Korean Language Basics

In 2008 I will be going to South Korea to teach English for 12 months, and setting up this blog was partly because I was looking for somewhere to blog the journey, I am very much looking forward to doing this, as it will be a very welcome break from my normal job of computer programmer, but it will also give me an oppurtunity to catch up with some Korean friends and live and breath the culture, lifestyle and especially the food of a country I have grown to love.

A couple of other members of my family are coming with me, so I have been looking around for a basic language site for those who care to give the langauge a go. The tour2korea website has a very nice Korean for beginners section available here.

Like most of the sites I have found on the web they tend to start easy and getting increasingly hard very quickly. Realistically there is about 2 years of study between
learning hangul and chapter two of this page.

Some members of my family are looking forward to the fact that they will not know what other people are saying for a year, so they are not wanting to learn the language. After spending a couple of minutes in a line at your local shopping centre it is easy to understand this frame of mind.

Most of the web-sites I have seen talking about teaching language in Korea say that you don’t need to know the language but if you do it would be a big benefit.