25에서 새로운 언어 배우기 (Learning a New Language at 25)

Growing up as an Asian-Amercian, I wasn’t taught my parent’s native tongue. I grew up hearing it though. Parents spoke to each other and family members in Tagalog, but always spoke English to me and my sister. I didn’t think anything of it then, but when I went to college, I asked my mom why she and dad didn’t bother teaching us how to speak Tagalog. My mom said that she didn’t want her kids to be made fun of for having a thick Filipino accent like some of our family members did. It just made me think “huh, that sucks. My mom was worried about that for us when we were at a young age.” Fortunately, I’ve heard Tagalog all my life, my parents and other family members would even speak to me in Tagalog, that I know enough to get by, but I can only respond in English. I didn’t find anything wrong with that, but I do wish that I can speak Tagalog fluently.

Now at 25, I’ve taken up learning a new language: Korean! One of my cousins is learning Korean as well and has given me a few resources that she uses (other than that she actually goes to Korean classes). At first, I have followed a few Tumblr blogs that offer Korean lessons for beginners as well as vocab lists. I’ve also used Duolingo. I’ve used Duolingo a lot, as the lessons take no more than 5 minutes, but after a few months, I didn’t feel like I was really learning the language. Duolingo is more of phrases of what to say, not necessarily teaching about sentence structure, grammar, and things alike. This is when I turned to Talk to Me in Korean.

I found Talk to Me in Korean to be very helpful! They not only teach you how to read and speak in Korean, but talk about culture as well and the difference between Korean and English (sentence structure-wise). They offer a wide selection of resources to help you learn, such as books that you can order as well as free online lessons that include PDF notes and a podcast to follow along with. They're also very active on their social media sites in case you have any questions while completing your lessons! I'v been using this site since last October and found myself getting better and reading and listening to Korean, especially for songs and shows. I'm still having trouble with speaking because of the pronunciation, and I lack the confidence to speak.

But anyways, I hope this post has helped you! If you do decided to learn Korean definitely check out Talk to Me in Korean.

Good luck!~

Talk to Me in Korean:

Twitter: twitter.com/ttmik

Facebook: facebook.com/talktomeinkorean

Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/talktomeinkorean