Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Shauneyz]

Necessary or not?

I'm not talking about learning with any sort of fluency, or even being somewhat conversational. It would put my mom a little more at ease if I told her that I bought Rosetta Stone and have been studying for a couple months prior to going there...but is that really necessary? Ideally, I'd want to go there with just a few phrases and try to "get by" in a very adventurous but stupid way.

[globalgirlk]

I don't know if it's necessary or not but Rosetta Stone is ridiculously expensive. Try google searching for Korean phrases or something. That way you'd know something by the time you got there. Good luck!

[maeil]

I would definitely suggest learning Hangul, the writing system, before arriving. As the previous poster said though, you don't need to spend money on it. There are plenty of free resources out there, and learning Hangul should only take a few days at the most. Learn a few basic greetings and "I need ______" sentences, and you will be miles ahead of many other native teachers here.

The need for Korean ability goes up the further you get away from a major city, however, so if you're living in the sticks it will probably be worth your time to study a bit before you arrive.

[Ya-ta Boy]

I agree with maeil. Skip the words and phrases until you get here--your pronunciation won't be any good anyway. Focus on learning the alphabet. It only takes a few hours to get a handle on the letters.

I suggest using city names and food names to practice with.

[mnhnhyouh]

I support the suggestion that learning to read the Korean alphabet will help and should be a first step.

Then I would learn

1) Hello
2) Both goodbyes.
3) Sorry
4) How to say where you come from
5) How to count in the Sino-Korean system (used for money)

h

[Shauneyz]

[Shauneyz]

[nicholas_chiasson]

Don't bother. You will enjoy the sheer culture shock of not knowing what you eating, buying, or where you are going. Anything less is not a 'real' experience. Don't chicken out. Nothing is better than being at a rural bus stop with no clue where you are going...

[Shauneyz]

[tselem]

[njp6]

I agree that your pronunciation will be crap, but any studying you can do helps. Don't stress out about it though. If you're curious Lets Speak Korean http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=plujaKEG5pI on Youtube has some good free lessons.

[mnhnhyouh]

[maeil]

Neither of these is perfect, but they do provide some good basics:

http://rki.kbs.co.kr/learn_korean/lessons/e_index.htm

http://korean.sogang.ac.kr/

Good luck!

[Shauneyz]

[Draz]