We wanted to address this post from a few days ago. It contains information showing that the main moderator of the subreddit r / Korean (under the username Pikmeir) is also the content creator Billy Go / GO!Billy. We concluded that there is enough solid evidence to support this claim, and here we wish to explain what we intend to do about it.
We took the issue seriously, we read all the comments, and are taking into account that the most upvoted comment requests that we remove recommendations for his products. This stems from concerns about an undisclosed conflict of interest. He serves both as a moderator (someone who writes and enforces rules) and a content creator himself who profits from products teaching the Korean language.
While many users supported stronger measures, we have decided not to remove recommendations for GO! Billy's content on r/BeginnerKorean.
There are several reasons for this decision.
Reddit is an anonymous platform. In most cases, there is no reliable way to distinguish between a genuine recommendation and self-promotion by someone with an undisclosed commercial interest. We moderators are volunteers, users just like you. We are not admins who are actual employees, and who have access to more information about Reddit accounts.
Also, we cannot control what happens elsewhere on Reddit. We only moderate r/BeginnerKorean, so we cannot guarantee fairness across every community. What we can do is ensure that our community members have access to the information needed to make informed decisions for themselves.
Transparency has always been a core principle of this community and we want to do everything in our power to keep it that way. That's why we agreed to implement an automatic informational notice when recommendations of GO! Billy's work are detected, informing users of the undisclosed conflict of interest. Its purpose is simply to provide context that many users may not be aware of. We leave it to everyone to freely decide who they want to support, in an informed way.
It will look something like this:
Transparency Notice:
Discussion and recommendations of GO! Billy's work are permitted on this subreddit. However, community members should be aware that this creator is both a commercial creator and a moderator of a major Korean subreddit. Some community members view this as a significant, long-term conflict of interest and have raised concerns regarding transparency, self-promotion, and treatment of competitors.
Relevant evidence and community discussion can be found here.
We would also like to make it clear that one of the requirements of being a moderator here, on r/BeginnerKorean, is that the person doesn't profit from Korean-learning products or services, and they must not profit from moderation decisions in any way. We also do not allow moderators to recommend or express their personal opinions on any resources. This will apply to all future moderators as well, so you can be certain we will always be moderating as volunteers without any profits or benefits.
Please keep the discussions within r/BeginnerKorean, under this post. Moving the conversation to r / Korean may escalate tensions and lead to harassment and unnecessary drama. We appreciate you maintaining a constructive discussion.
Also, thank you to everyone who participated in the discussion on the original post respectfully and constructively.
Both pattern forms translate to "about" in English, but they play very different grammatical roles in a sentence. Here is a quick distinction you might want to keep in mind:
-에 대해 → Acts as an adverb (connects to a verb or action like talking about, learning about, thinking about).
-에 대한 → Acts as a noun modifier (attaches directly before a noun a book about, a story about, a question about).
Examples:
우주에 대해 배웠어요. (I learned about space. — followed by the verb: 배웠어요)
우주에 대한 책을 읽어요. (I'm reading a book about space. — modifying the noun: 책
Think of -에 대해 as describing what you do (an action), and -에 대한 as attaching directly to a thing (a noun). Plus, you will often see -에 대해서 as well. Adding -서 makes no difference in meaning! (-에 대해 = -에 대해서).
Instead of: 한국 문화에 대한 배웠어요.
Try: 한국 문화에 대해 배웠어요. (I learned about Korean culture.)
Instead of: 한국 문화에 대해 책이에요.
Try: 한국 문화에 대한 책이에요. (It's a book about Korean culture.)
Hi everyone! I’m a Korean teacher based in the UK.
(Transparency note to respect subreddit rules: I want to be fully upfront. These apps have a lot of 100% free content (early levels and first lessons of every level) with no login required. There is a paid Premium pass for full access to all advanced levels, but you can get a lot of solid practice using just the free sections!)
I’ve always wanted a truly clean, distraction-free, and practical app for my students, so I decided to build it myself.
I made two separate web apps depending on how you like to study:
This one is focused purely on reading and shadowing practice.
(This is my own story book)
The best part:
You don't need to download anything from the App Store. Just open the links in Safari or Chrome, tap "Add to Home Screen" , and it works exactly like a native app on your phone.
I would absolutely love to hear your thoughts. Please try out the free sections and let me know your honest feedback!
Prefer watching? My YouTube channel also has videos with English and Japanese subtitles: https://www.youtube.com/@글자놀이
You can select the subtitle language in the YouTube player settings.
Hi everyone! I'm the creator of GLANGI (글랑이), and this is a self-promotion post.
GLANGI is a browser-based Hangul word-play website for people taking their first steps with Korean letters. It was designed with young children in mind, including ages 4–6 learning with a parent, but I'd also love feedback from adult beginners.
What you can try:
• Start with 기차 (gicha, train), 나비 (nabi, butterfly), and 두더지 (dudeoji, mole) without logging in.
• Play with letters and simple words; for example, the train activity introduces ㄱ + ㅣ = 기.
• Switch the interface to English or Japanese. The English word screen includes romanization and meanings.
• Open it directly in a web browser; no app installation is needed.
Cost and access: All currently available activities are free, including after login. There is no paid subscription or paid content at present. Some additional word activities require a free login. Sections marked "coming soon" are still being developed and are not available yet.
About my background: I have no experience teaching Korean. I hold a Korean Grade 2 secondary-school teaching certificate (중등학교 2급 정교사); I am not presenting that as a qualification to teach Korean as a foreign language. This is a small practice resource, not a complete Korean course or a promise of learning results.
Choose English or 日本語, then open the word activities. The screenshot below shows the English word screen.
If you try one activity, what was clear and what was confusing? Feedback about the instructions and first-time learner experience would be especially helpful. Please leave questions or feedback here in the comments so the discussion stays public. Thank you!
I'm part of a small team in Korea, and this is a post about something we sell. So the pitch comes first, every detail the rules ask for comes right under it, and anything you ask in the comments I'll answer in the comments.
Every learner we talked to had the same story. You've put in the hours: the textbook chapters, the grammar points, the vocabulary deck you review every morning. You can read a sentence and tell exactly why it's correct. Then a Korean person says something to you and nothing comes out. Studying is a solo sport. Speaking isn't, and that's the part nobody practices, because there's nobody to practice with at 9pm on a Tuesday.
So we made a phone number. Pick Up Korean is +1 (828) 520-8282. Call it, and a Korean AI partner picks up and talks with you in Korean at your level. If you're at zero, it starts with the sounds of Hangul, greetings and a few phrases you actually say out loud. If you can hold a conversation, it's a conversation, and when you get stuck it switches to English for a moment and comes back. You do close to half the talking. That's the whole point.
The part that makes it stick: you pick the days and a time, and on those days your phone rings. Not a notification you swipe away. A call you answer. Fifteen minutes a day, and after a month you've said more Korean out loud than in the last year.
pickupkorean.com
What it is, exactly
One-on-one phone calls with a Korean partner. The partner is an AI, and says so if you ask. Nothing to install and nothing to prepare: it works on any phone, you call the number or it calls you, and a call runs up to 30 minutes. During the call your partner doesn't stop to lecture. When something comes out wrong it asks again or drops a hint so you fix it yourself, and the conversation keeps going. After you hang up you get a text with the summary and a web page with the whole transcript, each phrase that came out wrong next to the natural way to say it and why, the new words, and a plan for next time. Your partner remembers you, so the next call starts where the last one ended and brings back what you got wrong. You can also text your partner between calls. Beginners are the point of this: level zero starts with Hangul sounds and greetings.
What it costs, all of it
Free trial: your first call is free, 10 minutes, no account, no card. Once per phone number. US and Canada numbers only for now.
Monthly plans, each a weekly amount of call time. Lite is $14.99 a month for 60 minutes a week, and it calls you on up to 3 days a week. Standard is $24.99 for 100 minutes a week, up to 5 days. Max is $34.99 for 140 minutes a week, any day. On every plan you can also call in yourself whenever you like, and a scheduled call you miss costs nothing.
Yearly: $151.99, $253.99 or $355.99, about 15% off.
Cancel any time in your account. No cancellation fee: the plan runs to the end of what you paid for, then stops. Prices are in US dollars, and sales tax is added where your state charges it. Payments and refunds go through Paddle, the merchant of record, under its refund policy. The full table is on https://pickupkorean.com
Discount for this sub: the code BEGINNERKOREAN20 takes 20% off your first month on a monthly plan.
Who we are
LayerNines, a small software company in Korea, all native Korean speakers. We didn't wire a chatbot to a phone line and call it a day. Before the first call, we wrote down how a call should run as a teaching method grounded in second-language-acquisition research (Lyster & Saito 2010, Nation & Yamamoto 2012, DeKeyser & Suzuki 2025), and the partner follows it: it draws your speech out instead of explaining, it corrects with a clue (a clarification question, a repeat of your error, a prompt to try again) rather than handing you the answer so the fix is yours, a call is split between real conversation, fluency practice and grammar form, and the report afterwards records what you did well before what to fix. Then we spent hundreds of hours on real calls, listening back and tuning how long it waits, when it switches to English and how it corrects, and that work hasn't stopped. Transcripts and recordings are deleted within 30 days and never used to train anything. AI can still slip, which is one more reason the first ten minutes are free: judge the Korean with your own ears before you pay for anything.
Try it before you believe any of this. Call the number, talk for ten minutes, and tell me in the comments where the Korean or the corrections were off. That's honestly what I most want from this post. Thank you for reading!
Hi all. I shared this TOPIK I practice here two weeks ago and got useful feedback (someone said 30 questions in a row was too long, so there's now a 10/15/20/30 option). With TOPIK 109 on Nov 15, I added a few things:
- Exam mode: 40 reading questions in 60 minutes, easy types first and longer texts last, like the real section
- 10 listening questions with audio (each dialogue plays twice)
- Instant score and a rough Level 1/2 estimate
- A word list from your mistakes, with Anki export
- Short guides: question types, scoring, vocab by topic, and a 2-week plan if you're scoring under 140
Price and details: free, no sign-up. Explanations are free for the first 5 questions of each set. There is a "$9" button for full explanations, but it isn't available yet. It only counts interest and nothing is charged.
Disclosure: I made this. It's unofficial and not affiliated with NIIED. The questions are original practice items written with AI assistance. If you find an unnatural sentence or a wrong answer key, please tell me in the comments and I'll fix it.
Hey guys! I’m Danny, a Korean tutor based in Seoul.
A few of my international students recently told me, "Teacher, there are so many learners on Reddit asking great questions about real Korean!"
Curiosity got the best of me, so I decided to make an account and drop by! I have classes throughout the week so I can't be on here 24/7, but I wanted to swing by and share a funny moment from this week's lesson.
We were practicing basic self-introductions, and so many of my students were reading sentences like a robot without even realizing it.
The classic culprit? "-이에요 / -예요".
Everyone was saying:
❌ 저는 미국 사람이에요 ➔ [저-는 미-국 사-람-이-에-요] (beep-boop 🤖)
When I told them, "Stop! Native Koreans don't talk like that. Say it like this:"
✅ [미-구 사-라-미-에-요]
They were like, "Wait... why did the 'M' jump over there?!" and burst out laughing haha.
What’s actually happening here? (Liaison / 연음 법칙)
In spoken Korean, when a syllable ends with a final consonant (받침) and meets a vowel next to it, the sound slides right over:
- 미국 + 이에요 ➔ The ㄱ slides over ➔ [미구기에요]
- 사람 + 이에요 ➔ The ㅁ slides over ➔ [사라미에요]
- 독일 + 이에요 ➔ The ㄹ slides over ➔ [도기리에요]
Don't pause between the noun and 이에요. Treat it as one single smooth word in one breath!
Try saying your country + 이에요 out loud right now. Does it feel smooth or does your tongue still feel twisted? haha
If you're not sure how your name or country connects naturally, drop it in the comments below!
I'm learning Korean, and one of my biggest struggles is remembering new vocabulary. 😭
Sometimes I learn a word, understand its meaning, and feel confident about it. But when I see the same word a few days later, I can't remember what it means!
I've tried memorizing word lists, but I want to learn vocabulary in a way that actually sticks.
For those who have been learning Korean for a while:
Do you use flashcards, notebooks, apps, or something else?
How often do you revise old vocabulary?
Do you learn words individually or through example sentences?
What has genuinely helped you remember words long-term?
I'd love to hear about your personal experiences and methods that actually work!
I don't have the budget for professional lessons, and despite being able to read simple texts, I find it incredibly hard to study independently. I tried talking to native speakers, but my skills aren't at a level where I can converse smoothly yet, and I just get discouraged so quickly because of this. Does anyone have tips for staying consistent, or free routines to help me? I fear I can't do this on my own without money...
But I’m TERRIBLE at speaking right now, and I’m so awkward, and I don’t want to be made fun of. Prefer a female. I live in TN in the US and my time zone is CST.
So, I’ve been wanting to learn Korean for a while now, but I honestly feel a bit overwhelmed looking at where to begin. I got introduced to Korean primarily through Kpop but I've grown very interested in Korean literature and poetry. I’m currently balancing my regular studies, so I don't have endless free time and want to make sure I don't burn myself out .I’ve heard people say that poetry is especially brutal because of wordplay, older grammar, and poetic nuances.
I can realistically dedicate only about an hour a day to this, and I want to go slow and build a solid foundation rather than rushing through stuff.
For anyone who has learned Korean (or another language) while managing school I want to ask-
1.Where is the absolute best place to start after learning Hangul (what worked out the best for you) ?
How should I structure that 1 hour a day to go at a slow, manageable pace without falling behind in primary studies?
Are there specific apps, textbooks, or routines or any other resources that helped you out?
Hi! I made a free printable Hangul chart for people just starting out, and thought it might help some of you here.
What's on it:
- The 14 basic consonants (ㄱ to ㅎ) with their Korean names (기역, 니은, 디귿...) and Revised Romanization, including the start/end sound difference (e.g. ㄱ = g at the start of a syllable, k at the end)
- The 10 basic vowels (ㅏ to ㅣ) with romanization
- A short note on what isn't on the chart yet (double consonants and combined vowels), so you know what to learn next
It's a US Letter PDF, made to print and keep next to your notebook. No account or email needed, it opens straight in Google Drive:
Disclosure: I run a small shop called Dotwren that makes Korean-learning printables. The chart was designed with AI tools, and page 2 links to our paid workbooks. The chart itself is complete and free.
If anything looks confusing or wrong, please tell me and I'll fix it!
Hi! I run a small shop called Dotwren that makes Korean-learning printables. I put together a free Hangul chart with the 14 basic consonants and 10 basic vowels, their names, romanization and sounds.
What do people at the beginner level, who don't know the Korean alphabet or the basics at all, usually use to learn Korean? (app, textbook, .. or anything else?)
And for friends who know a bit of Korean and feel they’ve learned it, wanting to study more deeply (basic conversation skills or above), should they take classes at a Korean language institute in that country or get private tutoring? Or mostly self-study?
I'm new here in reddit and I'm actually a shy person but I wanna make Friends and I'm interested in learning Korean language and culture because i love watching Korean dramas. I'd like to meet new friends who are also college students from korea whyether ur Korean or not, I just want to learn your school life there. Hope to meet u:)
