Guides

The longer pieces — the things a phrase page is too short to explain properly.

Why these two guides come first

Most beginner mistakes in Korean are not about vocabulary. They come from two things phrasebooks skip. The first is politeness: the same sentence changes its ending depending on who you are talking to, and using the wrong ending can sound rude or oddly stiff. The speech levels guide cuts the seven levels in grammar books down to the three you will actually use, and tells you which one is safe with strangers.

The second is spelling in English letters. Korean names and places have been written in Latin letters in more than one official way, which is why you see Busan and Pusan, Jeju and Cheju. The romanization guide explains where the two systems come from and why neither matches the sound perfectly — which is the real reason to learn Hangul rather than rely on romanization.

How the guides connect to the phrase pages

Each guide links to phrase pages that show the point in action, with native audio. If you read a guide and want to hear the difference between, say, 고마워 and 감사합니다, follow the links and listen to them side by side. The phrase pages in turn link back here when a phrase only makes sense with the bigger picture.

If you have a question a guide does not answer, ask it. Questions that come up more than once decide what gets written next.