level changes and hangeul advice

[Bouks]

I was just wondering about how to progress from one level to another in the Korean lessons. Is it good to do Newbie and Beginner lessons at the same time, or get most of the Newbie lessons done (that are available) and start Beginner? Should I wait until I know hangeul well before I start the Beginner lessons? Or is it anything we feel like?

I would also like to ask for any suggestions for learning hangeul. It doesn't seem to stick in my brain (that is not the fault of KClass, it's mine). Does anyone have any tricks to learning that they found effective?

[javiskefka]

Try practicing writing all the words that you know over and over until you have memorized what each letter sounds like. Next you can just look at any Korean text at all and practice reading it out loud. It doesn't matter if you don't know what it means. How about the web portal naver.com?

Oh yeah, and if you practice writing, it's important to know that the different letters are all written in a particular 'stroke order'. For example, the letter 'ㄹ' has three strokes. First is the top part, which looks like ㄱ and is written smoothly from left to right. Next is the horizontal line in the middle ㅡ which is also written from left to right and connects to the bottom of the first stroke. Third is the stroke ㄴ at the bottom, starts at the left endpoint of the middle stroke and curves down and to the right.

These three form:
ㄱ
ㅡ
ㄴ
=
ㄹ

I know that there is a resource here on Koreanclass101 for learning how to read and write hangul. I actually learned in a classroom several years ago, but it really just takes a bit of practice, and soon you will be able to sound out anything.

[steved]

I think doing the Newbie and Beginner classes together would be no problem. As you know, the key to learning any foreign language is exposure and practice.

As for learning hangul, for me anyway, the key was to break it down into individual letters to take some of the mystery and complexity out of the syllables. The vowels seem easier that the consonants. I am sure there is some rational reason behind the shapes of the consonants but I don't know it. The vowels follow a logical pattern. The vertical vowels ㅏ, ㅓ and their compounds ㅑ, ㅕ, ㅐ, ㅔ are all pronounces with the mouth somewhat open (say 'ahh' but don't stick out you tongue, I'm not a dentist ), ㅗ, ㅜ with the mouth round, and ㅡ , ㅣ with the teeth close together. One of you linguists out there could do a much more technical job of explaining this but I hope this helps... seems like I have done this before... Anyway, if you look at the similarity of the letters and their sounds then they should become more managable.

Hope this helps...

[Bouks]

Steve-ssi, thank you for pointing that out. I hadn't noticed that before. Having a little bit of logic to the shapes does make a difference for me. I can't find a pattern to the consonant shapes either, but I'm starting to catch on a bit, and I think I can identify about a third of them.

Javiskefka-ssi, I'm taking your advice, and I have been writing all of my vocabulary words. It started out very awkward, now it's just somewhat awkward. I know enough from studying Japanese kana and kanji to understand that stroke order should be respected, but boy does it drive me crazy sometimes.

Thanks for the web portal link!