🇰🇷 3 reasons you're STILL a beginner

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Hi, friends! Let's talk about a few reasons you may still be a beginner in Korean~!
0:00 hello?
0:29 reason 1
6:05 reason 2
8:05 reason 3
m e n t i o n e d v i d e o s
❌ STOP LEARNING KOREAN
↳ • ❌ STOP LEARNING KOREAN
//
안녕하세,유~! 안녕하세요~! Hey, you! It's Natalia and I'm here to encourage you to believe in your ability to learn Korean~!
📸 Instagram: @Nataliaa_Garza
↳ / nataliaa_garza
📮 Business Inquiries: [e-mail]
//
c o u p o n s
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☀️ f a q
Where do you live?
↳ Seoul, South Korea
What do you do in Korea?
↳ I work in marketing
How old are you?
↳ 28 years old
When did you start learning Korean?
↳ January 2016
What level of Korean do you know?
↳ Advanced
When did you study abroad in Korea?
↳ Spring and fall semesters of 2016 (exchange student)
↳ Fall 2021 - Summer 2022 (Korean language student)
Where did you study in Korea?
↳ Soonchunhyang University ( 2016 exchange/internship program)
↳ Korea University (2021-2022 Korean language school)
What level are you in at KLC?
↳ Fall Semester 2021 - Level 5
↳ Winter Semester 2021/2022 - Level 6
↳ Spring/Summer Semesters 2022 - Research Class
Can you teach me Korean?
↳ No, I don't teach or tutor Korean.
//
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[@soniarita]

Oh god, the 'how to learn korean rabbit hole' is SO ME! I've just realised how much time I've wasted watching YT blogs & videos trying to plan my learning journey

[@NataliaGarza]

Those videos are the same as buying all new school supplies before the school year starts ☠☠☠ It's so much fun and makes us excited to learn, but it's not the same as going to class LOL

[@erikacannady1469]

Hey heyyy I’ve been a subscriber for a while but just wanted to tell you I finally made it to Korea !!! I’ll be here for a semester abroad but I’m def gonna take you up on these tips cuz I really don’t have a choice now 😅😅 hopefully I improve during my time here

[@yuulfuji-js9bm]

yoo congrats!!!

[@tati79ana]

I’m also here in Korea! Hope you have a great time 🥰

[@squidaddendum]

I started using StoryLearning 2 weeks ago, after I watched a video of yours sponsored by them, and I can already say kind of (?) complex sentences like "저는 공원에서 국수를 먹었어요"!! It's actually wild how much you can improve if you focus on one resource and really dedicate time to it!!! tysm :) AND FOR EVERYONE SKEPTICAL ABOUT STORYLEARNING: DO IT!!!! I love the way they structure lessons around a story. It makes learning and remembering vocab and grammar so much easier, and the process is a lot more enjoyable as well. Also, I've found that I am starting to pick up and use grammar and vocab I haven't been taught and haven't studied, just from exposure through the stories. It's amazing. Worth the money; it's a very comprehensive course.

[@EllePlowPlow]

I really needed to see this video because I’m stuck at number 1. Time to just decide which of my study materials I’m going to use and stick to it.

[@cj-gunn]

I needed this!! I have been learning "how to" learn Korean way too long... I have what I need to start and do well, now I need to COMMIT to doing it... Thank you for your passion, and the kick in the pants I needed

[@kasicomi]

I struggle to find the balance between reviewing/making sure I grasp what I already learned and procrastinating on moving on. I always feel like if I don't 100% know every single grammar point or vocabulary word before moving onto the next lesson, that I just don't move on. Even though those points and words will be used regularly in the following lessons. I genuinely can't tell if it's helping me or holding me back. I feel like it's a little bit of both 😅

[@minatasidibe1006]

I relate the most to this comment 😅

[@codyscott8687]

I bought the beginner Korean course when it was on sale because it is a future goal of mine. I live in Alabama very close to the Hyundai plant, so Spanish and Korean are the two most prominent languages near me. I am however working on Story Learning Spanish and it’s been an incredible resource! I wish I could learn them both simultaneously but I sadly don’t have the time

[@madisonmarie0613]

I've been stuck in intermediate for so long and even though this is geared more for beginner levels I feel like it also applies to me as an intermediate learner 😅In some ways I feel like a total beginner but in other ways I can be advanced level and I really think it has to do with potholes and trying to just get fluent. I've finally just decided to focus on 2 books only (one for reading and one for speaking and writing) and work on improving and filling in those potholes. Always much love for your videos, I felt this was right on the nose for me🤣

[@sm00re2]

i love the foundation metaphor! some people think theyre more advanced because theyve moved on to a high intermediate/low advanced text book but they are BUTCHERING the most basic things. id send screen shots of what they say to koreans and they couldn't even understand them. studying advanced grammar does NOT make you advanced. building that strong foundation first is what will eventually make you advsnce its not a race. its a journey❤

[@newjeansfan238]

True for purchasing so many books, or download so many free application to learn korean, i made that mistake before, i'm intermediate level, i study in my own and i have online korean teacher. So many application to learn korean is for beginner level with romanization arg. I realize i'm intermediate level when i know all beginner level grammar, i can speak but not advanced level, i try to read news in hangul korean but i don't understand it yet. But i didn't learn just few vocab in beginner level and it's great to learn new vocab. I study with a teacher since 2 years, before that i learned in my own but not regularly and i didn't understand grammar and gave up and watch korean drama lol that's why i didn't progress before, when i didn't have korean teacher

[@taeshain2026]

Finally someone addressing how level 3 in Korean just devours you and spits you out 😅🥲 I also did language school at uni in Korea, and I swear to God if someone had warned me about Level 3, I would have probably never started it in the first place. The step from level 2 to level 3 was brutal, I still remember it to this day. For the first 2/3 weeks I just wanted to yeet myself off the window of the tallest skyscraper in Busan. And I mean it 😅 then little by little you kinda get used to feeling utterly stupid I guess? Or you just try to keep up, to study more and put more effort. Level 3 is indeed brutal to be honest, and I do understand that it can get pretty hard. But I guess you will also never be ready for it if you don't give it a try in the first place. It's gonna be hard anyway, and it does not depend on how intelligent or diligent you are. 🤗 But it's definitely an essential step in your learning journey.

[@thule_zoe05]

i just absolutely love how passionate you are about helping us learning Korean more effectively 😂💖 no, but thank you for the practical advice

[@NataliaGarza]

Of course!! 😂😂🥹🫶🏻 Being realistic and practical is my specialty ahahahaha

[@tlovesbooks]

I needed this so much! I love your videos Natalia!

[@Heyitsmeyaz]

This video was perfect timing !! Thank you!

[@calmontes651]

Today, I needed this video! Thank you. So many things resonated with me.

[@desireevl]

Thank you for this 🩷✨✨

[@Rascilon25]

So my personal story is I started learning Korean 50 days ago. I have Rocket Korean online which I use at this point to just repeat repeat repeat the alphabet until I have it memorized. I practice for 3 hours a day minimum, with a goal of reaching 6 hours a day eventually. I also have a weekly private tutor who helps me with new vocabulary and pronunciation. Lastly, I try to do immersion by attending a Korean church and being put on the spot to listen and respond the best I can, as well as listening to the music and sermon fully in Korean. The music in particular is useful because it often has repetition of phrases that I can understand from the context. For example that is how I learned the word for Jesus, just by listening to the music. Lastly, for immersion I try to watch as much K-drama as possible. I am not at the point I can turn off the English subtitles, but I am finding I am able to at least read and pronounce written Korean I see on the shows, albeit extremely slowly. Do you think this is a good strategy to learn the language? My goal is fluency in 7 years.

[@kikids.34]

Spot on!! Thank you😢

[@verymick]

I don't consider myself all of a beginner anymore but I still find myself coming back to these sort of videos!! Thanks for the inspiration as always, Natalia ✨

[@TheReviewHuman]

Good tips, Natalia! Im trying to push from intermediate to advanced, and there's a lot of similarities haha I've given myself the goal of taking TOPIK II in October, so I've started studying for that to increase my vocabulary.

[@nurkamiliailyana]

Heyy! Thank you natalia!

[@alicestoneheart5945]

I am (re)learning my native language but these tips apply to me too!! Thank you for sharing ❤

[@bothmarioANDluigi]

500th like! thanks for helping me get through this frustrating process of learning The Language™

[@charliesunshine3239]

Is there even such thing as too passionate in this context? Thanks for this video 😊

[@go-dory]

미쳤어~~~!! You’re doing great! Keep up the good work

[@NataliaGarza]

💜💜💜

[@cz5981]

happy march natalia !

[@ag-dn1vl]

ive been learning since last october but ive been losing motivation 😭😭 i wanna try to get back my will to study during the summer when im done with school and can focus on korean a bit better since i plan on studying abroad for university

[@MsKeelyKat13]

my issue is mainly doubling up on languages. my job requires me to maintain fluency in a specific language but i want to pick up Korean again. i started in my teen years and im nearing my mid 20s. i know there are people who study multiple different languages at once but its hard😅

[@limedka1904]

My two biggest obstacles in learning Korean are that firstly, I don't have language cells, so I learn everything about 1000 times slower than others and I still can't do it. And second - almost all the available materials are English-Korean, only English is not my native language. I'm very bad at English. Even after about 10 years of studying, my level is still A2-B1. Yes, so bad and slow I'm really learning a foreign language. So for example, I learn a Korean sentence that means "i've been well lately" in English, but I have no idea what it means in my language. Or just roughly. And with grammar, where you need to know the subtle nuances and differences, it totally sucks. Plus, I have a big problem with listening. I might be able to get a sentence out, but I can't understand when someone is talking to me. Not just in Korean, but in English as well. The Korean "o" and "e", which are pronounced about five different ways, sound the same to me, I don't hear a difference there.

[@calmontes651]

I don’t know what’s your first language, but I would start there, studying your own language deeply and I mean really deep. I was learning Korean in English and despite being fluent in English because my first language is Spanish I kept getting confused in my Korean studies. I decided to study Spanish grammar and syntax, and everything started to make sense. I went deep like “if we have a subjunctive and English doesn’t how they express the same thing? If we have articles and Korean doesn’t what is it that we are trying to do with does articles?” If we have clitic pronouns and English doesn’t how they identify direct objects? If we have imperfective aspect and English and Korean don’t then how do they express unfinished actions? Same with sounds, does X sound exist in your language?, where in the mouth do you pronounce sounds like “e” “o”? Giving information to the brain, and then asking the brain to find it is way easier than blindly asking your brain to organize new information. I hope that helps with both your English and your Korean. I know it sounds counterintuitive but it has made all the difference in the world for me. Now I’m fascinated learning how and why things are done this way or that way in my native language compared to English or Korean. I learned more grammar than I probably need but it has helped my comprehension in all three.

[@limedka1904]

@@calmontes651 My native language is Czech. I think I understand the language well, certainly at a higher level than the general population, although I am not a linguist of course. Maybe even deeper study would help, who knows. It seems to me that Korean (and Japanese by the way) is paradoxically closer to Czech than English is to Czech. Though maybe that's only due to the surface touch of Korean grammar so far. In English, for example, we don't have articles (English "a" and "the"), just as there's usually no need to put a person in a sentence ("I", "you", etc.), and the meaning of a word doesn't (usually) change according to the accent on the syllable in the word (this was the biggest surprise for me when I started looking into English a bit more. So I better stoped quickly, haha) and it's quite contextual in a way. Though less so than, say, Japanese, where it's only at the end of a long paragraph that you find out who/what they were talking about, hahaha. Our sentence structure is usually S-V-O, but for a question, for example, you just add a question mark at the end of the sentence - just like in Korean (as opposed to English, where it changes to V - S - (V) - O?) As for the hearing part - that's where the problem is purely with me. I just can't hear it. I can't distinguish it. I also have this problem in English. Mainly because my level is still so low. As I wrote, I'm able to somehow spit out a sentence (even though the grammar is somewhere, haha), but I can't understand when someone is talking to me. Nothing helps. It really doesn't help. I have all the "good" advice in my little finger. They don't work. About listening - I've texted my friend a few times and sent her videos to see if she can hear any difference. Yes, she hears it, I don't. And she can't do more than say hello (literally) in Korean.

[@calmontes651]

@@limedka1904 languages are very interesting. Spanish for statements is OSV and SVO, and English is only SVO for statements because it has a strict word order. We also have formality which English doesn’t, but Korean uses many English words; so learning from both Spanish/English helps. If you know your native language so well then explore phonetics, there are many English sounds I couldn’t tell apart many years ago and I took one on one classes with a teacher that helped me reproduce the sounds and listen to the sounds in context until my brain decided to hear them. Because of that experience I know my brain might choose to “not listen” to a sound until it thinks is relevant, so early on I bought this book “Korean Pronunciation Guide” from the editorial Darakwon, and it has made all the difference. It is frustrating even with the book, so sometimes I take a break from the book and then go again, and it’s surprising when I can hear the sounds, I couldn’t hear 어 but now I do, I’m working on telling apart 오 and 우. I am low intermediate and I still can’t tell some sounds apart.

[@RisingStarOfKorea]

It is two years ago that l last checked your channel, ( the ukraine war news distracted me ) now l am back on your channel and good to see that You are as beautiful, as smart and as humorous as before :-) keep on making lovely contents , Hunny

[@gro8018]

Any tips for getting OUT of book study mode and actually remembering words for conversations?

[@mika4453]

Hi! I've noticed I'm better at remembering things if I use an image and/or sound based approach to learning them (using Memrise with images rather than written translations, saying them out loud every time the word comes up, describing what I'm doing or my surroundings in the moment rather than focusing writing about them afterwards in a journal, all while trying to use the new vocab that I learned...) It's a bit closer to what you'd need for a real face to face conversation, and you can actually check afterwards which words you remembered easier and which ones just didn't make it as smoothly into your brain and need more practice (+ which words you actually need for your life but just didn't appear on you textbook. Sample sentences are great too!! Not only the normal kind (as in, a sentence demonstrating each words/grammar point) but just patters, phrases or words that could be used as fillers or that you might need, like "Because of X I want to X", "Since X happened, unfortunately X won't happen", "Dear X... Regards, Name", "please do X as soon as X", "I'm sorry for your loss", "I hope you get better!", "Good luck on X"!, "Thankfully,..." "Hope that helps!!"

[@gro8018]

Wow! This is so helpful. Thanks!

[@kineiya]

Hi Natalie I was wondering if you have heard of or seen these two Korean language book sets? Korean from Zero 1-3 and Syudy book Maruchingu Korean Dtudies/Exercise Book Maruchingu Korean Studies/Practice Book Maruchingu Studies? I am able to get digital copies of these books or do you think physicsl copies would be better? Are they any good? I really can't find any info/reviews on them Thank you

[@christiansanandres6096]

is it mcbook that you are using? with pen?

[@bilalhafeez9188]

Just recently started watching her videos and her intro just goes over my head. What does she say?

[@makeitshine01]

It's written in the description. She says, " Annyeong hase you, Annyeong haseyo."

[@paulwalther5237]

Story learning looks like a good course but the price is a bit high. I'm going to have to wait for them to give a discount. I know they're adding some bonuses but I'm just not ready to drop $300 on a self study course.

[@skinnyrat4277]

yeah, I personally would invest that money in a class or online class and/or textbooks for sure

[@mika4453]

I think once in a while (maybe once a year??) they do a big sale and drop the price by almost $200 off, so like A TON You could try studying with other resources until then see if that price actually works with you, or if you're okay with the ones you already have

[@paulwalther5237]

Yeah I know. The problem is that by the time next November comes around I may not want it anymore because I'm slowly learning intermediate grammar anyway.@@mika4453

[@maquilleMOI]

I know it seems silly, But I see that you use your iPad a lot to take notes and study. Can you show us what you use and how you get it so organised ( I am writing everywhere )

[@Channanabanana1]

Hii Natalie, I am 16 and I was wondering what university you graduated from? Was it in the U.S or SK?

[@maddisonleigh3396]

Hi Nat! If you see this what exactly was the very first steps you took when learning ? I mean, if you remember, what were the first basics you were learning and how were you studying ?

[@mika4453]

She has a video showing her routine on how she got to a lower-intermediate in a few months! I don't remember if it has exactly the topics and orden in which she was learning, but I think ahe showed the books she was following, which is pretty much that^^

[@paulwalther5237]

I feel like the truth is going to be painful (commenting before I watch the video).

[@KarmaKuromi]

My issue is that I can't speak at all. Like I go blank when Im trying to say something in Korean. 😢

[@freecss9330]

same here

[@newjeansfan238]

Another mistake : wanting to learn too many vocabulary and didn't memorize anything, i did this mistake before

[@javeene8896]

Not Nat calling me out😭😭😭