Only two more days until the TOPIK test now and I’m absolutely terrified! I definitely don’t know as much as I’d like to, even though I studied so much. I wanted to share with you all some of the free resources that I’ve found really useful as I’ve been studying, and hopefully they can help you all if you ever decide to take the TOPIK exam!
Min’s Korean Language Class Min is a certified Korean teacher and her Youtube channel is dedicated to helping people through the TOPIK exams. I found her overviews of all the grammar for TOPIK 1andTOPIK 2 really useful and have been going over them non stop the past few days to make sure that I’m completely covered on the grammar side of the exam.
The TOPIK Guide’s Essential Grammar Notes The TOPIK Guide provides a list similar to Min’s of all the 150 most important grammar forms to learn for the TOPIK exam. These are moreso for the TOPIK 2, as it covers intermediate and advanced grammar as well, which is unnecessary for the TOPIK 1. What’s really useful about this list is the ‘similar phrases’ column, as this helps to prepare you for the ‘closest meaning’ questions where you are asked to switch out grammar forms.
How To Study Korean If you’re learning Korean then I’m sure that this site is quite familiar to you. It provides comprehensive guides on most of the grammar forms that are included in the TOPIK exams along with example sentences and audio to make it easier to understand.
Say Hi Korean This site is less well known than How to Study Korean, but provides the same guidance on grammar forms. Many of the forms that aren’t included on How to Study Korean are available here.
Go! Billy Livestreams and Abridged Lives Go! Billy is a youtuber who has been studying Korean since 2005 and has dedicated his time to helping other people learn. He has a range of informative videos on his channel, as well as his own textbooks, and a collaboration with Talk To Me In Korean. I find his livestreams really useful, as he makes learning fun and answers questions to make sure that everyone is following along. Patreon members get added perks like like lesson worksheets and priority grammar submissions.
Memrise Memrise is kind of similar to quizlet but is made specifically for language learners. It has official courses for different languages at different levels, and you can make your own courses too if you prefer to study your own grammar. There are a few quizes that you can take including ‘learn new words’, ‘speed review’, and ‘classic review’, and you can track how many words are in your long term memory too. I really like the leaderboard feature, since it uses my competitiveness to encourage me to learn more.
TOPIK 1 Essential Vocab on Memrise Technically this is probably copyrighted material, but onemillionlove has shared a list of the essential vocab for TOPIK 1 to learn on Memrise. This list is really useful to make sure that you have the vocabulary side of the exam covered. It only covers the first test, but there’s a useful resource for the TOPIK 2 vocab that I’ll share in my next post.
HiNative This site is a discussion board where you can ask questions about your target language and get feedback or explanations from native speakers. They’ve changed the site so that some of the question types are restricted for paying users, but honestly I just put those questions awkwardly into the free question posts and I still get answers on them.
Forest
I’ve known about Forest as a browser extension, but I recently tried the app version and it’s so much better. You can plant a tree, set an amount of time and as long as you stay focused on your app your tree will grow. The app is really good because you can see your forest, change plants, get achievements, and they also have a new TinyTan feature for BTS fans. There’s also an option to plant a real tree. I’d really recommend getting the paid version of the app, since you can get access to more plants, but the free version is great as well. Side note, but my friend code is 4G84KCVSG if you want to add me on Forest!
I came across this sitewhich teaches you the alphabet for over 40 languages, with audio and it even lets you test yourself afterwards The site format is super simple and did I mention the 40+ languages!
Flewent- translates a certain % of your article in your target language ReadLang - translates the words you click on and adds them to a flashcards deck Linguarana - same as ReadLang but it also translates expressions
Read as much as possible daily. Try to set a certain amount of pages daily/weekly.
When you listen to music, find the lyrics and follow the singers while they’re singing.
Use wattpad if you like fanfiction. The site/app allows you to receive stories in a certain language if you look at the settings. Bonus:if you add the story to the library, you can read offline on your phone.
When you watch movies, find subs in your target language; regardless the language of the movie.
Find an app/site with manga. Many apps/sites have a pretty large selection when it comes to languages and if you are a fast reader, you can read quite a lot in 10-15 minutes. Bonus:many apps allow you to read offline.
Beelinguapp is an app with fairytales in different languages. It’s pretty useful for beginners or for people who don’t feel confident enough to try something else.
Use audiobooks. If you want and have time, try reading the book at the same time. If you listen and read at the same time, you have more chances to remember the words and their spelling, pronunciation.
Choose a song in your target language. Read the lyrics and their translation once or twice. Then sing the song trying to remember the lyrics. Optional: listen to the song with the lyrics. I wouldn’t really recommend this because you might focus too much on the spelling and less on the pronunciation at some point.
Many movies and videos. It will be frustrating at first but after a while, you will get used to it and focus on what you know so you can guess what’s the meaning of what you don’t know.
Try using audiocourse or courses that focus a lot on interaction and listening like Pimsleur.
Use apps like HelloTalk, Tandem, Skype, the audio messages on Facebook etc. if you want to practice with natives.
When you learn vocabulary, try to find the pronunciation on Forvo or just choose resources with audio.
Apps/Sites like 50languages, awabe, duolingo, memrise, busuu, babbel, lingodeer etc. have audio for most of their languages so they are worth your time.
Change the speed of the videos you are watching. Youtube has such a setting.
Writing
Read a lot. When you read you pay attention to what kind of structures are used in a text and the more you read, the more you get a “feeling” if the spelling of a word is right or if the strutcure makes any sense. If i ask an advanced learner why they write “i think of” they won’t be able to explain why “of” is there and not something else but they will know at any time that it’s a construction that need to be like that.
I’ve been planning on creating this masterpost for some time. So, finally, here’s a list of different resources that I’ve found during my studying journey.
(I’m doing this post for a second time and a couple of links from the first version are lost. thanks to Chrome who RELOADED THE TAB AND TUMBLR HASN’T SAVED ANYTHING - I no longer love you, Google)
I added mostly those that are for my target languages which I’m studying at the moment, but there are also a lot of websites that are multilingual. Plus I’m going to add some Russianresources, since I’ve encountered so many studyblr learning my native language (also, don’t hesitate to ask me if you have any questions, I’ll try to answer as soon and as understandable as possible)
This post wil be updated frequently and new links will be added.
French:
http://www.lepointdufle.net/ - French grammar rules search (contains links to various explanations. useful when you don’t understand one explanation and need to quickly find another on the same rule)
http://usefulenglish.ru/ - bilingual (Russian-English) rules. useful if you have to explain grammar in both Russian and English (like me) or if you’re a native English and are learning Russian and want to compare.
These are mostly in Russian, because there are very few good websites in English (but the truth is that RUSSIAN CAN BE UNDERSTOOD WHEN EXPLAINED IN RUSSIAN ONLY)
http://www.brighthubeducation.com/ - this one actually covers not only languagesbuta variety of subjects. Lots of tips and interesting articles + rules.
http://www.reverso.net - I lovelove LOVE this one. especially the context translator. WAY better than your google.translate (sorry, Google, I love you, too, of course - NOT ANYMORE)
I suppose it’s okay to admit after three years of linguistics blogging that I actually am one of those linguists who speaks quite a few languages, and I’ve studied even more at various levels. Here are some of my favourite posts about language learning:
