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Learner Reviews & Feedback for First Step Korean by Yonsei University

4.9
stars
49,328 ratings

About the Course

This is an elementary-level Korean language course, consisting of 5 lessons with 4 units, and covers 4 skills: reading, writing, listening and speaking. The main topics include basic expressions used in everyday life, such as greetings, introducing yourself, talking about your family and a daily life and so on. Each lesson covers dialogues, pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, quizzes and role-plays. After completing this course, you will be able to 1. read and write Korean alphabet. 2. communicate in Korean with basic expressions. 3. learn basic knowledge on Korean culture. It’s fun and easy to follow! Enjoy it!...

Top reviews

DD

May 1, 2017

This was course was very informative. I really enjoyed the content being that I wasn't on the paid version. I didn't feel like I was missing out on anything but learn a lot from this course. 감사합니다!!!!

CS

Jan 6, 2018

The course is amazing for now! The teacher explains everything in a great order and it helps me a lot with Korean. I understand a lot more now. Thank you for that Seung Hae Kang and Yonsei University!

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126 - 150 of 10,000 Reviews for First Step Korean

By Magda P

Aug 26, 2021

Estoy muy agradecida por concluir este curso, realmente aprendí, me hubiera gustado que este en idioma español, pero con el ingles fue suficiente para poder comprender ciertas cosas, no cabe duda que con la disciplina se pueden lograr muchas cosas, cada semana me esmere en terminar cada lección, para poder llegar a mi objetivo, ahora que he concluido espero seguir aprendiendo más idioma coreano, para expandir mi conocimiento, agradezco a la plataforma por existir y hacer que mi conocimiento sobre idiomas se expanda, deberían de seguir con su sistema, si es eficaz, gracias universidad YONSEI por ofrecer el idioma coreano, de una forma gratis, por explicar todo, gracias por su conocimiento.

By Marco R

Dec 12, 2020

Extremely useful for novices like me. I had spent a couple weeks trying to learn the basics after the alphabet but I felt like I hit a wall, but this course showed me the steps to learn in a way that worked for me.

I like the teacher Seung Hae Kang, she has an imposing authority of respect and discipline that helps me focus, and she explains fairly well all the little details that help you understand where each particle comes from and why it's used in certain cases.

The tests are tough but fair, if you fail on the first try you'll know that it's your fault for not learning the vocabulary (which is not that difficult) that you've been given, or the grammar rules that you've been taught.

By Wayland C

Feb 2, 2021

I'm very pleased with the contents, the level is just right. I still have to re-visit some of the lectures to consolidate my understanding. The course is a wonderful journey and I wish that I had taken the course a few years ago as I had to work with Koreans over a few years. Korean is a beautiful language and the Koreans are extremely friendly and very hospitable, not to mention that Korea is a beautiful country too! I will practise what I learn with this and will visit the Korea and see my friends again. Meanwhile, I will continue to enrich my understanding of Korean, and most importantly, the culture. I will look out for other Korean courses :) Thank you once again Prof Kang!

By Juan S S A

Jul 20, 2017

This is an amazing Korean language course. Professor Seung Hae Kang is a wonderful instructor and the course is really well designed. It has a 'situation approach' in which daily life experiences are used cleverly to teach vocabulary, pronunciation tips, particles and common expressions. It also teaches some useful facts about Korean culture and the course's discussion forums are highly active with nice mentors willing to help.

I truly enjoyed the content and I would strongly recommend to take this course to anyone who wants to get started in Korean language. Thank you to Yonsei University, professor Seung Hae Kang and all the staff involved in the development of this course.

고맙습니다!

By TRIPET-COSTET G

May 2, 2016

Excellent cours, bien construit. Bien expliquer qui m'a beaucoup aidé surtout pour les prononciations, la professeure accentue bien chaque lettres donc on arrive a bien les différencier pour l'apprentissage. Le vocabulaire est aussi très précis et bien expliqué. Le cours est excellent mais je trouve les exercices peut-être un peu trop facile voir trop facile mais j'apprend depuis déjà un moment le coréen donc je n'enlève pas d'étoiles ne pouvant pas trop juger sur ça... J'ai participer à ce cours pour m'aider sur certains point notamment la prononciation et pour aussi pouvoir m'aider dans mes projets. Et j'en ressort ravis, je vous le conseil à tous. C'est une bonne expérience.

By Vicky D E

Sep 18, 2021

The First Step Korean course provide basic information about hangeul and basic daily conversation in hangeul. It really helps me in learning basic Korean language. They give a perfect module each week that makes me eager to learn. I do not feel burden with the task because it fits my free time each week. For the graded worksheets, sometimes I feel it's too difficult, but after evaluating my performance, it's actually not. I feel like I was not ready yet for the quiz. So, for you guys who are taking this course, remember to be ready before taking any graded quiz. You may want to practice again before taking it. Thank you Yonsei University for bringing this course for free!

By Patrick D

Mar 10, 2018

I loved this course! I want to thank Professor Seung Hae Kang, who clearly cares about her students and wants to make sure everyone succeeds. In addition to the great instructor, the lessons were broken into easily digestible segments so that it wasn't discouraging to someone who is just starting out. Also, I found Unit 1 extremely helpful in learning pronunciations of letters, especially to someone unfamiliar with the sounds of Hangeul. This course has inspired me to continue my education in Korean language and culture, and I will be taking Learning to Speak Korean 1 in a few weeks to pursue this goal. Thank you to everyone involved in putting together this course!

By Shrestha D

Jul 8, 2021

This was the first language course of my life. I was fond of watching K drama and from there I got interested in learning the Korean language. At first, I was worried about spending my money and that will the teacher be able to teach it online, instead of having normal classes. But, Mam taught so well from alphabets to numbers to daily life dialects used in Korea. The idea of having notes and tests after every chapter is very good for the students. In the end, 3 attempts for the tests are also an opportunity for the students to improve themselves for the language. It will be helpful if Yonsei University comes out with intermediate and advanced Koran language levels.

By Stephanie B

Jun 1, 2023

This course is really helpful for beginners. At First you'll have a hard time with the proper pronunciation of each vowels and consonants but you'll be able to learn it along the way by reading sentences out loud while doing each activity along the way. But honestly speaking, Korean numbers for time and date is very hard for me coz you'll have to use the Sino Korean numbers compared to Native Korean numbers that is being used for counting in general. But all in all, i enjoyed it and on my way to LEARN TO SPEAK KOREAN 1 as soon as i am done reviewing all my previous lessons with FIRST STEP KOREAN. And by the way THANK YOU TO SEON SAENG NIM SEUNG HAE KANG. 🥰🫶🏻

By Elysha C

Jan 14, 2018

What a fantastic course! I really learned a lot about Korean basics and feel comfortable progressing to more advance studies after completing this course. I would recommend more opportunities to practice certain sounds and syllables, such as the aspiration/tension sounds and composite vowels, as the provided soundboard only covers the basic consonants and vowels. As an English speaker I had a hard time distinguishing sounds like 시 and 씨. I would also recommend an explanation of more instances of when to use different subject particles, as I would see 은 and 는 in places I did not expect on the quizzes. Thank you so much for the learning opportunity. 고맙습니다!

By Merlin A

Sep 30, 2017

I've completed week 2 (out of 5-week module) and so far I'm learning a lot! Each module is presented clearly and systematically (e.g., starting with basic concept, then as concrete examples on grammar, application in real life, pronunciation, additional vocabulary, quizzes as part of the active learning), as well as in 'bite-sized' chunks. It is not overwhelming at all! It makes learning a new language feasible in my busy life. I've been using my commute time to complete each module. Thank you to instructor(s) and course designer(s)! (I would attempt to use Han-gul to type at least the last sentence but my keyboard is not fitted with the characters yet!)

By Aritza C

Jan 29, 2023

I loved it and enjoyed it! The professor did an amazing job at organizing and teaching. I wish I could have met her in person to thank her. Prior to this course, I learned the Hangul alphabet through a YouTuber called Miss Vicky, but this professor quickly touched on the alphabet and I felt I wouldn't have needed to learn the alphabet elsewhere. I started this course on December 22, 2022, and finished on January 29, 2023. I stuck to my goal of doing 3 out of 5 days. I will now sign up for the other course called "learn to speak Korean 1" provided by the same university. I hope Yonsei University provides a course that teaches Korean sentence structure.

By ilunga V M

Jul 31, 2016

This has been an exceptional course. I have really enjoyed it as an introductory course to Korean, because it does a good job of teaching the basics without trenching too much in the details. I believe that in beginning stages a learner should not boggle themselves down too much with the details of a language. With time and exposure details are learned. Our instructor was easy to comprehend in her English pronunciation; she was professional, and she seem to enjoy the topic. I feel confident in the foundation that has been set for me and therefore, I am confident to continue what I hope will become a lifetime journey of enjoying and learning Korean.

By Aarón A

May 27, 2020

Qué buen material; en mi caso lo tomé para revisión de mi nivel actual y comparar si había contenido que desconocía. Creo que es un buen embarque para aquellos que empiezan de cero, y es comparable a un curso presencial donde debes memorizar vocabulario para avanzar. El ritmo puede ser bueno para algunos y lento para otros pero la opción de acelerar el audio compensó eso.

Muy acertadas las explicaciones técnicas. En general recomiendo el curso para quienes se quieren embarrar un poco de el ambiente de aprendizaje de este idioma, pero debo admitir que conviene mucho llevar otro curso que complemente áreas de enseñanza con material "lúdico". IMHO.

By Cynthia P

Sep 25, 2021

I've been taking multiple intro classes and this has been the best. I got the feeling that if I was Prof Kang's class, she would patiently answer my questions. The description of Hangul was way beyond anything I've seen. She is the expert on teaching this so I must be an outlier. I would have appreciate the pronunciation info, followed by the detailed review of the dialog and then watched the video or at least see the video again. It would also be awesome if somebody would fill in the [foreign] words in the transcripts. They are useless without that. But again, this was a great class and I'd love to meet Prof Kang if I ever make it to Seoul.

By Goh R Y A

Jun 7, 2020

An excellent course for anyone interested in learning Hangeul and some Korean words! The course covers topics useful for some conversation-starters. There are also many examples for practising various sentence structures. As my first time learning the Korean language, I have benefited a lot so thank you! I think the pace of the course gets slightly fast at times, but it is understandable given the amount of content to cover in each video. One small piece of advice for anyone in this course is to repeat or replay parts of the video (where you did not catch the Professor) - it would be useful for reinforcing what you have just learnt anyway!

By DEBORAH S P C

Aug 17, 2020

I am really happy with this cours, before it I was clueless about the korean language, but now I feel impressed of how much I learned and improved in such a small amount of time. Thank you Professor Seung Hae Kang, your way of teaching helped a lot, and made easier this experience. I always have love study languages because I find fascinating how different they are, or how similar they can be from one to another and that at the end, learning a new language not only breaks the barrier of communication but help people come together. If it´s your first time learning korean, this is what you are looking for. Thanks a lot, and good luck!! :)

By Shannon S R

May 11, 2020

This was a very educated course for me as I am a beginner in Korean. I still have to continue practicing writing Korean, I am pretty comfortable with understanding it orally. My only recommendation was that there be phonetic pronunciations next to the Korean writing (in subtitles) as I went to Google translate to get the pronunciation right or tried to make the best of what Seonsaengnim said. But overall an awesome course, I did this course via free to enroll but I will be paying for the certificate and continuing to practice to say and write Korean as I wish the course was longer (I downloaded the videos to look back on in the future)

By Phyosithu P

May 21, 2021

The professor's explanation is absolutely understandable that students can easily follow the lectures accompanied by the lectures notes. The syllabus is orderly arranged as it firstly teaches you the most important one ,I guess, Hangul followed by introduction to yourself. There are enough 5 weeks study time so that it can be freely adjustable according to you. The way lectures being presented is quite comprehensive because it includes vocabs, dialogues and also pronunciation and grammar points. I would like to recommend for students who want to taste the very first piece of Korea that this course of course might suit you the best.

By LABERIBE B

Apr 18, 2021

Pour la toute débutante que je suis, j'ai trouvé le déroulé pédagogique clair, concis et précis. Pour chaque session, le contenu est accessible et encourageant afin de fournir le travail nécessaire pour progression. Je suis très contente d'avoir réussir à suivre ces premières étapes de la langue coréenne. Merci à Madame Seung Hae Kang et son équipe !

A a beginner, I find your program very clear and easy to follow step by step. So it was motivating to keep on working and progressing. I'm happy to discover korean language. I hope I'll meet one day korean people to practise it. Thank you to Mrs Seung Hae Kang et her team ! 고맙즙ㅣ다 !

By Diva P

Oct 6, 2021

Hi everyone, my name is Diva Puspita, I'm from Indonesia. I wanna give my review to this course. First of all, I would like to say thank you so much for Mrs. Seung Hee Kang for everything included the video. I'm very happy to learn Korean Language because it's half of my dream and I'm a kpop stan. yooo I'm MOAARMYENGEN hehe btw this courses really help me how to write, speak, and etc. I have so many friends too in group discussion. For the rmodels on speaking video practice I honored to learn many things from y'all. I think that's some review from me, I hope I can practice it a lot and go to Korea soon. love from me. #INDONESIA

By Alan W H

Aug 29, 2016

This course provides a well-paced introduction to learning the Korean language. It is well-suited to students who have little or no knowledge of Korean language to begin with. The course videos and the conversations of the players in the instructive videos helps us to get a feel for how the language operates in a real situation. The course lecturer provides detailed explanations of the origins of Korean vowels and consonants, the way the language is constructed, correct pronunciation, and much more. I would recommend this course to anyone who wants to learn the Korean language. Many thanks to our lecturer for this great course.

By Marta N

Jul 2, 2023

Gracias por la oportunidad brindada, seguiré repasando lo aprendido y espero poder tener la oportunidad de seguir aprendiendo el idioma de esta cultura tan interesante.

Espero con ansias la oportunidad ya que no cuento con el recurso económico para ir a la Universidad y seguir tomando de forma gratuita el curso. Después de esta experiencia me gustaría poder ser maestra de coreano.

Por lo pronto, como soy maestra de secundaria; estoy intentando motivar a algunos de mis alumnos a aprender esto hermoso idioma y cultura.

Gracias a todos y en especial a mi Profesora Seung Hae Kang por sus enseñanzas.

Sinceramente,

Marta L. Nuñez

By Tripti D

Jul 18, 2020

Completely worth it! The teacher is very good at explaining the basics along with grammar and reason for as to why the language is the way it is! It really helps remember the language logically! The teacher also had good control over the course and its material and its flow. I really wish it was released as series from basic to advanced so that we could achieve higher understanding and fluency in the subject. Highly recommend.

Suggestion for Coursera- With the K-Wave around the world, I really hope you add more Korean courses online.

Thank you so much Teacher Seung Hae Kang and Yonsei University. Also, thank you Coursera.

By Jill S

Oct 20, 2021

I enjoyed this course very much. This was a supplement to some of my other language self-studies, however, this could work well alone as well. Professor Seung Hae Kang did a wonderful job presenting and explaining materials while providing enough examples to fully understand the material. As with any language - practice is always necessary. So, you can't assume that just because you pass the course you'll be able to speak Korean - and she reminds you to put in the work with very supportive and positive feedback. There is a LOT of information in this course and review of the vocabulary and grammar will be important.