Welcome to Sem's Space! You can consider this a blog of sorts? An e-journal? It's just where I dump all my thoughts relating to my journey of learning languages :)This page will mostly be about the Korean language and my journey with it, but I may post about the Chinese language occasionally.I have also included links to the Korean resources, that I have previously used, which may be of help to others interested in learning Korean. You can find them in the button named "Korean Learning Resources".I'd like to share more, but that would be a total bore, so if you'd like to know more, then click on the buttons in this page to explore more!*Don't worry, there won't be a jumpscare or some virus waiting to bring destruction to your device. I promise :)

about me

Hi! Welcome to my page. I'm Sem and I like learning languages. I grew up bilingual, speaking both English and my mother tongue (try & guess what language it is!)
I can't seem to remain quite committed but it's always a pleasure learning about this language and that!Another thing about me, I like to make friends from all over the world!Languages I'm learning:
1. Korean (other than field-specific language, able to converse)
2. Chinese (not here nor there)
3. Arabic (only know how to read, but no understanding)
4. Japanese (able to read hiragana)
5. Spanish (learnt a little on DuoLingo)
6. Coming Soon..!You can find my socials at the top of this page. I also have a Buy Me a Coffee page and Translation portfolio linked here.I have also created some free Beginner Korean worksheets that might be helpful to those learning Korean for the first time! Please do check them out if you're interested! They're linked down below~

posts

Hi again! This is where I write down my thoughts, learning process and literally everything else. The organisation may be quite messy at first, but I will be editing this page quite frequently. Hope it's not too visually uncomfortable for your eyes :(Mind you, each post is quite long so if you do not like reading lengthy, draggy posts, DO NOT READ. But who am I to tell you what to do. Read it for all I care. This is a no judging zone though. I repeat, NO JUDGING zone.

How I started learning Korean

2 December 2024

The first time I was interested in learning Korean was when I started watching Korean Dramas. Being impatient did it for me. Waiting for the subtitles to be released was quite frustrating, so I guess my interest in the language started from there.I can't recall what my first Korean drama was, but I was exposed to K-Pop first through the reality show "We Got Married!" From there, I got to know the groups Born to Beat and Red Velvet. I think we all know how this story continues.I remember during one of the biggest national exams in my life, I stayed up to watch Descendants of the Sun instead of studying for the exams that took place the next day. Safe to say, that night changed my life. I spiralled further into the Korean entertainment industry. I wouldn't say I regretted it, but I did wish that my younger self put in more effort into studying so that she wouldn't have had to go through some difficult stages in her life, but meh. Life goes on.One thing led to another and soon I became a K-Drama addict. I'm sure it was concerning through my parents' perspective. A student, staying up late to watch her dramas instead of studying. Not going to lie, I would be concerned too if I was my parent.By end 2016, I was interested in learning Korean, mainly to understand what the K-Pop artists were saying to their Korean fans. This didn't last long, because I could depend on my trustworthy translator friend (read: Papago). I did start learning bits and pieces of the Korean Alphabet, but I wasn't taking it seriously and as I didn't remain committed to it, I soon began to forget it.It was sometime in 2018 when I was watching a reality show (can't recall which one) when I was so frustrated because the raw episode was released but the subtitled one was not. Being ever the patient person I was, I watched the raw version, and from then on I took it on myself to start learning Korean. Starting was easy, but it was hard to remain committed to it. Not going to lie, I did give up quite a few times in the process. It took me quite a few years just to achieve a little progress. I'm not going to sugarcoat things and say it was an easy, thoughtless process with only happy memories, because it is soooo far from that. I did have some good buddies who kept me motivated throughout the process, and I owe it to them for helping me achieve my Korean language milestones.tldr: Persevere. It won't be an easy process but it'll surely be worth your time and effort.

The Korean Alphabet(한글)

2 December 2024

Picture taken from 90 Day Korean website

Click on the link above to learn more in detail about the Korean Alphabet.

I first started learning the Korean Alphabet back in 2016, if I recall properly. I wasn't too serious about learning Korean at the time so I took it very lightly. It took me quite a few months to be familiar with it honestly. When others were more comfortable reading the Korean Alphabet, I was more comfortable reading the Romanized Korean.Romanized Korean is the the ones you see in those Colour-Coded Lyrics videos where it's in English alphabets but doesn't sound English. Confusing? I'll show you an example, Korean in the Korean Language is 한국어. The Romanized Korean would be Han-guk-eo. Simple, right?Okay, so moving on, I heavily depended on Romanized Korean during the beginning. Although this is not frowned upon, it did hinder my progress in being familiarised with the Korean Alphabet system. It's exactly why I took much longer to get used to it. If you can, try to be familiarised with 한글 as soon as possible. It really does make a difference.There are many ways in which you can learn the Korean Alphabet. You can use the abovementioned website, or search the Korean Alphabet song in YouTube - it does wonders.Once you're familiarised with 한글, it's a whole new world but I don't want to spoil it for you so I'm not going to share about the Korean Alphabet in detail and instead let you have the fun of learning it by yourself! Trust me, it'll be a fun process~ The first step is always the hardest and yet the easiest, iykyk.tldr: learn the Korean Alphabet as soon as possible :P

coming soon

Oops.. this page has yet to be made..
Would you like to try a few quizzes in the meanwhile?
Click on the images to start the quizzes!

Korean Learning resources

2 December 2024

These are some websites that I have previously used while learning Korean. I'll just give a brief summary for each website down below.

Firstly, Talk To Me in Korean is a website that I used for learning the Korean grammar. It provides structurised courses which are very helpful when you are just starting to learn Korean and you have no idea where to start. You can also choose which level you want to take if you're an Intermediate or Upper Intermediate Korean learner.I'll be frank. I only used the previous version of TTMIK, so I'm not really sure what changes have been made to the courses, or to what extent the materials provided are free.

This is the official website for the Test of Proficiency in Korean (TOPIK). To explain simply what TOPIK is, it is an exam introduced by the Korean government to test a non-native Korean's fluency in the Korean language.This website is where you will check your TOPIK results. You can also try out TOPIK practice papers here. You can choose between the Korean and English language settings on this site, so don't worry if you're unable to read Korean well.

TOPIK Guide is a website that compiles all the information about the TOPIK test. As per the name, you can use it as a guide to learn more about the TOPIK. This website also has past TOPIK papers which you can download for your own practice. I have yet to explore the entirety of this website, so I'll leave it to you to figure it out :)

90 Day Korean provides 3-month courses for each level of the Korean Language. Their website provides detailed explanation, which may help you understand better. Personally, I did not use this website when studying but I browsed through it and it seems to be quite helpful for those really interested in learning the language.

free korean worksheets

Currently, I have 5 worksheets available for the Beginner Korean series. I'm working on more for the Beginner Korean series so do stay tuned for more updates!Click on the image to be redirected to the resource page~
Don't worry, they're all free!