • honestly, it's been a couple of years since i read most of it, so it would be hard to give specifics. i have studied from many sources, maybe 15 books, a dozen websites, over 100 language partners, and let me say that you find a lot of disagreement. if anything seems questionable for whatever reason, seek some alternative sources to find if they match. the book i mention is probably the single most accurate source and you should have it on your desk as kind of the final say...just remember that half of it is either very rare or nearly archaic..one advantage of websites like you asked about.
    – B. Alvn
    Commented Dec 24, 2016 at 3:35

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