How to learn Korean as an adult: Hangul in a weekend, speaking in a week

The short version

1. Week 1: Hangul (a weekend, seriously) and your first 20 words and phrases, out loud.
2. Weeks 2–4: 200 words by situation and the polite -요 ending on ten verbs; one spoken exchange a day.
3. Months 2–3: daily ten-minute conversations about real situations, corrected afterwards. Particles and verb endings arrive through corrections.
4. Always: speak before you feel ready. Koreans are moved when foreigners try, and will help.

Week 1: Hangul and the sounds

Hangul has 14 consonants and 10 vowels, combined into syllable blocks. The shapes of the consonants mirror the shape of your mouth when you say them — ㄱ is the tongue against the back of the mouth, ㅁ is closed lips. Learn it in a weekend with any free Hangul course; from then on, never use romanisation again. (Romanised Korean actively misleads your pronunciation.)

The sounds to practise deliberately: Korean has three versions of several consonants — plain, aspirated (with a puff of air) and tense (ㄱ/ㅋ/ㄲ) — and the difference matters (불 fire vs 풀 grass vs 뿔 horn). Also the vowels ㅓ and ㅗ, which English speakers merge. A week of copying your teacher, exaggerated, fixes most of it.

Weeks 2–4: the 200 words and the *-요* form

Greetings, numbers (Korean has two counting systems — learn the native one for counting things first, Sino-Korean for money and dates), the verbs 이다 / 있다 / 가다 / 먹다 / 마시다 / 하다 / 알다 / 좋아하다, question words, food, directions, time, family. Learn every verb in the polite -요 form: it's correct with almost everyone, it's regular, and it buys you a year before you need anything else.

Our Korean vocabulary by topic groups 200 words by situation; ten a day, aloud. Daily rule: one sentence to someone, today. 안녕하세요, 잘 지내요? counts.

Months 2–3: situations, corrections, particles

Ten minutes a day on one situation — the café, ordering at a restaurant, introducing yourself, asking the way — repeated until easy. Corrections after the thought: what you said, the natural version, one line on why.

Particles (은/는 topic, 이/가 subject, 을/를 object, 에 place/time, 에서 place of action) and the verb-at-the-end order sort themselves out here, one correction at a time. Koreans drop particles constantly in speech, so don't agonise — you'll be understood with none of them.

What to skip (for now)

• *Honorific vocabulary (드시다, 계시다). Learn it when you have a Korean boss or in-laws. -요* is polite enough until then.
• *Casual 반말 from dramas.* Understand it; don't use it on strangers.
• Hanja (Chinese characters). Not needed. Modern Korean is written in Hangul.
• Both number systems on day one. Native Korean numbers to 10 first; the rest when money comes up.

How long does it really take?

With 15–20 minutes a day, mostly speaking: simple everyday conversation in three to four months (A2); comfortable conversation in a year to eighteen months. Reading comes almost immediately thanks to Hangul; listening to fast, slurred, drama-speed Korean is the long tail. If you already watch Korean content, your ear is ahead of your mouth — use the conversations to catch the mouth up.

Where to practise speaking

In order of how much they'll make you speak: a patient Korean-speaking friend (free, rare), a private tutor (the best feedback, €15–30 an hour), a language-exchange partner (free, hit-and-miss), and an AI conversation teacher (unlimited patience, available at 11 pm, free or cheap). Most people end up combining the last two.

If you want to try the AI route, Jiwoo on SpeakingVibes is a Korean teacher you talk to out loud: she answers in Korean with romanisation while you're learning Hangul, slows down when you ask, corrects you gently afterwards and saves every new word to your flashcards. The free account covers the daily ten-minute conversation this guide is built around.