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Korean curriculum?


joannqn
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My 7 year old has been bugging me for almost a year to learn Korean. I do not know Korean myself and have no interest in learning it.

 

Does anyone know of a curriculum for Korean? I know Rosetta Stone has a single year available but, beyond that, I know nothing about the program. Could my son do it on his own? Is it a good curriculum? Is a year enough to learn the language? If not, how would year 2,3, etc. be covered?

 

BTW, he is capable of doing his other school work independently. I just don't know about doing a foreign language because he's never done one.

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Hi there,

 

I am Korean but my kids aren't speaking in Korean -- my husband doesn't speak Korean, so their 1st language is English. I try to teach them Korean myself using Korean curriculum written in Korean from Korean bookstores. I explain everything to them and I try to read Korean books checked out from local library. Since we live in Los Angeles, there are lots of international language books for kids and adults alike, luckily. I haven't done a curriculum search written for non-Korean speakers. I did read Amazon Rosetta Korean reviews and it wasn't too encouraging. As a Korean speaker, I think it's very important to start from Korean alphabet. It's pretty systematic. The shapes of consonants are similar to how your tongue is formed when you are making the specific letter. For example, when you say 'N', your tongue touches the root area of your upper front teeth. That particular sound 'N' is written like 'L' in Korean. It looks just like your tongue. When you want to make 'yee' sound, one of your vowel, your mouth spreads up and down yet closed. The letter which makes 'yee' sound is written like 'l', just like the shape of your mouth. What the letter looks like corresponds with the formation of each consonants and vowels. It's pretty interesting because it can help you guess what the letter should look like for a certain sound. For example, 'Nyee' is written like 'Ll'. Once you master the vowels and consonants and how you can form letters with combination of CV CVC©, kids or students alike will be able to learn vocabularies and soon simple sentences. Right now, I am teaching my kids Korean alphabets and some easy vocabs here and there. I am trying to talk to them in Korean when I ask them to do something or explain something in both English and in Korean. I try, but I find myself using more English than Korean. I'll keep trying. It's harder for you since you are new to Korean as well. I just want you to keep searching. It's just like my situation. I am not a Spanish speaker and I want to teach them Spanish sometime soon. I am currently looking for Spanish program. But not Rosetta yet. I don't want to put too much into it at this point. I want a gentle start, from Spanish alphabet and its sounds. And simple sentences and slowly reading books and building vocabularies. In the beginning, I believe that one should be able to decode the sound first. Read the unknown, look it up in the dictionary, read again and find the meaning and just expand your vocabularies and snytax and you'll catch up with grammar as you are more exposed to it. That's just my view.

 

Since you'll be helping them, you have to find a curriculum that fits your learning style as well. Keep looking at the library, Borders, Amazon and etc. I will give you an update if I come across something useful for you.

 

Cheers!

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We actually have a ton of stuff here that teaches Hangul... if you'd like to PM me your address I can pick something up and send it to you. I'm not sure if I would go with Rosetta Stone... the Korean language (naturally) doesn't use a romanized alphabet, so learning the sounds takes a little practice. My two DC are starting to get pretty good at speaking it (better than me, LOL) ... do you want something workbook-ey?

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I wish there was a good curriculum out there for kids. We have made a little progress with these cheesy videos on YouTube :)The link is for the first in the series. Here is a video for

. The alphabet is very simply and phonetic.

My ds would love to learn Korean. I will watch this thread with interest.

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