This isn’t the first time I have brought this up, but I would like to dedicate a post to the subject. I really feel this is an important subject so I would like to discuss it.

Not all languages can or should be learned the same way. Yes, both Chinese and Japanese have very good romanization systems which represent the sounds of the original language very well. Korean (hangul or 한글) is not like them; romanization doesn’t work and could impede your development. The sounds cannot be represented in English very well and there are sound changes you need to learn which can’t be practically learned through anything except hangul. To this day there are many available systems people use to write Korean using Latin based characters but none provide a system that can just be used without knowledge of the actual Korean language.

It is not worth the effort it would take to try to use romanization to learn Korean. Instead invest a little more time to develop your hangul skills early. I promise that you will see a much larger improvement. Along those lines, I would not recommend using Korean language books that use this method. Integrated Korean uses hangul so I highly recommend it.

I would suggest using romanization to learn individual Korean letters but not when you move on to words. I would drop the romanization immediately at that point. If you are having any problem, use something like Rosetta Stone or Pimsleur Korean where you can look at hangul and listen at the same time. Although it can be very slow in the beginning (yes, I went through that), you’ll get it sooner or later and you’ll be better for it.

Personally, I dropped romanization after I learned the letters of hangul and I believe that helped me a lot so I’m talking from personal experience. This is just my opinion so I would love to hear any of your experiences with it. How far did romanization help you? Do you still use it? Any other advice you found helpful?