News and Updates

Below you will find a listing of the updates made to the site and any news that has been posted.

January 23, 2011 Update: Just another quick posting on some things happening lately. We've moved to a new server and everything seems like it is working fine without issues. If you have any, please let us know. We've also added audio to the word of the day, so be sure to listen to it as you learn new vocabulary.

January 07, 2010 Update: It's been a while since we posted a news posting, but here we go! We are adding the next lesson in Intermediate, which covers Korean adverbs (which are what we English speakers might consider adverbs and conjunctions as well). It's a pretty long lesson that covers a lot of vocabulary and grammar, so go ahead and get a head start now while we finish things up. We are working on completing the vocabulary for flashcards and adding the additional practice and readings sections (although there are plenty of examples throughout the content), and lastly the quiz.

We apologize for the slow updates lately. I became pretty busy in 2009, and as such the site did not receive the attention it deserved. For that reason, we have hired a couple of native Koreans for additional help with the site and lessons. We should have more than enough content coming to the site in 2010 to make up for the slow 2009 year.

We would really like some user input regarding the site and what you would like to see improved (other than more frequent updates), so if you have a few moments to spare, please send us an email via the contact form listed under the resources section. We hope to make 2010 a great year for the site and rely on your help to make that happen.

April 07, 2009 Update: We are continuing to finish up the quizzes and have also begun work on a chat program to allow users on the site to chat with one another. Hopefully the chat feature will be available shortly.

January 17, 2009 Update: We have been working on getting the new design and features brought together and stable. Besides fixing some minor bugs with the lesson completion / page rating system / etc, we have added a new feature.

Users can now study vocabulary using our vocabulary flashcards. Each lesson, provided a vocabulary list has been created (most lists have been created in the Beginner's section at this point, but we are still adding them each day), will have a link to vocabulary flashcards. You will be able to select which words from the vocabulary set you wish to review as flashcards, or you can even save them to your own custom sets. Users can create as many custom vocabulary sets as desired using our vocabulary database. Users can then manage or review their own sets from the Flashcard Center.

When a new vocabulary list is created, you can mark it as either public or private. A public list will be viewable by everyone, and editable by the owner of the list. A private list is only viewable and editable by the owner of the list.

We are still working on improving the flashcard system, so some changes may occur. However, the main part of the system is up and running (flashcard page and custom list feature). In the future, we will be adding audio and images as well for vocabulary. We also hope to get a printable version of the flashcards available as well.

In other news, we have been working on creating more printer-friendly versions of the pages. For the most part, when you go to print a page, it should be printing in a more printer-friendly format, leaving off the extra material that does not need to be printed.

Enjoy the flashcard system, and if you have any questions or issues with it, please let us know via our contact form.

December 17, 2008 Update: We have updated the design and layout of the website. The new design should be easier to read and provides more room without squeezing everything into such a small space.

More importantly, the new design has space available for extra features that we are currently adding. Our new layout has an extra left section, which will house features such as completion settings for each user, links to quizzes, vocabulary and flashcards, as well as page ratings to help us improve the lessons. Not all features are currently available, but we have made good progress on all of them, and they will be added as soon as they are finished.

Note that we have just implemented the new layout, and while we have tested it and everything appears ok, bugs may show up. If you notice anything wrong with the new design or layout, please do not hesitate to let us know.

December 03, 2008 Update: We have updated the lesson on verbs. The old lesson covering the polite and casual styles of speech has been broken into two (completely new) lessons. Furthermore, new quizzes have been created for the two new lessons.

We are making good progress on our new features for the site. While we do not have a date set for the release of all the new features, rest assured that good progress has been made.

November 08, 2008 Update: We have been doing a lot of updates over the past few months. Many of these updates have not made it into this news page, so it's time for a big update (we have done stuff since April, after all!).

Most recently, we have finished redoing all of the quizzes in the Learn Hangul section. The old quiz format was difficult to use for members and was not as flexible for us either. All lessons in Learn Hangul now have a quiz in the new format. The rest of the quizzes throughout the website are getting updates as well - every quiz will be redone (except those few that are already using the new format). Furthermore, we will be adding functionality to keep track of your scores for you as you take the quizzes so you can review the quizzes at a later date.

In other news, we have recently switched to a new server and redone a lot of technical 'things' for the website to run properly. These improvements will allow us to add more features to the website at a faster rate. We also updated the forums when we switched to the new server - if you haven't visited the forums recently, be sure to check them out and feel free to comment on the new design. You will also find additional functionality while using the forums.

In addition, the 'Your Account' section now provides much more detail regarding your account (if available). Rather than simply telling you that you are a premium member and containing buttons to cancel, more information should be available for you to review regarding your account. However, if you subscribed a long time ago, some information may not be available currently. If this is the case with your account, it should update with your next payment. Alternatively, contact us via our contact form for more information.

Currently the User Articles section is not available, although we do intend to add this section back to the site.

Continue to check back for new updates and improvements! We hope to start bringing many more improvements to the site over the next couple of months, so check back often! If there are any features or improvements that you would like to let us know about, please let us know via the contact form on our site.

April 8, 2008 Update: Posted the new lessons for Quotations in Intermediate Korean. I highly recommend the indirect quotations section as they can be extremely useful, but the other sections are quite useful as well.

February 28, 2008 Update: So we haven't updated the news page recently, although we have seen some updates to the site. You have probably noticed the Intermediate Korean section has been added along with the first lesson, which consists of an intro and 6 sections. It's a pretty big lesson packed with tons of useful information, so take a look once you have completed the grammar in Beginner's Korean.

December 21, 2007 Update: 18 Conversations have been added. These conversations are for lesson seven through lesson sixteen. We've also added some notes to go along with the conversations in case there is any vocabulary that is unfamiliar or vocabulary that needs to be refreshed. If anyone notices any links that point to the incorrect page, please let us know via the contact form. The links that may have been missed would be at the bottom of each page pointing to the next or previous page. I've tried to update them all accordingly, although I may have missed one or two in either direction as there were many to update after inserting 10 new lessons in the middle of the other lessons.

Now that the conversations are updated for all posted lessons, we will begin posting new lessons. We have two ready that just need some final touches, so you should see those within the next 1-2 days. Thanks for visiting!

November 6, 2007 Update: It's been a while since I've updated this news page even though we've seen some updates over the past few weeks. In case you haven't seen what's been changing here at Learn Korean Now, here is a brief list of the major changes.

First, we've finished up lessons fifteen and sixteen since the last post. There are vocabulary lists, more examples, and quizzes for each of the lessons. Be sure to check them out if you haven't already! The quizzes are the newest, so if you missed those be sure to check your knowledge on the subject.

Next up, we've added the fun lesson to the Learn Hangul section. I think you all should enjoy it, even if you can read Hangul without any trouble and have been able to for a long time.

The word of the day is working once more. We hope that the last time it goes down has already passed. Cross your fingers! But seriously, we're going to try very hard to keep it up and running from now on as it's been down way too much over the past few months.

Finally, a couple weeks ago we added a new payment method to the website. Now instead of only accepting Paypal, we accept credit cards for those of you who cannot get a Paypal account for your country or simply do not want one. It's a secure payment option as well, so no worries about that. For those of you who are already members and are not affected by this, you should still benefit from this upgrade as we are in the process of updating the 'Your Account' section of the site. We've managed to make it more detailed providing you with information about your account, although your information will not be updated until the next payment is made (via Paypal). However, once it updates, you should have a more detailed account management page. New members will also have this.

September 30, 2007 Update: Lessons fifteen and sixteen have been added to the site. Currently just the actual lesson is up, but a vocabulary section for each of those lessons is in the making along with some more examples.

In addition to those lessons, I've got a fun lesson coming to finish off the Learn Hangul section! Of course, people who already know Hangul will have fun with the lesson as well, so don't let that stop you. It should be up within a day or so, so I'd check back sometime tomorrow and see if it's up.

Recently we made a switch to a new server. This should be the final switch for a long time for those of you who have been around with us since the beginning and know we've already switched servers in the past year. This switch went a lot smoother with the exception it took a couple days for the internet to finally recognize the new server was in charge of the site - during that waiting time there was some strange issues going on as the internet was a bit confused with where the domain should point to. The new server is running great and has lots of opportunities to do some neat stuff, room to expand, and should work great for a long time.

September 9th, 2007 Update: I've added a couple more sections with examples for the modals lesson and verb endings lesson. These will provide better practice with those concepts.

While this doesn't apply to this site specifically, I've also written review of "First Korean Readings" by Yonsei University, a textbook for reading practice. Click here for the review. I think it's a good book for those of you in the beginner's Korean section of this site.

August 15th, 2007 Update: New quizzes are still being added. Now you will also find a new quiz for past tense vocab, telling time, and various particles.

I've been a little busier than usual lately moving into an apartment so things should pick back up again with the quizzes, organization, and soon-to-come new lessons.

August 5th, 2007 Update: New quizzes are finally being added to the later lessons in the Beginner's Korean section. These new quizzes are improved over the previous quizzes, and you should find them more helpful. So far new quizzes have been added for all of the following lessons: Adjectives, Locations Vocabulary, Locations, Counting Vocabulary, Counting, and Money.

Be sure to check out the new quizzes and post your opinion in the 'Site Improvements' Forum! New quizzes will continue to be added along with some longer tests.

July 20, 2007 Update: A lesson on Common Verb Endings has been added. This will mark the final grammar lesson for Beginner's Korean, although I'm not finished with Beginner's Korean. I will be adding a couple more lessons with examples for the final two lessons on Modals and Common Verb Endings. At that point, I will go back over all the lessons and organizing things better. It's not organized too well and needs a little work. I also need to go back and add quite a few quizzes. Finally, I will be inserting a couple reviews and tests to finish up the section.

At that point I will move right on into Intermediate Korean, the next section of the site!

July 15, 2007 Update: Modals Lesson has been added! Modals you say? It's just a fancy grammar word for things like "I want to..." "I can..." "I need to...." and "I may...".

If you are looking to build sentences using these kinds of phrases, be sure to check out the new lesson!

June 15, 2007 Update: Future tense lessons have been added. The final section of future tense will be up within a couple days once audio is ready, but the rest of the lesson is up and ready to teach!

May 27, 2007 Update: I've added a vocabulary lesson discussing all the vocabulary dealing with family and relationships. Since these are very commonly used in Korean, it's important to understand them so that you are not completely lost in the conversation.

May 18, 2007 Update: Another new lesson has been added. This lesson is Connectivity Part Two, which covers other useful conjunctions for connecting sentences, such as 그래서, 그렇지만, and 그러면 (among others). If you wish to bring your sentences together, be sure to stop by this lesson and learn these words.

May 10, 2007 Update: Added four new conversations, one for each of lessons 3-6. I'm also doing a little restructuring, as it's gotten unstructured as I've thrown new pages up. It needs a better structure, since a lot of new lessons will be joining the list soon - otherwise it will be a mess!

Keep your eyes open ;-)

April 28, 2007 Update: Added Negating Verbs and Sentences. With this lesson, you will learn how to take any verb you wish and make it negative, or just the opposite in meaning. You will learn several ways to do this. You will also learn how to give negative commands ("Don't do...."). With this, your sentences can become more varied.

April 22, 2007 Update: Added Double Consonants, a lesson covering the topic of when two consonants are next to each other in the same syllable. This is not too common, but you will see it in some words, and it would be good to pronounce these correctly. Many foreigners never learn this part, as it's not covered in many books. Now you can learn it and learn to pronounce words right!

April 08, 2007 Update: Added Web Lingo, A lesson covering all the common vocabulary found on Korean websites. If you have trouble navigating Korean websites, this lesson should help out. You should be able to use this list to find common places on that site, figure out how to register or log in, among other common things done on Korean websites.

April 03, 2007 Update: Added Connectivity Part One to the Beginner's Lessons. This lesson teaches all the different ways to say and to connect words or sentences. In the next part, you will learn other ways of connecting sentences using other common conjunctions.

March 31, 2007 Update: The lesson on Various Particles is now posted. Be sure to look at this lesson, as it is extremely useful and you will run across all of these. Also keep in mind that Telling Time was just posted recently in case you missed the notice.

March 29, 2007 Update: I've posted the lesson on telling time now. The lesson uses both the pure-Korean and sino-Korean numbers in-depth, so be sure you have covered the Counting lesson beforehand.

Also coming this week (or first of next week at the latest) are lessons on various particles, ways to connect things and sentences, occupational vocabulary, internet lingo vocabulary, and a lesson on syllables ending in two consonants, so check back often as there may be another update!

March 25, 2007 Update: Made some edits to the Greetings Conversation Lesson, but nothing too major.

This week you will see a lot of new lessons on the site! I've just about finished 5 new grammar lessons, and have even more that I expect to get finished this week. They should have audio recorded shortly and be posted online shortly as well, so keep your eyes open!

March 19, 2007 Update: The switch to the new server is complete, and everything appears to be working! If you spot anything that isn't working properly, please post it in the forums for 'Site Improvements' so I can get it fixed quickly.

In addition, I've posted a new lesson covering school terms, so check it out!

March 16, 2007 News: The site will be down in portions today. We are changing servers, so we will need to close off a few parts of the site so that we transfer everything properly. The articles portion of the site will be down, along with the forums. Other aspects will be the mailing list subscription, and the affiliate section if you are an affiliate. They shouldn't be down for too long. The lessons should not be down.

Once the transfer is finished, everything should be up and running better than ever. We've had a few technical difficulties, but with the new server everything should work much better for everyone.

March 13, 2007 Update: A few things to mention here! The first thing that happened was the articles section launched. In this section, users can post articles related to Korea and the language. Users can also create their own blogs. I only request that the blogs and articles be related to Korea. There is also a prize for the Top Article of the Month, so be sure to check it out!

Next up - A site demo has been created, as well as a signup page to receive newsletters and the Word of the Day via email. To learn more about the site demo and mailing lists, check out the signup page.

March 11, 2007 Update: The site experienced technical difficulties for a few hours earlier today. The web server was down, so the site wouldn't load properly. This was a rare occurance and it shouldn't happen again. The site seems to be running smoothly again, so enjoy!

On another note, we're currently developing a few new portions of the site, as well as working on some very useful lessons. So keep your eyes open this week, it should be a productive week for Learn Korean Now!

March 4, 2007 News: This is just a news posting - no new updates since the one earlier today. The site is coming along well and still growing as it should. Recently we've been having a lot of vocabulary lessons added. I've still got a few more useful ones that have audio recorded for them already. I will continue to add those until I run out.

As for new grammar lessons - those are coming shortly. I'm currently typing up the new grammar lessons so that I may go ahead and have all of the audio recorded for them. In the next set of grammar lessons, we will be seeing a lesson on time, dive into a bunch of useful particles, and perhaps try one or two more verb endings. I think these next few lessons will boost the grammar lessons offered to provide you with everything you need to really be learning Korean.

Which brings me to my last topic: I also want to go back, finish up the quizzes for the recently added lessons and older lessons that never received quizzes. Along with new quizzes, I want to go back and add a few 'Tests' - something that truly tests your knowledge of all of the Korean content. As the grammar lessons continue to grow, we need to improve the better structure in order to bring it all together.

So keep your eyes open!

March 4, 2007 Update: Another lesson has been added! This is a vocabulary lesson that goes along with the locations lesson. The new lesson is Places Around Town. Here you will find nearly every type of store or place you could visit around town. Needless to say, there is audio for every one of them.

In addition, the counting lesson has had a small update. I've added a section mentioning the shortened forms of pure-Korean numbers used with counters. I had a section on counters, but had not included that numbers 1-4 along with 20 are irregular. There is now a section that deals with that.

March 3, 2007 Update: The Affiliate Program is ready! Be sure to check it out if you find Learn Korean Now to be an excellent source of information - share it with others and earn a commission! We offer high commissions and a low minimum payout level.

Feb 24, 2007 Update: The Activities Around The Home lesson is now up! This covers the same subject matter as the Learn Korean Language vocabulary e-zine issue, except the list is longer and there is audio. This lesson covers all the common things that you do around the home. There is also the Household Terms lesson which is on a similar topic. The household terms lesson aims more towards nouns, whereas the activities lesson is purely verbs - and lots of them!

Quizzes should be added soon for these recently added lessons, so keep your eyes open as Learn Korean Now continues to grow!

Feb 21, 2007 Update: The fruits section has now been added! You should be able to learn about vegetables and fruits now in the cleverly titled 'Fruits and Vegetables' lesson. There are also a few example sentences provided, so be sure to swing by and check it out! There is audio for everything like always! More lessons coming very soon!

Feb 16, 2007 News: I've almost got a dictionary up and running for everyone! It's HUGE! 100,000 entries, so be prepared! It should be available on the site sometime within the next few days. It's searchable, everything works great. The only thing I need to take care of now is limiting the number of results returned - as it is now, anything related to the word searched for is returned. It actually returns too many results. I have to get it to return the closest matches so it's easier to find what you are looking for. Other than that it's working great! Should get it under control soon enough!

Feb 11, 2007 Update: A lesson on vegetable terms has been added. Strange lesson, huh? A bit random perhaps. Yet people eat vegetables every day, so it can be useful vocabulary, especially if you enjoy to shop at Korean grocery stores. The lesson will be expanded later this week into a 'Fruits and Vegetables' lesson, although it currently only has vegetables. I wanted to go ahead and get the Vegetables up early, for those of you who subscribe to the Learn Korean Language Vocabulary EZine (The issue that went out this weekend was on vegetables). Check back soon!

Feb 09, 2007 Update: The audio was added for the past tense lesson! All lessons currently online should have audio now.

Feb 07, 2007 News: The next batch of audio and recordings is in progress! If you've mentioned something in the forums about a specific audio file, and I mentioned it would be re-recorded, it should be fixed and adjusted shortly. There will also be more lessons being added. These recordings contain a lot of vocabulary, as well as all the audio for the past tense lesson. So get ready, because more Korean is coming your way!

Feb 07, 2007 Update: The update is...this news page is here! Any additional news or updates will be posted here, as well as in the 'news corner' on the site. If it is an update or addition to the site, it will be marked 'Update'. If it is a news release, general announcement, or something other than an actual addition to the site, I will mark it as 'News' on this page. It's not like it matters or makes a huge difference, but that's the method I will be using.

Feb. 07, 2007 Update: I have gone back and created the SOT quiz which I had previously skipped. The quiz for the subject, object, and topic particles has been posted. See the bottom of SOT Particles
for the quiz. The quiz will make sure you know all three particles, so be sure to cover them first before taking the quiz.

Feb 03, 2007 Update: Lessons added! See Beginner's Korean
for two new lessons and a quiz. The lessons and quiz are over the past tense. They require a strong understanding of conjugations in the present tense, so be sure to cover the essential verbs lessons first. After that, this lesson should be a piece of cake :-)