klangpath:

personally, i learn best through application. words i see my friends use more often/words i use more often tend to stick very fast. so its a little bit of a struggle when im learning a word like 지진 or 익숙해지다 which dont show up as commonly for me. but memrise helps (…if i keep up with it) and i do writing practices (will do more in future) where i try to incorporate these words and apply them.

i do make my own memrise sets of words i either come across (i scroll through old texts and pick out words i dont know), topik in 30 vocab, or just basic everyday words. for now, i (will) use daily korean vocab for foreigners pdf in order to build a stronger foundation of basic words, and continue using my topik in 30 days int. vocab as well.

writing words you dont know while watching dramas or listening to sounds can help too and viki even has a new system for some dramas that show eng subs and kor subs at same time (only on computers). always double check with naver dic or another application about the meaning. dont learn anything wrong its painful to undo.

to be honest for vocab, memorization, application, and using context clues is key:

1. memorization/context- learn the word itself, its spelling, and definition. remember a lot of words are based on context too. try to see all the different ways the word can be used.

2. application- use this word in more circumstances and see how it is supposed to be conveyed with certain grammar/meanings.

3. using context clues- figuring out the meaning of one word by way of knowing background info and the rest of the sentence.

ex: 어제 여친과 싸웠는데 얘기한 후에 화해했다.

i learned the word 화해하다 because i understood the rest of the sentence.

TIP: do not bother translating kor to eng when reading things. it will not help you. it usually doesnt make a lot of sense either? just read it as you should you’ll process things faster and it’ll just be a whole lot better for the future.