Hi! It's been a long time since I've uploaded a video in Korean.
Someone asked on my channel that I make a video about Korean books I use
So I'll try and show them here
I don't really know what my level is in Korean to be honest
Idk if I'm intermediate or advanced or whatever
I haven't taken the TOPIK exam before
Anyway today I'll show you some of my books
When I first started learning Korean I used Yonsei Korean textbooks
And right now I tutor Korean and I use these books with my students
Yonsei, as you know, is a university in Korea
and they make really good textbooks
I think the textbooks are really nice cause of the colorful pictures and good grammar explanations
It's a textbook I'd recommend
but it's often very formal
I don't think the textbook uses language that people really use in daily life
The book is really good but if you want to speak a but more naturally I'd suggest using other books at the same time or watching Korean movies or dramas to get used to natural language too.
If you always use the most formal way of speaking, it can sound a little awkward
If you wanna use more natural-sounding Korean, I wouldn't suggest limiting your resources only to textbooks.
Ok next book is this one
This is a prep book for the TOPIK exam (intermediate)
I did until around the middle of the book
and it's not finished yet but
I don't really have a goal of taking the TOPIK exam
but because I like grammar so much I use this book to learn new grammar structures.
Highly recommended
Next one is Sogang Korean [Writing]
Sogang is also a Korean university
I really like textbooks that have CDs in them
You can't just learn a language from looking at textbooks, your ears need to get used to hearing the natural language too
This book is for advanced writing practice cause whenever I write Korean I feel I'm always saying the same things
I'd like to sound a bit more advanced in my writing
So my friend got me this book
I haven't actually used it at all yet to be honest
But I think it will be excellent cause its made by Sogang university
Next up: learning another language through Korean
it's really important
Here's Thai, Mongolian and Indonesian [books written in Korean]
Hari ini means today etc etc
You can't see, right? One sec
You can see now right?
[explaining Indonesian words and their Korean meanings]
It's important to learn another language in this way because...
for example if you're learning Korean right now
and you want to learn another foreign language at the same time
you won't forget Korean cause you'll be seeing it so much
Even though you're learning another language, you won't forget Korean since it will be appearing in the book at the same time
But I think you should at least be at an intermediate level in Korean to be able to do this
While doing this you can practice 2 languages at the same time
For example in this Mongolian book, there are long paragraphs in Korean explaining things
So if there's a word I don't know in the text I can look it up and learn more Korean while actually learning Mongolian
And not just textbooks,
other books are good to use as well!
I'm really interested in design
so my friend got me this book about Korean typography
I suggest not just using books that TEACH the language but using books written IN the language you're learning
For example, I like fonts a lot and you can see here's a long explanation about something to do with typography
and of course while I read that I'll look up words I don't know
and its important to study something that you're interested in or find fun
Here's another book I used, called "Putting in order bad habits" or "cleaning up bad habits etc"
I wanna become a good person so sometimes I read books like this
Can you see?
Argh my eyes aren't the greatest either
Anyway books like these have really difficult words in them
so while reading the book I'll write down every single word I don't know and find their meanings
And not just that, I'll also write sentences down that struck a cord with me or sentences related to topics I find interesting
So I don't really use a lot of textbooks these days
I prefer reading interesting things related to my hobbies
Oh here is more!
Novels!
"What am I without you". I only read until here lol
Idk why I didn't finish the book
And this is "Our happy time", which is quite a famous book in Korea
I'd also recommend reading this
And magazines are important too
Wait a sec
Ta-dah!
It's meeee
I was in this magazine a few years ago when I was a high school student lol. Kinda embarrassing to think about it now
It's a good idea to learn vocab through reading magazines
And this might be a strange way to learn, but
why not try using books meant for Korean people to learn English?
This book is called "This is vocabulary" (lol)
this book is for Koreans studying English
It has quite a lot of advanced words, like...
BUT
There's Korean written in this book too, so for example
[reading Korean equivalents]
you can also learn Korean in ways like this.
And lastly I'd like to recommend this Korean Grammar in Use book
people online who blog about learning Korean often use this book so I think you guys might know it already
There's a grammar structure at the top
and explanations on how to use it
and then after that
"Shall we practice" section for practicing what you've learnt
and at the back there's an answer key so its good for those of you who self-study
Highly recommend this!
I sometimes use apps but I don't think I use many for Korean tbh
Twitter is a good way to study
I'm learning Vietnamese and there's a Korean account for people to learn Vietnamese on
As you can see it's for Koreans learning Vietnamese
And in this way I learn Vietnamese through Korean
After that, other Korean apps....
What's this? I haven't opened it before lol
There are nice quotes and positive articles here.
[reading titles]
Well yeah this app has content along the lines of positivity and nice things
Ok I spoke a lot but the main point is not to limit yourselves to textbooks but to expand your resources outside of that as well
Good luck with your Korean studies, I believe in you! See you in the next video, bye!