Opiniones y comentarios de aprendices correspondientes a First Step Korean por parte de Universidad Yonsei

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It's a really good course to go from cero knowledge to very basic knowledge. In particular, the lessons in weeks one and two are very well-paced and the explanations given in the videos are clear and concise. The teacher takes time to enunciate and to explain the pronunciations of the vocabulary used in every lesson, which is of great help since Korean pronunciation is very nuanced and hard to understand the difference between the similar-sounding sounds.

As an area of improvement, I would consider reviewing the reading material since it's very scarce. It holds all the vocabulary as well as additional exercises that the student can attempt on their own before watching the videos to do corrections, however, there are no actual explanations of the grammar learned in each lesson. Particularly in weeks 3 and 4 where grammar gets a bit more complicated, the explanation in the video is not enough to truly understand what the rules are and students who learn more by understanding grammar could use a more fleshed out explanation in the reading material.

Overall I do recommend it, it's a great introduction and it's not too heavy, so someone who is a full-time employee or student can still pass this course easily.

I enjoyed the course overall. It was quite detailed and very grammar-centred. I appreciate the materials being downloadable too, so that students can review all the lessons. A very good introduction to Korean.

Potential students should be patient and methodical - if you're used to the Western 'fun and games'/interactive approach to language learning, this is not it. You need to be a self-starter with a decent attention span, as there is a lot of information to digest in a short amount of time (unless you set very generous deadlines).

You also need to be aware that the Korean words are not transcribed so you will need to learn the symbols very quickly in order to do well. I confess this was the aspect that tripped me up the most.

A few other things that slowed me down during the course: the Korean lettering was at times far too small and densely packed for non-native eyes to follow at natural speed; Korean sounds are difficult to differentiate (more focus on this would have been appreciated); and tests are graded but no feedback is provided (correct answers with explanations would have been great!).

Final words of wisdom: enjoy the course - you have nothing to lose and everything to gain!

Good course but not as good as the Chinese courses that I take through Peking from courersa. I think it leaves a lot of gaps in learning. The Korean language has both formal and informal and how this class is taught is very formal. I wanted a combination of both. It doesn't also get into detail how korean sentences can be versatile. Furthermore, I took the course to get a better grip on reading and writing since that's the hardest part for me but it jumps through so quickly without offering students to learn to read in different ways. For example, children and many adults are more visual people. My Chinese course through Peking university gives you exercises with visuals as well. I believe that helps in retaining and understanding the reading element better. I expected more from Yonsei since it's a top university so a bit disappointed but it's not a bad course and like I said still useful in it's own way. Although, many of the vocabularies are completely useless for everyday life. I wish more of the typical vocabulary was included. Honestly, the talk to me in Korean material I ordered online is better.

To start learning Korean I think this course is a good way to do it. It has vocabulary, it has grammar and to start learning ways to introduce yourself and see how do you feel about this language I think it helps a lot. Because if you start with a lot of difficult grammar and stuff like that it'd maybe scare you but with little introductions about what do you do or about things you like it seems a friendly language. I'm looking for the next Yonsei's course and I hope it goes as well as this one. I recommend it to people who wants to start learning Korean.

(If I had to say something bad it's that sometimes it doesn't explain exactly the grammar points. I mean, they show you how to say something but then they use another different example and don't explain you why it's different to the first one. I don't know if this makes sense but if you start doing this course our you already have done it, you'll understand me).

감사합니다 승해강 선생님 ^^

This is a great language course! It's my first time learning Korean and I was able to keep up and learn so much. The course takes us from the very basic steps of learning the Korean language (reading hangul) to introducing ourselves and asking/answering questions about our daily routines. It goes without saying that you need to actually put in the effort to learn a new language. You can't expect to simply watch the lessons and absorb all the information.

The only reason I don't give it 5 stars is that I feel like it is missing some important and basic information for people who are traveling to Korea, such as asking someone to repeat himself or to speak slower, asking "how do you say this" is Korean. Still, I'm glad I was able to do this course and I was honestly a little sad when it was over. I will definitely keep practicing what I learned so far and look for new courses to keep learning Korean!

I learned Korean nearly 20 years ago and decided to work through this course as a refresher. The course is fairly well done. The pace is a little aggressive, which is fine if you take your time to learn each lesson before moving on. Language courses are not the kind where you can just listen and then take the quiz. Slow down. Practice.

By week four the speakers in the audio files were speaking on a level where I was having difficulty distinguishing some of the words. In particular, the differences between the 20th and 21st of the month can be somewhat challenging for a beginning speaker of Korean. On the quizzes, I slowed down and repeated some of the audio. Even so, I missed a few questions. I think the course should take more care in producing the audio files and planning the questions. Some of those my be nearly impossible for beginners to get correct.

Everything was spectacular, my only request is that some of the questions in the quizzes or paragraphs in the lessons had words that I had not learned yet. It would be nice to have a look at all the vocabulary used, even if that also means attaching a list of all the words learned in the Week. The next thing is that some of the explanations felt insufficient when I was doing the lessons. The family introductions had essentially 2 ways to answer the question, but I don't feel like it was explained enough how the answers differed. Same with some of the particle endings explanations. A review of the particle endings learned and their differences would be appreciated too. I know it's only beginner Korean, but I think it would definitely help. I will be reviewing the lessons again in my own time. I hope there is a "Second Step Korean" in the future.

This course was so helpful!! The video clips are short but I had to replay it from time to time to fully grasp the lesson. I just hope they could've taught conversations/expressions that tourists can use or will encounter when they visit Korea because I think most students who want to learn here are tourists/exchange students. For the lecture notes, I feel like it should be other lessons or topics, not just the video clip itself. Also for the conversation practice part in the video clips, I wish you could've put the English words on the screen because I tend to forget the whole story/conversation so I had a hard time creating its Korean words/sentences. But I really learned a lot here especially the months, dates and numbers! Just need to read my notes from time to time so I don't forget.

The only issue I have with this course are the English subtitles not writing the Korean that the instructor is speaking! I suspect the subtitles are auto-generated. It would have helped me, and also be more inclusive to those who have trouble hearing and have to rely on subtitles to know what is being said.

Other than that, this course encouraged me to keep to a schedule for my language learning. I had trouble motivating myself to learn with no real reason to study besides my own curiosity. Having an obligation to an online class with a grade, teacher, and due dates helped me to not give up or let myself believe I'll do it some other time when I feel like it. Now it's time for me to go over my notes and really memorize what I've learned this past month. Thank you.

The lessons are structured in a sequential manner, slowly building upon the concepts. The pronunciation rules and phonetic explanatiosn are very good. At times, there is too many details given with respect to phonetic changes and that adds to the learner's worry. As for the quiz, they are very learner-friendly. The male voice used is too harsh/baritone-ish to hear clearly. The possibility of downloading the video and the pdf file is an excellent offer for students and makes the value for money very worthy. After unit 2, I feel the concepts get slightly complicated and the explanations are more "pedagogical" than "learner friendly". To sum up, I enjoyed this course thoroughly and I feel a little more confident in reading Korean.

I was fooled by the number of weeks required to complete, there's actually a lot of content covered and you WILL need to revise! Definitely helps to learn the alphabet beforehand. I really enjoyed the focus on pronunciation and building up the vocabulary, but if you're a type of learner who learns best from extensive grammar explanations and exercises, this one might not meet your expectations. It integrates basic grammar points organically through studying everyday conversations. Overall, would recommend for complete beginners to get to know the very basics but not as a refresher. I'm personally very happy with this content for free but I have been supplementing my study with textbooks and grammar books.

Overall it was very nice and helpful. Though some grammar aspects were introduced as "dogmas" rather than explained, what I personally found a bit disturbing and had to look for additional explanation elsewhere. I'm fluent in Japanese and a University lecturer myself so I'm used to having to search for details on my own, but still, thought the course might have been even better if there was some more detailed grammar explanation included. I also found it intriguing that not even once was the polite form introduced (you'll probably find yourself in situation where you have to use the polite form sooner then the informal form as most of people whom you meet are strangers at first ;) ).

I learned a lot from this course. I was able to learn sentences that are commonly used on a daily basis between friends, as well as introducing oneself to strangers. I was satisfied with the quizzes. They were challenging but not impossible to answer. I just found myself in a bit of a struggle between weeks 4 and 5 since there was so much information to absorb; I felt I was unable to master them that much. I kept referring to my notes and kept rewinding since I had a hard time understanding due to so much vocabulary going on. I know I just have to practice and practice so I can master them. Overall, this was a big help and a good start to learning Korean.

The classes were very helpul and easy to understand. I had a wonderful experience while exploring the basics of Korean language. Now that I have learnt enough,though there is more to learn and explore, I can confidently say that I too can read Korean.

At last I would like to thanks coursera for availing such a wonderful platform for people like us who like to explore but are unable due to lack of resources. But thanks to coursera I have finally started learning korean language. Also, I would like to thanks Yonsei University and Professor Seung Hae Kang for such amazing and knowledge classes. She made korean so simple, easy and fun learning.

I like the course, but was confused sometimes with certain endings and the reasoning behind it. I wish the teacher mentioned in the review part of each unit we used this ending because __. or which one would you use this or that. I wish this was included in the review units to help us review better for the quizzes which often asked to choose one from a few options (especially verb stems, particles, etc). However, I did enjoy the course as it gave me an introduction to basic Korean. I wonder if there is a second part to this. I would like to enrol. I appreciate also, having the option to redo the quizzes if perfect score isn't ob

It was all fine until chapter 4. But then the level hardness somehow increased a lot. I was able to understand everything up until that point but after that the grammer got more complicated so I feel more explanations were needed. But all in all a great introduction even though I have studied Korean on my own before I did not know a lot of things about how the alphabet came to be and realtionship of sounds and letter shapes. The professor was truly exceptional. Also prononcuation sections helped clear out lot of questions I had reading things on my own.

Basically was hard towards the end but a very good introduction course.