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Short guides for the hard parts
Honorifics, particles, and pronunciation — explained in plain English. Open one when you’re stuck. You don’t need to read them before every lesson.
No guides match that search. Try “particles”, “batchim”, or “titles”.
Korean has speech levels. You don’t need all of them on day one. Learn polite -요 first. Use it with anyone you don’t know well.
Practice this in Lesson L1-03 Greetings, then record it on the Practice page.
Go to Greetings lesson →은/는 marks the topic: “as for this…”. 이/가 marks the subject: who or what actually does the action. English doesn’t need either, so skip the tables at first.
Stick -았- or -었- into the verb, then add -요. Don’t start with a full table. Learn a handful of high-frequency past forms and reuse them.
Many polite questions are just a statement with a rising tone. You don’t always need a special ending. Add -까요 when you want to suggest or wonder together.
A batchim is a consonant parked at the bottom of a syllable block. English speakers often skip it, so 밥 (bap, rice) starts to sound like 바 (ba).
English hears two sounds (g / k). Korean often works as a three-way contrast: plain, aspirated (extra puff of air), and tense (tight, no puff).
Tense consonants are written as doubles. Your throat and tongue tighten. There is almost no puff of air. English doesn’t have this, so “louder” is the wrong fix.
Korean often uses a title instead of a given name. Age and workplace rank decide this more than English-style first-name culture. Using someone’s name too soon can feel too close.
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