Graded readers to Webtoons?

While I’m still doing Anki (Evita’s Deck) + Memrise + comprehensive listening channels on YouTube. Has anyone had experience made progress from graded readers to Webtoons? I’m going through “Easy Korean Reading Level 1/Book 1” on Amazon right now, and just curious what progress others have made.

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I didn’t start reading webtoons until I had studied quite a bit, so I’m afraid I don’t have much to offer. :sweat_smile:

I’ve heard Penguin Loves Mev recommended a lot (though I haven’t read it myself) - an autobiographical story about the lives of a mixed-race couple (Penguin is Korean, Mev is English). It starts out in Korean, but I think later in the series it becomes bilingual (might be when they move to the UK).

You might want to check out Webtoons 웹툰 [ where to read • recommendations • discussion ] and browse some of the sites listed (even on the paid sites the first few chapters are usually free).

It’s usually recommended to start with slice of life or romance with a modern setting as these use common, everday language, but if there’s a different genre you enjoy reading, I’d say go for it - reading something you’re interested in will be more motivational and rewarding.

If you’ve got some favourite webtoons you’ve read in translation, you could try reading the originals - knowing the story and characters already makes it so much easier to understand. I had read 비의도적 연애담 시리즈 | L28?? several times in English before attempting the Korean original, which made the experience a breeze!

Good luck! :smiley:

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I went basically straight to webtoons and didn’t read any graded readers after finishing the first Darakwon 2,000 word vocabulary book, around the time I started TOPIK level 3 materials…I’ve had very mixed results in terms of new things learned, but they have been a good supplement. Here are a few of my thoughts and experiences about how I’ve use webtoons to learn (not sure if any of it is helpful, though):

  • (+) I started by using Papago’s OCR to translate entire phrases from KR to JP, which was very helpful if you know Japanese (based on your username it seems like you do!). A lot of the grammar is conceptually similar, so seeing the Japanese equivalent helped me intuit the meaning. It was likewise suuuuper helpful for starting to learn 한자어 words as I headed into the intermediate level and started learning more difficult vocab. Once you find the patterns between how 한자 is pronounced in Korean versus Japanese you unlock the ability to understand so many new words. (-) The downside of this was that I barely understood anything without OCR and when my stamina ran out I’d end up just translating everything, reading that, and not really learning Korean, so I tried to stop using it as soon as it was feasible and my grammar and vocabulary knowledge was good enough that I only needed to look up words or idioms I didn’t know, not everything in the entire sentence.
  • Due to the format of webtoons, I’ve encountered some plotlines that are a lot more complicated than manga in my equivalent favorite genre (romance). Since things don’t need to wrap up within a volume or two, stuff can develop over a longer amount of time and get kind of convoluted. In my opinion, the webtoons from the Naver app are the worst at this and have the lowest quality…sometimes the artist will change in the middle or the story stops making any sense at all…but that’s kind of the charm of webtoons imo. :joy: The free Naver ones are the best for casual learning since I never feel guilty about dropping them if I stop understanding what is going on.
  • Along those lines, though, I try to balance the utter trash I read with some better stuff to keep my interest in the language, since my ultimate goal is to read fun and “good” native content. When there is a particular webtoon I’ve seen good reviews for and am interested in, I will just buy it outright from RIDI or wherever it’s available from to support the artist. The paid stuff is better quality and since I spent money on it, I feel motivated to actually sit down and read it + figure out the unknown language.
  • Another obvious tip that I should follow more myself is to always try and read the summary if you can and guess if something may actually be beyond your level. I’ve started webtoons that seem like 회사원 slice of life or low stakes thrillers but ended up being about corporate intrigue or insider trading and I understood 0% of what was going on and wasn’t at a level where I could effectively learn any new vocabulary of that nature. Understand what you’re going into before you go in. :sweat_smile:
  • I used webtoons as a supplement to reinforce what I learned from textbooks and have a little fun consuming native content, and that’s worked well for me. They’ve never been the core of my learning because I don’t like wading through such high levels of ambiguity, but if you can stomach some and put effort into committing the words you learn to memory, it could be a good resource?
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I haven’t read that many webtoons, but to start, if it feels too hard, you can make your life easier by reading a webtoon that’s been adapted as a kdrama that you’ve seen (ie Business proposal). That’ll help a lot.

Also, pick the topic well. The easiest will probably be slice of life/romance to start. 저녁 같이 드실래요? fits right in that category.

Some webtoons can be pretty slang heavy, so that’s something to consider as well. If you’re annoyed because you can’t find anything in your go to dictionary, that’s can be a sign to switch to another webtoon.

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