Here are some resources about the Korean language that I came across in my studies so far and that I thought are helpful in some way or another. I will continue to expand and refine this list as I find new useful sites online.
General Sites about the Korean Language
Talk To Me In Korean (often abbreviated as TTMIK) is an all-in one (English) website for Korean learners. There are many premium offers on the site, but the basic grammar lessons (and the transcripts) are free of charge.
超速修韓国語(日本人専用） is a Korean language crash course for Japanese speakers. It touches on many important aspects of the language, such as Hangul and pronunciation, grammar that is similar or different to Japanese, a basic vocabulary and how to extend it using cognates, and finally some notes on cultural differences between Japan and (South) Korea.
TTMIK Podcasts are the (free) podcasts offered by TTMIK, including the 10-level grammar lesson podcast.
Korean Wiki Project is a community wiki about studying the Korean language. If you’re using TTMIK, you might enjoy their overview of the grammar lessons.
コリアブック is another Japanese perspective of the Korean language, less compact than the crash course, but presented in a more modern matter (i.e. with actual Korean characters as opposed to images). Their overview of common phrases is useful to get Korean equivalents to common Japanese phrases in various situations.
all about 韓国 is a general Korean (study) site run by a Japanese translator residing in Seoul.
Dictionaries
There are many dictionaries available online, with each one having its strengths and weaknesses. Here are some “niche” dictionaries that have content not found otherwise.
The Japanese version of Naver Dictionary has many more example sentences than in the English version, which makes it a very useful source of context for words as well as grammar points.
Kpedia is a site about Korean vocabulary and expressions targeted at Japanese speakers. One of the most useful features is the search for bilingual (KO-JA) example sentences containing a word and/or expression.
KoreanHanja.app is a simple, but effective Hanja dictionary. It support lookups by Hanja, Hangul as well as approximate English translation, just by appending the term you want to look up at to the domain, eg.
https://koreanhanja.app/漢字. The lookup by hanja is already useful, but the reverse feature that allows to quickly find hanja using hangul (e.g.https://koreanhanja.app/한자) is even more useful for people who already have a grasp on Chinese characters.Geuldongmu is an effort to translate between South and Northern version of Korean. As with all things related to North Korea, one needs to exercise a bit of caution with the information provided, as it may be incorrect due to being outdated or due to a lack of reliable sources.
Grammar
HowtoStudyKorean is a comprehensive resource about Korean grammar. It titles itself as “Everything you need. Everything.”, but grammar is the strongest point of the site. The explanations are very in-depth, so it is also a suitable review resource. The list of lessons gives an overview over the first 5 units (with 125 lessons) and can be used for a quick access to a given grammar point.
이다희:-D A H E E channel is a Youtube channel that explains Korean grammar in Japanese.
Others
- Hanjaro is a tool that converts plain Korean text to Korean text with as many Hanja characters that can reliably be inserted. This allows people with Chinese or Japanese language skills to skim Korean texts without having to rely on a translation. The tool is very useful in that aspect, but it isn’t perfect and no replacement for actual Korean reading practice and vocabulary study.
*Mirinae is an online interactive Korean parser that displays rich information on word-level as well as phrase-level and also gives examples on each component analysed.
This page was created in December 2020 and has last been updated in May 2021.