Recommended resources/tools/websites to get started

Totally agree, it helped me out too - though I didn’t make much progress because I didn’t have a lot of time to study, I do know that once I pick it up again (soon) this is the site I’m starting my Korean learning journey with ^^

1 Like

I see that there are an app of seemile too.
Don’t worry, the important thing is don’t give up! Fighting!

1 Like

I’ve been seeing a lot of “learn korean with kpop” videos, and they really help so I decided to start making some for chinese instead.

(is this the right place to post this?)
and uhh…I’m not really sure what I’m doing, so please give me some feedback (and also maybe learn some Chinese?) thanks~ :slight_smile:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E09Ly2E0v7M

I think the best way to learn a language is by watching series, films, from there, listening to music, etc. It helps a lot. It makes you be used to listen another language and see how words are put in the sentence.
As webpages, I definitely recommend Memrise.
Also, I bought some time ago two books that are really helpful. One is this: http://www.hanbooks.com/hekovo1lewil.html . It comes with two DVD’s, and the voice narrator is Lee Jun Ki’s :heart::heart::heart:
And the other one is a Korean “fairytales” book for elementary learners and children, that contains some traditional Korean stories, such as “The Filial Daughter”, but, apart from that, at the end of a story, you have a list with vocabulary from that story, and is very useful. I discovered that, although my Korean level is very, very, very basic, I can understand the stories, because I know some expression from the k-dramas and for that vocabulary from the end of each story. The book is this one: http://www.koreanlanguagebooks.com/learn-korean-reader.pdf . It’s actually a preview of the book.
I bought both book from a library from Spain, but, as you could check, they’re actually in English.

I hope it will help someone :slight_smile:

I bought that Hello Korean book too years ago and by now they also have a volume 2 and 3 I thought. To be honest I won’t recommend it to an absolute beginner, as in never saw a Kdrama, heard Kpop or doesn’t know any Hangul, because the CD’s can be very confusing because there is no English on them so it would be great if you know a bit Korean. But maybe that\s just me, I was very confused because there was not even a tiny bit of English. Took me a while to study with it properly.

Anyone have suggestions for mobile apps that are good for learning Chinese?

talktomeinkorean.com, memrise(app), anki (app and computer program, youtube (accounts like Yangyang Chen, Fiona Tian, talktomeinkorean, and many many more) and the list of apps are endless but memrise and anki are my favourites.

1 Like

I just remembered that there are also language games for the Nintendo DS for the ones who like to play games while learning the language a bit :smile: I don’t think that you can get fluent with those games and it’s limited but maybe it’s a nice extra or a fun way to start. Specially for children. I know 2 series:

  • “My (insert language) Coach” which has Japanese, Chinese, French, Spanish and I believe German. I tried the Japanese one while trying to learn Japanese and the tiny games where fun but to bad they do teach you the wrong stroke order.
  • “Mind Your Language” has Japanese, Spanish, French, German and English. Tried the Japanese one and I didn’t like it, I liked the other game more.
2 Likes

For Mandarin:
Apps:
Ipad only I think --> Chineseskill. It’s icon is a panda. I’m LOVING this app right now. It works essentially like Duolingo does; so it’s sort of immersion. It shows you pictures for the vocab (and says it out loud) and that’s how you learn the characters. You can choose to turn off romanization, or have it show alongside the Chinese characters. There are also tonnes of review options separate from the lesson blocks.
Ipod and Ipad --> Skritter. It has a red icon. It’s not free, but you do get a free week trial. It’s incredibly helpful for working on the characters specifically as it makes you write them, practise tones, meaning, and has voice clips for them too.
Ipod --> Librivox. This app has limited resources in comparison to its website, but it does have a bunch of readings from Confucius. If you have the text sitting in front of you, you can listen to recordings of it and try to match the words up with the text.

Non-apps
CCTV.com --> This Chinese broadcast station website has AMAZING archives with a bunch of Mandarin lessons, from beginner to advanced. I enjoy the “Growing up with Chinese” series, although it can sometimes jump ahead of itself. If you have the basics down and want to challenge yourself, try the “Travel in Chinese” series with DaShan. He’s an interesting teacher and although there were many things that weren’t covered, I still understood most as I think it also used “immersion” learning (aided by the little things he did explain). http://cctv.cntv.cn/lm/learningchinese/01/

YouTube search --> If you look for things like “Intermediate Chinese lessons”, or “Mandarin lessons”, you will often find at least one episode in a series. If you click on the name of the person who posted it, you may find that they have posted the whole series too! One that I like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3lv3kZNc4Y (but there are so so so many awesome ones!)


For Korean…I second what everyone else has said with TTMIK. I started using this after I learned hangul (which I can’t remember where I learned), and I’ve found it to be super helpful. I’ve made it into the middle of level four, and I always go back to refresh grammar that I’m unsure of. I also like the instruction on Seesmile: they are very patient and very helpful teachers (and they have some lessons on YouTube).

Apps: (These may work on other devices, but I’ve listed what I use it on)
Ipod --> Pop Popping Korean pronunciation. It’s icon looks a bit like a children’s app, but I swear it’s useful for everyone. It helps with pronunciation of Hangul…it’s great.
Ipod --> Memrise (again). Make sure to login and load your courses on a computer and then they will appear on the app. TTMIK has a few, and I also like “1000 most common Korean words”,
Ipod --> Hellotalk. If you want a native Korean speaking penpal, and don’t mind helping with English, this is a great app to meet people. This app caters to many other language speakers too, but the Korean population on here is incredibly active and responsive.
Ipod --> Lextalk - Also another penpal app. It’s not as active, but it has a better dictionary/translation service than HelloTalk.
Ipod and Ipad --> Korlink. This is TTMIK’s app - it has all of their grammar lessons and intermediate talks. Super functional as you are able to listen to the podcast and read the pdf at the same time.

non-apps:
Website: CultureQuote. I was given this link recently for a pdf file of a workbook. They have three of them on there: beginner, intermediate, and immersion beginner. I think all three look amazing…and right now, they’re free. Full length workbooks. Excellent for self study/forcing yourself to practise. http://culturequote.wordpress.com/korean/

For other languages…
Skritter also has a Japanese version.
I also liked the Japanesepod101 lessons - they give you a free trial and it’s helpful for beginning to listen to the podcasts.

French, German, Spanish are all covered by the Duolingo app if you select Canada/UK/USA as your “home” country. The lessons get steadily harder and are immersion based/work on the noticing theory (you notice new grammar and patterns to learn the meaning; if you don’t, you can’t move on).

I found a really helpful language learning website. It has a lot of German language learning helps, like how to watch German TV online and where to find easy-to-read texts to learn German, but there are also articles that are appropriate for all languages. This one is about how the brain learns language best through story (and with all the content on Viki, we have plenty of access to story).

http://learnoutlive.com/your-brain-on-storytelling-foreign-language-learning-through-stories/

1 Like

Also Pinterest has a many language learning helps. Search for your language. I found this on Pinterest:

Pinterest.com

2 Likes

Yay I will get a new phone this week or next week and I can’t wait to try all the apps mentioned earlier. My phone was too old to run them and now it almost completely died so now it’s really time for a new one. The only app on my phone I sometimes used was “Dokidoki postbox” but there are so many pervents on there.

i.m happy for you :smile:
but have you ever tried Bluestacks, application that can make you have an android on your pc/mac… it’s freeware^^

Yeah I tried and it almost gave me a heart attack because when I wanted to run it my mac seriously crashed for the first time since I bought it and I had no back up yet :scream:

i experience that a lot since i like to try a lot of things… hope you dont lose too many data :smile:
bluestack work fine on my pc, anyway

I like memrise on my phone better then on my mac, it’s a lot easier when you want to write the answer. I still have to get used to the 2-set Sebulshik system since I used roman input since that was easier to learn how to pronounce things a little. Maybe I should buy keyboard stickers but I don’t want to ruin my keyboard and I’m not sure they are easy to remove.

I also wanted to start using seemile but I saw that only the first lessons are free. How much does a lesson cost and is it really worth it when you also learn with TTMIK, Hello Korean, Memrise etc. I mean it’s a bit of a waste to spend money on a lesson which contains stuff I already know.

Take a look at seemile on Youtube. I believe all the lessons are ALL there and free. Plus they do some topik review videos.
I put Hangul stickers on my keyboard initially, but now I don’t need them. They are removable so once you memorize the keyboard you can just pull them off.

1 Like

Thanks for the suggestion :slight_smile:
Let’s buy some stickers from ebay later, I just gonna ask the seller if they are easy to remove without any damage otherwise I just use an other keyboard for my learning. I have 2 keyboards anyway.

1 Like

Girl! This is so helpful! Thanks! Thanks to you I know more sides :smile:

Hey! So.

For French I could recommend perhaps memrise, duolingo, and an apple app called mindsnacks (it’s super fun). They all can work for other languages as well.

For Korean I could recommend Talk to me in korean, memrise, watching videos on YouTube of learning Korean with kpop. First is better you learn Hangeul. Trust me, it would be easier.

Anyways, I know I’ve forgotten some so…
http://thelanguagecommunity.tumblr.com/post/90276172425/so-you-want-to-learn-a-language-tips

In that Tumblr post there’s some tips for learning a new language and in that same Tumblr page you can find resources for every language you wish for. Trust me. Good luck learning new languages guys!!

:smile: :wink: :smile: