Korean Job Discussion Forums

[jack_b57]

I'm hoping to watch Korean dramas and movies to help with my learning Korean. Do any of you know what's the best way to learn Korean?

My main question is - is it best to watch Korean dramas:
1. with NO subtitles
2. with English subtitles
3. with Korean subtitles
4. Or some kind of hybrid - watch a drama or movie in Korean with English subtitles, then after you figure out what the story is, watch the same drama again without subtitles.

My Korean is at an intermediate level now. Basic conversation.

[daeguowl]

[Chet Wautlands]

In Korean with Korean subtitles.
If the movie is in English, you'll listen to the English.
If the movie has English subtitles, you'll read the subtitles.

It's a fun way to learn some Korean, but of course you'll need other ways of studying too.

[jonpurdy]

Korean language, Korean subtitles. If there is any English, you will get lazy and just listen or read the English.

And always use subtitles. It will help you ensure that you understand more of what they are saying. Just listening can be too difficult.

Oh, VLC can let you use both English and Korean subs at the same time. So try to focus on the Korean but use the English subs if you don't understand particular words in the Korean.

[jack_b57]

Awesome, thanks. It seems like using English subtitles as a crutch won't help my learning Korean. Thanks for the help. I'll also try to "cross-train" with some other Korean learning methods as long as I learn more phrases and get more input (listening). Usually that comes before output (speaking), I'm guessing.

[chungbukdo]

What is an intermediate level? Could you enter a grade 4 elementary school classroom and read all of the literature that they read and understand the teacher's instructions? I'm not saying that is intermediate, I just want to get an idea of what your level actually is. Or maybe you can tell me, when you're watching Korean movies and dramas, about what % of the words in a sentence can you understand?

My technique is to watch with Korean subtitles and pause every once in a while to look up words. It gets tiring, so I watch movies a few times through. Most films I watch these days, I understand like 80% of the words in normal sentences and 50% or even less in uncommon sentences. If you're worse than me it will get too hard to learn anything from the dialog because you will be inundated with too much unknown vocab to learn via context.

I'd say that if you're at a lower level than that, you should watch once through with English subtitles first. I do that too, but it's a waste of 2 hours of study time unfortunately.

Also, I recommend the Anki plugin subs2srs which will take screenshots of your film and automatically make flashcards with the subtitles that you can review in Anki.

Watching and listening monolingually in Korean while only knowing like 10% of the words will get tiring and won't help you much. You need comprehensible input. It will, however, get you used to the sounds of the language.

[Slowmotion]

The hard problem is finding Korean dramas/movies with Korean subtitles.

I have about 5-7 movies with Korean subtitles.

Bittersweet Life
Old Boy
Beastie Boys
The Classic

and the other ones I forgot. Which ones do you guys have?

Personally i'm a fan of dual subtitles, again hard to come by for Korean movies and dramas.

[bobbyhanlon]

does anyone know of a website offering korean subs for korean films/drama? there are tons of english subs available but like other posters have said, thats not the way to go..

[jack_b57]

[Slowmotion]

So what Korean subs do you guys have? Let's trade subs or at least let it be known which ones are available in Korean.

[Sireno]

www.mysoju.com has dramas and videos online for free. subtitled in english.

[Drew345]

Me 2. Love to find some Korean programs with Korean subtitles.

[samd]

I usually search for Korean subs here,

http://www.cineaste.co.kr/bbs/board.php?bo_table=psd_caption

or here,

http://gom.gomtv.com/jmdb/chart.html

If you download the full DVDs they will be included anyway. Still haven't found a drama that I'm able to watch more than a couple of episodes of though.

[Slowmotion]

Have you tried watching Iris? That's probably my favorite.

The problem with dvds is they rarely include the Korean subtitles. I think I will upload some of the ones I have later and put them on my website.

[jack_b57]

Great, Slowmotion. If you can send me a link I'd be much appreciative.

I tried watching a few Korean shows with English subtitles, and everyone was correct, it doesn't really help.