As much as it is fun and fulfilling to learn Korean language courses, there are specific resources that can limit and/or enhance your progress. One perfect example is time. Although anyone would love limitless time to learn a new language, our social lives such as our personal and professional engagements often consume most of our time each day.
But let’s face it: you really need to learn Korean quickly because you may not know when your professional trip to Seoul or holiday vacation to Ggotji beach will come.
What the statistics say
Elites in the field of linguistics have estimated the amount of time required to study a language. Some studies have obtained measurements on the approximate amount of time you may need to spend in a classroom to achieve a high intermediate level of knowledge in a particular language.
Based on research, there are 4 scenarios that you can rely on to achieve an intermediate level for Korean lessons in Singapore. They are as follows:
- Highly active and total immersion in the study of Korean where you study for about 8 hours a day takes the shortest time to reach the intermediate level. You may need just 3 months for this.
- If you follow the dedicated yet independent route of study which assumes that you are studying for at least one hour every day, you will take about 3 years to reach the intermediate level.
- For those who feel that one year of learning Korean as a language in school is their go-to technique, they can take up to 6 years to reach the intermediate level. In this technique, it is assumed that your academic year will include: 4 hours weekly studies plus 2 hours of homework and 2 hours of personal studies. This should be done for 2 semesters of 12 weeks each in that year.
- The last, and perhaps the longest, is taking a 3-hour Korean course every week for 8 weeks and going home with the homework assignment of one hour with an additional 2 hours of personal studies. If you take 3 courses per year, you will need about 25 to 30 courses to reach the intermediate level. That would translate to about 8 years of study.
Here is what you don’t see in the statistics
The statistics do not put into account several factors that influence the learning of a language. As such, they are very inaccurate ways of determining how long it takes to learn the language especially with the help of Korean lessons.
What you should know
You may be wondering how statistics reveal a picture of a difficult and challenging time learning the Korean language. But here is the truth of the matter.
You can and should be able to interact with native speakers of the Korean language with ease even though you may not be fluent. It is possible to take about a week to learn the Korean alphabet and some vocabularies, and the best way to help you get started is with Korean lessons.
Conclusion
If you go with what the statistics say, you may be discouraged. Nevertheless, learning something new requires commitment and determination. It will take you just a few weeks to start communicating in Korean. However, you will need more time to be fluent in this language and engage in the help of qualified, native teachers from language schools to guide you along.
