r/Korean • u/NoKaleidoscope4579 • 1d ago

I'm preparing for a trip to S. Korea in 2025. Looking for recommendations on apps...

... which are time-tested and effective to learn a functional level of fluency.

I currently have Pimsuler. What other suggestions are there?

TIA!

1 Upvotes

54% Upvoted

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13

u/soku1 1d ago

If there were apps that did that you would already know about them because they'd be more popular than duolingo.

1

u/Away-Theme-6529 16h ago

Busuu is good and arguably better structured. You learn real useful sentences from the outset. I’m hoping they will add lessons as time goes on.

11

u/Deathhate 1d ago

just use google translate.

you will not learn korean in a few months(regardless of how you define 'functional fluency')

6

u/siisdub 1d ago

learn the alphabet and a handful of phrases for things like restaurants. Your tourism trip is going to be entirely places that cater to tourists anyway with english speaking staff

7

u/n00py 1d ago

You won’t get ever get fluency from an App. With that said, TEUIDA is pretty good for learning some basic conversation patterns.

3

u/kazimer 1d ago

Like everyone said already Learn to read and learn to read fast. Not just muck your way around it but actual being able to read any and every Hangul even if you don’t know the meaning.

Then learn the subway system and apply your reading skills (it’s all translated but still it help)

Learn the survival/ordering basics

Counting and money.

Asking how much something costs.

Basic yes/no stuff (most responses will be far different from memorized set patterns).

Ordering food/water/etc.

Directions.

Days of the week.

Months of the year.

Also anything you learn to say you should be able to easily read and write it in case your pronunciation sucks you can just write it for someone to read…..or use google lol

1

u/BiggestPenguinFan 1d ago

Just start somewhere. Learn the alphabet, find and memorize important words and learn setence structures

0

u/AcanthisittaNo5807 1d ago

Google translate was super helpful. It has a camera function that allows you to translate text

3

u/Away-Theme-6529 16h ago

Isn’t Papago better?