TTMIK
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Talk To Me In Korean got a makeover!
If you read my blog regularly, you know that I’m a big fan of Talk To Me In Korean. For more than ten years they have consistently delivered the best and most fun materials for Korean learners worldwide and they’ve just taken it to the next level. Previously a great deal of their materials were…
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Book review: Your First Hanja Guide
Regular readers of my blog will know that I’m a strong advocate of learning basic Chinese characters (called Hanja in Korean) if you are serious about learning Korean. Not because you’ll necessarily need to be able to read them to get by in Korea, but because around 60-70% of all Korean words have a Hanja…
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Inappropriate Korean
Not that I advocate broadcasting your knowledge of inappropriate, suggestive, or lewd Korean to everyone, but sometimes it’s useful to be able to decode what Koreans say, even when they say something that may sound seemingly innocent. A few decades ago, a guy might have had other motives than exclusively philatelic interests if he asked a girl to…
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One-minute Korean
While I sure recommend that you spend more than just one minute per day when you’re learning Korean, there’s a certain satisfaction in cramming a short and effective Korean lesson into your busy schedule. Our awesome teachers at TTMIK have recently introduced such a series called “One-minute Korean”. In this one-minute youtube video series the teachers take turns…
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Tips for improving your Korean speaking skills
Once again, I’ve reached a point where I feel that my Korean skills are developing a bit asymmetrically. I’m reading faster than ever, I understand most of what is being said around me as long as the topic isn’t too technical, and I generally feel quite comfortable with the language. So, what’s the problem? Lately,…
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Improve your Korean skills with TTMIK’s “Real-life conversations”
First of all, happy new year everyone! And don’t worry, I actually do know what date it is today. Though not really celebrated in the West, today marks the first day of the new year according to the lunar calendar. As of today we are now in the year of the monkey, and these days all Koreans…
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My best Korean book purchase yet: A review of TTMIK’s “News in Korean”
Regular readers of my blog will be fully aware that I’m a HUGE fan of TTMIK and all the awesome materials that they make available to us – mostly for free! As a long-time subscriber to their service “News in Korean” where you received 6 short articles every week complete with full study notes, vocabulary lists…
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In the news: Why young Koreans migrate to Northern Europe
This morning when I sat down to study Korean I had a hard time deciding on what to study first. So, I started out with a little facebook procrastination. In my defense my facebook feed is almost entirely in Korean since I don’t really use facebook for anything besides keeping in contact with Korean friends, following Korean…
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The law of large (Korean) numbers…
When I’m not living out my inner (Korean speaking) polyglot on this blog, I’m actually working as an economist specializing in policy evaluation. Over the past few weeks I’ve learned lots of valuable vocabulary from my TTMIK News subscription that has made it so much easier to explain in Korean what I do for a living.…
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The challenges of building vocabulary (…and how TTMIK once more saved the day)
In my recent book haul from www.heyeonni.com in Korea, I got two books on how to prepare for the TOPIK. While I’m still undecided about whether I should actually sign up for the test in October, I convinced myself that educating myself on the format of the TOPIK probably wouldn’t hurt. I soon realized that my supposedly “solid vocabulary”…
Sofie to Korea 