Korean in five ideas
1. Hangul is an alphabet
Letters stack into syllable blocks: 한 is ㅎ + ㅏ + ㄴ (h + a + n). There are 24 basic letters, and most people can read them within a week.
2. The verb comes last
저는 커피를 마셔요 "I coffee drink". Subject, object, verb.
3. Particles mark the roles
은/는 marks the topic, 이/가 the subject, 을/를 the object. Each has two forms depending on whether the word before ends in a consonant: 책을 but 커피를.
4. Speech levels
마셔요 is polite, 마셔 is casual. The 요 ending is the safe default with anyone you do not know well.
5. Many words come from Chinese
학교 (hakgyo, school) and 학생 (haksaeng, student) share 학 "study". Spotting the shared syllable unlocks whole families of words.
Practise it with someone
Your Korean partner writes to you first — about their own day, with photographs from wherever they are — and what you got wrong comes back struck through, with the right version beside it. Every word is tappable.