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Korean

Korean

Summary

Korean is natively spoken by around 77 million people, primarily in South Korea and North Korea, with significant communities in China, the United States, and Japan. It is central to the identity of Koreans, who have a rich cultural heritage that values politeness, respect, and social hierarchy. The Korean language, written in the unique Hangul script, was created in the 15th century to promote literacy among the common people. Korean grammar features a subject-object-verb (SOV) word order and uses particles to indicate the role of words in a sentence, reflecting its structured and logical nature.

Stats

  • Language Family: Isolate

  • Writing System: Hangul

  • Writing System Type: Alphabet

  • Writing Direction: L to R

  • Tones / Pitch Accent: N

  • Morphology: Agglutinative

  • Cases: 0

  • Grammatical Gender / Noun Class: 0

  • Number of Verb Tenses: 3

  • Word Order: SOV

  • Number of Vowels (Monophthongs): 7

  • Number of Consonants: 21

Areas Where Spoken

  • North Korea (official) (99.95) (26.0 mil)

  • South Korea (official) (99.9%) (51.6 mil)

Resources

Resources to Learn Hangul


Apps


Books


Movies/TV Shows

  • 버닝 - Burning by 이창동 (2018) - Psychological mystery drama

  • 올드보이 - Oldboy by 박찬욱 (2003) - Neo-noir action thriller

  • 부산행 - Train for Busan by 연상호 (2016) - Apocalyptic action thriller

  • Flower Grandpa Investigation Unit - Comedy

  • Hello, My Twenties! (2 seasons) - Drama

  • Pinocchio - Romance

  • Welcome to Waikiki - Comedy - You can watch it on Viki Learn for free with dual subtitles


Radio Shows/Podcasts


Websites


Webtoons (만화)

  • It’s a Good Day to be a Dog

Korean version: https://m.comic.naver.com/webtoon/detail?titleId=699658&no=1&week=sun&listPage=3 

English version: https://www.webtoons.com/en/romance/a-good-day-tobe-a-dog/list?title_no=1390

  • Penguin Loves Mev - Slice of life, Korean is pretty simple and not a lot of context is needed. Good for learning IMO

Korean version: https://comic.naver.com/webtoon/list?titleId=169080 

English version: https://www.webtoons.com/en/slice-of-life/penguin-loves-mev/list?title_no=86&page=1

  • Save Me

Korean version: https://m.comic.naver.com/webtoon/detail?titleId=722382&no=1 

English version: https://www.webtoons.com/en/drama/bts-save-me/list?title_no=1514



Videos

YouTube Channels for Fun

Culture https://youtube.com/@dimpleAwesome1?si=4S5ntsw8DC_xVOuT


YouTube Channels for Study

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