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What was it like for you to learn how to type in Korean on a keyboard? I'm two semesters so far in my Korean classes. One of my keen challenges has been typing in Korean on my smartphone and computer. Google's 10-key is easy enough. However, using a keyboard makes me feel like I'm in grade school learning to touch type all over again. Your story? Recommendations? Tips?

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  • What about typing romanization? On a macbook there is an input method called "HNC Romaja" that lets you do this. (Sorry I have no idea what HNC actually stands for.) Personally it took no more than a week for me to get completely used to it.
    – user23823
    Jan 28, 2020 at 12:20
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    I would advise against "romaja" if you're serious about learning Korean - Hangul is different enough from Latin alphabet that you will end up with a lot of ad-hoc rules for disambiguation. E.g., how would you disambiguate 시비/십이 or 갔다/갖다/같다.
    – jick
    Jul 29, 2020 at 17:41
  • At this point in my learnings, I have to absolutely agree! Romanization, even though carefully systematic, is something I had to wean off from. Haha, I love your examples of ambiguity. Aug 2, 2020 at 1:07

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First I'm Korean.

I think my keyboard layout same as yours.

left hand controls 모음(ㄱ,ㄴ,ㄷ,...,ㅎ) right hand controls 자음(ㅏ,ㅓ,ㅗ,ㅜ,...,ㅣ)

So, almost Hangul type sequence like left, right, left, right.

Practice typing in Korean helps you get used to it.

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    I've found Hangul to be beautifully designed because it makes sense! Unlike so many things in English... keyboard layout too! Matter of practicing then I suppose. Jan 29, 2020 at 20:27
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Practice, practice, practice.

But! Practice smart. Despite other's recommendations, I would highly discourage anyone from buying stickers or Korean keyboard – typing is supposed to be in your muscle memory, any good touch typing course will tell you not to look at the keyboard at all.

If you don't know how to touch type properly in English yet, I'd recommend doing that first, the time investment is small and the returns are huge, both in terms of learning to type other languages and other implications in life. (Good and free English touch typing course I liked typingclub.com.) Start with Korean shortly after you learn to which keys each finger belongs to. You can proceed without any specialized exercises and you'll pick up confidence and speed naturally, both in English and in Korean. (But don't look, ha!)

Practice – if you don't know the Korean layout yet, have an image open, but try to look as little as possible. (Obviously when starting you'll be only looking, that's ok though.)

Practice sites:

  • typeracer.com – full sentences, unfortunately accuracy score doesn't work for Korean (my favorite)
  • 10fastfingers.com – only basic words, no punctuation, good for beginners
  • memrise.com – Memrise is an SRS (spaced repetition software, i.e. learning words), but the main part of their process is a type of exercise that allows you to type the words – this has helped me a ton personally

I knew how to type English before, but I properly relearned to touch type last year about two months before I started learning Korean. After a year of learning Korean I get the result of 39 WPM on Typeracer and 50 WPM on 10fastfingers (both in Korean of course).

(I am not sponsored by any of these sites.)

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    When I first bought stick-on Hangeul covers for my keyboard, it was painful AF haha. But, I remembered how awkward it was too when I was first learning to touch type in junior high. Suppose there is no special trick; just gotta practice like you said! Aug 2, 2020 at 1:10
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I recommend getting a cover for your keyboard, but it's really important that you don't look unless you absolutely need to (muscle memory). Really it comes down to practicing every day, starting slow by typing little things. I've used the Practice section on the TypeRacer website for some guidance. It's just a website where you practice typing quotes as fast as possible, the beauty of it is you can practice alone or compete with strangers and it's a minute. If you do it once a day when you get home from classes then you'll be proficient in no time.

edit: 없 is the hardest thing to type, ever.

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  • Got some stick-on covers for my keyboard ! Aug 2, 2020 at 1:08
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If you don´t have a Korean physical keyboard, I would recommend you to buy one online or add those Hangul stickers to yours and practice like @Salvatore DePalma said. This can help for a while.

But in my opinion, the crucial thing is to memorize the position of the keys so that you can type in Korean as fast as you would in your native language using any type of keyboard. Finally after years of typing Korean really slowly, I am now able to type anything, even using a standard international keyboard without the Hangul markings.

I used the excellent mnemonics from this page (https://www.90daykorean.com/typing-in-korean/). You can check the Step 3: Memorize the Korean Keyboard Layout. Once you master the consonants (which are on the left side of the 두벌식 keyboard, you only have to memorize 3 sentences), start memorizing the vowels on the right side, for those I really did not need any special sentences because I memorized that K equals ㅏ, H equals ㅗ and so forth. After you are familiar with these tricks, start practicing a lot with a regular international keyboard and don´t use the cover for a while. Eventually you will know by heart the position of most/all keys.

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If you have an iPad you can add languages to your keyboard. Then you can press on the globe at the bottom left of your keyboard and a dialogue box or drop down menu appears and you can select what language you want to type.

Go to settings, type keyboard in the search box at the top, the keyboard page will show with more than likely English as the keyboard language. On the bottom of that page it says, 'Add new keyboard' press that and a selection shows up in the drop down menu alphabetized. You can then select Korean or 한글. I have 4 languages added. Hope this helps. Once you have the keyboard, just memorize it. Only takes 2/3 weeks.

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