Buzz
Recognizing the sound of Korean
Having trouble identifying Korean sounds
The fundamental differences in structure between Vietnamese and Korean across four aspects: vowels, consonants, stress, and intonation mean that Vietnamese students and Korean learners in Vietnam often encounter basic pronunciation errors such as swallowing sounds, lack of stress, absence of intonation, and incorrect accentuation. Consequently, their Korean listening skills suffer, making it very challenging to comprehend speech because they neglect pronunciation when learning new words.
Insufficient vocabulary and sentence structure in Korean
Traditional vocabulary learning methods involve repeatedly writing down words or structures along with their Vietnamese meanings, which limits long-term retention and can lead to confusion due to excessive memorization.
Lack of responsiveness in Korean
The process of listening to Korean, translating it into Vietnamese, and then relearning it back into Korean consumes a lot of time during communication. This is the main reason why you can't keep up with the speed of conversation and find it difficult to express your thoughts fluently.
Korean alphabet chart
Learn the Korean alphabet, its writing, and pronunciation.
Start with vowels and consonants (single, double) by reading and practicing writing them until familiar, then practice pronouncing each letter accurately. Learning pronunciation is crucial because speaking correctly enables better listening comprehension and accurate communication of ideas to listeners.
Learn Korean vocabulary
Study Korean vocabulary anytime, anywhere. Start learning vocabulary on specific topics related to your daily life because you have to use them every day. Try starting with topics like fashion, weather, football, or expressions of human emotions. Reviewing vocabulary at least 3 times helps you remember them longer. Always carry a small notebook to jot down vocabulary for studying during free time.
Practice listening skills
An effective way to listen to Korean is to think about the topic before listening. This helps you imagine and predict what you are about to hear. Focus on key points first to answer general questions. Listen for keywords and guess without necessarily hearing every word. Listen multiple times afterward to understand as much as possible and prepare for all the questions in the lesson. Absolutely avoid previewing lesson content before listening. Only after listening, read through the lesson again to check and learn new words as well as enhance common expressions found in the lesson.
Learning Korean is not easy if you are lazy and lack proper learning methods. Wherever you stumble, stand up and start over from there. Success will come soon enough.
