How to get a KoreanClass101 Lifetime Premium Account

Simply click on this link to take advantage of the KoreanClass101 Lifetime Premium Account. You can immediately begin using the massive amount of learning tools, podcasts and videos, and lesson notes on a desktop, iOS or Android device. Not only do you have access to all the current lessons, but you will be able to access all new lessons as they are added.

Cost of KoreanClass101 Lifetime Premium Account

The cost for lifetime premium access is  $599 — which gives you access to all of the features of KoreanClass101’s Premium subscription. Not only does this save quite a bit of money in the long-term, but it also takes the pressure of time off of you. For example, you do not have to worry about not getting your money’s worth should you not have time to study one month because of work/school/etc. This option allows you to study at your own pace.

Get a Lifetime Premium Account for 1 (Korean), 3 or All 34 Languages

Whether you are committed solely to learning Korean or want the option of learning multiple languages at your own pace, Innovative Languages—creator of KoreanClass101 and JapanesePod101—has three lifetime membership options.

As noted, you can purchase your lifetime subscription to KoreanClass101 for the one-time payment of $599. For just $999, you can purchase lifetime subscriptions for three different languages. For $1,499, you can purchase a lifetime subscription to all of Innovative Languages’ language classes for a total of 34. Other languages available to learn include Arabic, Filipino, Czech, Russian, Swahili and Spanish. You can see all the languages available by clicking the button below:

KoreanClass101 Lifetime Premium Account Discount

No additional discounts are available for KoreanClass101 Lifetime Premium memberships. However, if you consider the monthly KoreanClass101 Premium subscription cost ($25 per month) and you plan to study for at least three years, you can save more than $300 or 30% off the regular price by choosing the lifetime membership.

Conclusion

Those who are serious about learning to speak Korean or any other language offered by Innovative Languages may benefit by opting for one of the little-known lifetime membership plans. Long term, it can also save you from having to pay another monthly bill. If you aren’t completely convinced this is right for you, try the KoreanClass101 $1 monthly Premium trial to see what it’s all about.

Need more information? Read our in-depth review of KoreanClass101 here.

Editorial Team

Our Editorial Team is a group of language learning enthusiasts who are passionate about testing new apps and finding the best ways to learn a language.

Updated July 2019

1. Talk To Me In Korean

Chances are if you’re studying Korean, you already know Talk To Me In Korean. It’s an amazing resource for Korean learners. The site is updated regularly, offering a ton of content that is both free and of extremely high quality. Lessons come in a variety of formats, including video, audio and PDFs. It’s a truly fun experience learning with TTMIK. Highly recommended.

2. KoreanClass101 (free trial)

KoreanClass101 is another great resource for Korean learners. You can sign up now for their free trial from this link.

3. Naver Korean-English Dictionary

The NAVER Korean-English dictionary is a solid online resource that you can access for free. Plenty of example sentences are included to help consolidate what you learn. This should be a daily staple for your Korean studies.

4. italki

Italki is a great place to find a language partner for free. The interface makes it easy to link up with native Korean speakers who are learning English and exchange your language knowledge in a mutually beneficial way.

It is also possible to find Korean teachers on Italki – in fact, we highly recommend doing this as learning with a personal tutor will be a better experience overall. You will obviously have to pay for this option though.

5. Lang 8

Another fantastic site built around the exchange concept. You can get your Korean writing corrected by helping others with their written English. The system works very well – so much so that we wish we had thought of this idea first!

6. FSI Korean courses

As they are now 100% public domain, you can access the Foreign Service Institute’s Korean courses for free. The Basic course is thorough although quite dated. Expect more formalistic and old-fashioned language with this course, which is perhaps not so bad if you are planning a trip to North Korea!

7. 99Korean

99Korean is an entertaining YouTube channel thats covers many aspects of the Korean language. Personally, I wouldn’t use these videos as my primary resource but they serve as a light accompaniment that can help consolidate the knowledge learned elsewhere. 99Korean also offers a free mobile app that conveniently puts all the lessons in one place.

8. How To Study Korean

A nifty little site that offers a complete course on mastering Korean grammar and vocabulary. Totally free.

9. Korean dramas

Watching Korean dramas is a pleasant way to enjoy the Korean language. No need to worry too much about how much you understand, but exposing yourself to material intended for native Korean speakers will pay off huge dividends over time. Drama Fever offers a lot of different Korean series. Check it out here.  Update:  Drama Fever is no longer online, but you can watch some free sample episodes of Korean dramas on Rakuten Viki.

10. Sogang University courses

We haven’t used these courses but they look pretty good and they are 100% free. Take a glance to see if the learning style suits you.

11. Duolingo Korean

Duolingo make some of the best free language learning apps out there, and the Korean one is pretty good — though not perfect. It’s a good place to learn the basics, or brush up on things you’d already learned.

So there you have it, our top 10 resources to learn Korean for free. Try out some of these sites and work out which ones you prefer to use for your studies. Bear in mind that everyone is different so what works for someone else might not be the best method for you. That said, we hope you will get as much value out of these sites as we did.

Do you know of any other useful free resources for Korean? Leave a comment below!

Rohan

Rohan has spent years studying Japanese, Chinese and Korean, and currently lives in Japan. He created the perapera pop-up dictionary plugins to help other learners of Chinese and Japanese.

Good Points

Great index for looking up verbs in a rush

The index at the back of the book is very easy to use. You can look up Korean verbs by their romanized or hangul form as well as their English meaning.

Free audio content is an added bonus

The publisher includes the corresponding audio files for the dictionary form of each verb and for all of the example sentences. I tend to learn better with audio, so I found this to be a helpful addition. Pronunciation of all of the conjugations would have been even better, but I suppose that would make for a very long CD!

Sample sentences are a welcome addition

The sample sentences are great for mastering the various verb forms and picking up new vocabulary. Combining these sentences with the audio would be a good way of consolidating your knowledge.

Bad Points

Unnecessary romanization

A book covering various advanced verb forms, including causative and honorific usages, should safely assume that learners have mastered the hangul by now. It’s a minor point, but this book would be considerably easier to read without the distraction of romanization for every verb form.

Conclusion

500 Basic Korean Verbs is an essential book for your Korean studies. Whether for learning vocabulary or writing out emails, it will come in handy. You can pick up the Kindle version of this book here.

Full disclosure: We received a free review copy of 500 Basic Korean Verbs from Tuttle Publishing. Have you also used this book for your Korean studies? If so, we would be interested to hear your opinion about it. Please leave your thoughts in the comments section below.

We are planning several updates for the site in the near future. Like us on Facebook to stay in touch with what we are doing!

Rohan

Rohan has spent years studying Japanese, Chinese and Korean, and currently lives in Japan. He created the perapera pop-up dictionary plugins to help other learners of Chinese and Japanese.

Until recently, Korean was a rare language for Westerners to learn. But thanks to the rapid economic development of South Korea, and increasing interest in Korean culture in recent years seems to have led to more Korean learning materials being made available (I’m lookin’ at you, Korean Dramas and K-Pop).

Unfortunately, there are still less high-quality learning resources than you can find for learning Japanese or Chinese. That said, we did find some super useful books that helped us to get started with this challenging but beautiful language.

It’s true that textbooks are no substitute for immersion into the language via culture (movies, dramas, podcasts, music), not to mention practice speaking with native speakers. However, a good textbook gives you the foundations to work with, by teaching you grammar, how to construct sentences, pronunciation rules, and how to read.

Here are 10 of the best textbooks that we’ve come across for learning Korean.

The 10 Best Textbooks for Learning Korean

1. Elementary Korean (Second Edition)

Elementary Korean is the gold standard for learning Korean by self study. It is the most thorough and all-round introduction to Korean that I know of, and the logical structure makes it easy to follow.

One thing that might turn you off is that it ‘feels’ a bit like a university textbook, in terms of the writing tone and level. All that said: this book will give you a comprehensive base in Korean. If you only buy one textbook for Korean, get this one. You get 384 pages of material and tons of practice exercises to boot.

As a companion exercise book, there’s the Elementary Korean Workbook, which is really good for putting things into practice. (Note: The reviews on Amazon for this one are a little skewed because of some people complaining that their audio doesn’t work on their device, but I never had any problems.)

The higher levels in the series, Continuing Korean and Advanced Korean are also highly recommended.

Pros:

• Lessons and grammar notes are clearly presented and in a logical structure
• You’re essentially forced to learn to read Hangul (it’s not that hard!), as the roman readings aren’t given from the fifth lesson onwards
• The pronunciation guide is better and easier to understand than other textbooks

Cons:

• There aren’t a lot of pictures to break up the content so it can be a bit heavy reading
• Some people have trouble getting the CD or Audio to work

2. Korean for Beginners: Mastering Conversational Korean

With its tricky pronunciation, complex grammar and elaborate honorific forms, the Korean language can present a daunting prospect. This was the first book I used when I started. It’s a nice option if you prefer a gentle introduction to Korean. It’s also entertaining with plenty of cultural information packed in. The $11 price (on Kindle) is quite reasonable when you consider that audio downloads are provided too.

Side note: this must be the first textbook I have seen that makes use of emoticons. The times they are a-changin’! ^_^

Pros:

• Slower pace than Elementary Korean; good for learners that need more time to
• Lots of cultural information within the text
• The Authors focus on making the learning fun and interesting

Cons:

• The slower pace might be frustrating to quicker learners
• Despite the title, the focus is more on learning grammar/structure than on speaking
• Not enough practice dialogues

3. Integrated Korean Series

This is another university-style textbook, developed by the University of Hawaii for its students studying Korean. It’s a very good textbook for a university classroom, which doesn’t always translate 100% to self-study, but this one does a pretty good job. It’s more of an academic approach, which might appeal to some people over the more ‘conversational’ textbooks above.

Pros:

• Lots of examples of grammar points
• Some good cultural context and authentic materials within lessons
• Has 10 volumes, so if you like this style, you can follow it all the way to advanced.

Cons:

• Can feel a bit too ‘academic’ or stuffy
• Outdated in places (older expressions)

Notes:

• Avoid the Kindle edition! (missing pages and complaints)
• Some copies being sold don’t come with the audio

4. Talk to Me in Korean Series

If you started studying Korean using online resources, you’ve probably come across the website Talk to Me in Korean — a site that’s been around since 2009. The team that run this website created this series of textbooks, and they’ve used their years of student feedback to get it right in textbook form.

As the title suggests, the focus is on speaking right away, with minimal focus on grammar or learning to read. There’s tons of accompanying audio for you to speak along with.

In this same series, there are also additional levels and a workbook with more exercises for each level.

Pros:

• Made for absolute beginners
• Designed to get you speaking Korean fast
• Lots of audio you can use for shadowing and quizzing yourself

Cons:

• Possibly too basic if you already know some Korean (it starts with greetings like ‘hello’ and goodbye’)
• Focuses on speaking, not so much on reading or grammar

Notes:

• If you prefer learning online, you can access the same material without buying the book on their website

5. Korean Grammar in Use

This book is the next logical step after Korean for Beginners. It goes into the grammar in more depth but still in a digestible form.

I picked this book up in Seoul so I thought it might be tricky to buy online (update: I found it for sale on Amazon).

Pros:

• Probably the best Korean grammar textbook out there
• Focuses on understanding the structures and constructing your own
• Most people like the structure of the book (look up things on a need-to-know basis)

Cons:

• Not for beginners — you’ll need a decent foundation of Korean before this will be useful
• You should know how to read Hangul before using this book

6. Korean Grammar for International Learners

This is the most comprehensive Korean grammar book we could find. It includes all the grammatical forms in plenty of detail. The book is also based on the official grammar textbook that is used in schools to teach grammar in South Korea, so you can rest easy knowing that you’re getting the correct answer when you’re looking up a point.

One of the best points of this book is that each grammar point is packed with example sentences. Reading the examples really helps the reader to understand the point and see how it’s used.

Pros

• Comprehensive, and covers most grammar points you’ll need
• Not bogged down with too much technical language; instead uses multiple examples to demonstrate

Cons

• No romanized writing (you’ll need to learn Hangul first)
• Not for beginners of Korean
• If you don’t know English grammar to start, this might be difficult

7. 500 Basic Korean Verbs

If you studied French or Spanish in High School, you probably have experience with this style of verb conjugation book (and maybe not a pleasant experience…). 500 Basic Korean Verbs is an incredibly useful book for students of the Korean language.

You can check out our full review of the book here but here are the bullet points…

Pros:

• Romanization is provided
• Example sentences to demonstrate verbs
• Smart layout and organization

Cons:

• You probably won’t find the high-level verbs used in your favorite Korean Drama
• Unnecessary romanization (if you already know Hangul, it can be distracting)
• Example sentences difficult for true beginners

8. Klear: Korean Reader for Chinese Characters

While it’s not for the beginning student (you don’t really need Chinese Characters until later), this book is a solid introduction to the Chinese characters (hanja) used in Korean.

This book teaches you the most common 500 hanja by frequency of usage in modern Korean. It’s a good choice if you want to learn to read Korean literature or you’re simply curious about the Korean hanja like I was.

Notes:

• Not for the average beginner
• Stroke orders included in the appendix
• Reading selections to demonstrate the hanja
• Covers mnemonics to learn the different characters

9. Spoken World: Korean

Living Language have always made top notch course materials, and Spoken World — their latest offering for Korean — is no exception. The focus in on learning conversational Korean in a comprehensive way, via listening and repeating, as well as the text.

There are six CDs included with a separate course book. The dialogues are easy to understand and introduced in a logical order. You won’t get much grammar from this one but it’s a nice little audio course. Highly recommended.

Notes:

• Made for absolute beginners
• Good for listening while in transit
• Conversations feel natural and useful

10. Pimsleur Korean

This one might be a bit controversial (why so much hate on Pimsleur??), but here goes…

A lot of people find Korean a difficult language to pronounce correctly. The sounds are “different”, which can make listening quite challenging. In this respect, it was certainly much harder for me to get started than Japanese or even Chinese.

In this Pimsleur audio course, the Korean speakers break down every syllable of each word which helps train your ear. Keep with this course and you will be speaking and understanding whole Korean sentences within a few days.

You can try out Pimsleur Korean for free with an Audible 30 day trial. Download a taster course here.

Side note: Audible is AMAZING for learning anything, not just languages. I listen to audiobooks probably 30% of my day, when I don’t need to be 100% focused: when I’m on the train, doing the dishes, etc.

So there you have it. Those are the 10 best books we have found so far for learning Korean. Do you know of any other quality resources? Leave a comment below!

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Michael

Michael has lived in Japan on and off for almost 10 years. He loves studying Japanese, and is currently working on going from N2 to N1 on the JLPT.

Pimsleur isn’t perfect by any means. As I wrote before about Pimsleur Japanese in my Japanese books post, the lessons in the third series got ridiculously formal and businessy. I remember being made to learn phrases along the lines of “I am very sorry Mr Tanaka but I will be 45 minutes late for today’s meeting!”. Pretty excessive for a beginner’s course, I think you’ll agree. This was before they had even taught you the informal Japanese that everyone actually uses! Also, some of the Japanese vocabulary you learn seemed a little weird at times and I am assuming the Korean Pimsleur will have similar pitfalls but I find that Pimsleur is a decent way of getting a spoken base in a language. It’s a bit like going to the gym. Put in your 30 minutes a day and you come away with something that you will remember later. That is more than can be said for many language courses.

I am still only one week in, but I am definitely noticing some similarities between Korean and Japanese, like how the sentences are structured. Some of the sounds can be quite tricky to pronounce but I love the intonation! How did I miss out on this language? It is really pleasant to get out of my comfort zone and learn something completely new and exotic. Although you would think learning another language would be a distraction from my Japanese studies, I’m recently feeling more motivated to learn Japanese too. It would seem that the two are feeding off each other.

A great app for learning to read and write Hangul

By night, I have been learning Hangul with a nifty little app called Korean Handwriting. It cost me $3. It is actually geared more towards Korean children than learners of Korean but it has been really useful so far. The lack of English explanations is actually quite helpful as it allows you to just focus on the various sounds and drawing the Hangul out on the screen. To be honest, it feels more like playing a game than studying although the little kid’s high-pitched voice can become a little grating after a while. Overall though, it has been a relief to find that Hangul writing looks a lot more difficult than it actually is.

UPDATE: That app seems to no longer be available, so we recommend this one: Write It! Korean

So, the next step is to find some decent Korean books. I have looked around on Amazon but didn’t see many courses that stood out. Does anyone have any tips? Just my first impression, but it seems like Korean has very few useful resources available.

Looking for a more interactive approach to learning Korean? Read our review of Korean Class 101.

Rohan

Rohan has spent years studying Japanese, Chinese and Korean, and currently lives in Japan. He created the perapera pop-up dictionary plugins to help other learners of Chinese and Japanese.