Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Hyeon Een]

A few weeks ago I discovered this Korean learning podcast and it's been making my subway rides a lot more productive.

http://www.koreanclass101.com

I've been listening to their intermediate podcasts all week and they're great. There are "Advanced" "Korean Culture" and "Korean Idioms and Expressions" classes as well as 'Newbie' and 'Beginner' podcasts which would be really useful for anyone new to Korea who wants to learn a bit of the language. The podcasts are free. You can pay money to download .pdf files that have transcripts and grammar explanations and stuff but I haven't checked them out because I just listen on the subway..

I really like it because they teach conversational rather than formal Korean. They teach a fair bit of slang/'young generation' speak/common shortened forms etc. It's really useful conversational Korean rather than formal textbook stuff. I haven't actually listened to the lower level ones, but glancing at the info about them they really do seem to be teaching the way people in their 20s speak, rather than the textbook formal stuff one usually runs across. In this regard this is the only resource i know of for learning Korean in a natural/informal/'young' manner.

Obviously the Korean taught wouldn't be suitable for formal situations, but for most of us 99% of our time is spent with kids, equals, people younger than us or close friends rather than bosses or Presidents etc. Informal Korean is the most useful form for most ESL teachers in Korea and is the least taught.

I've listened to the 1st set of the Pimsleur Korean course before and its is about 1% as useful as the koreanclass101.com podcasts. Pimsleur costs money and sucks compared to this.

Anyone else listen to it? If not you should.. even if you speak korean well you will learn a fair bit from the intermediate and advanced classes.