When I first started learning Korean, I wasn't sure where to start. The Talk to Me in Korean website/podcast is a great source of information. It's all free, you get the PDF files plus you are able to hear the pronunciation of the words. All of that is great.
I was perplexed because there are sounds in Korean that we do not use in English. Therefore, you really need to learn 한글 (the Korean alphabet) in order to say these words correctly.
The problem is, where do you start? Do you learn the words first or do you learn 한글 first? And if you learn 한글 first, what is the best way to go about it? I wanted to find the most efficient learning method and this is what I realized.
The first TTMIK lesson teaches you how to say "annyeonghaseyo" 안녕하세요 and "gamsahapnida" 감사합니다 (hello and thank you). The PDF shows it romanized and in 한글. I didn't know it at the time, but the TTMIK teachers really know what they are doing because here is what eventually happens if you are committed to learning.
I wrote 안녕하세요 over and over on a piece of paper. I was trying to perfect the letters, not memorize the spelling. That did not help me. Sure, my writing was a bit better, but I still couldn't commit any of it to memory. So I finally said, even if I ONLY remember the letters in "annyeonghaseyo" 안녕하세요, that is enough for now. I began writing it in 한글 again. (ㅇ=placeholder if a vowel is the first letter in a syllable block, ㅏ=a, ㄴ=n, ㄴ=n, ㅕ=yeo, ㅇ=ng, ㅎ=h, ㅏ=a, ㅅ=s, ㅔ=e, ㅇ=placeholder, ㅛ=yo.) This time, I was able to remember what each letter was and I could recognize these letters in other words, even when I didn't recognize the words themselves.
This is the most effective way, in my opinion, to introduce 한글 into your studies. Just memorize the letters for one word. Start with "annyeonghaseyo" 안녕하세요, just like in the TTMIK lessons. Then, once you have mastered that, move on to "gamsahapnida" 감사합니다. I say this because "gamsahapnida" 감사합니다 has a lot of letters that are not in "annyeonghaseyo" 안녕하세요 (ㄱ=g, ㅁ=m, ㅂ=p, ㅣ=i, ㄷ=d), so it will implement those into your studies. And this is also one of the first words you learn with the TTMIK curriculum. After that, you can move on to the rest of the alphabet.
If you start by using flashcards, you may feel overwhelmed. (I was.) It isn't particularly difficult to learn 한글, but you are learning an entirely new alphabet and that is a lot of information to memorize. It helps to be able to associate it with something rather than just reading each letter separately on an index card.
**It should be noted that some letters (ㄱ, ㄷ, ㄹ, ㅂ, ㅅ, ㅇ, ㅈ, ㅊ, ㅎ, ㄲ, ㄸ, ㅃ, ㅆ, ㅉ, ㅣ) change sounds depending on their position within a syllable block and the letters that proceed/follow them.
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