Leave a Review TTMIK Stories
Korean stories is a great way to accelerate reading speed and word acquistion
Despite having reservations about the price and the membership being separate from the other TTMIK content, I took the plunge because there really is little other accessible/graded reading available for a beginner/early intermediate learner, and despite studying Korean grammar on and off for a few years nothing every really stuck.
After one month using TTMIK stories and getting most of the way through levels 1-4 my reading comprehension and speed have both greatly improved and my retained vocabulary has definitely also greatly expanded. The in app native audio also really helps link reading/spelling to pronunciation of words for verbal recognition in your brain. It also helps that the stories while short and simple, are generally interesting to read on their own. The stories are a perfect mix of sad, funny, informational and interesting and help convey a bit of Korean culture as well!
Because of the price I don’t think I can ever justify a continuous subscription but I plan on using it until/if it becomes to advanced for my level, and if that happens coming back once I have studied more grammar again. Even once I have completed everything I can see myself subbing for a month periodically just to speed-read and review.
My literal only nitpick of the app itself is I wish the vocab review tool was better. I wish the quizzing order was somewhat random, as it always defaults to the order you added the words in and has little customization. Id prefer an ability to review in random order to better facilitate random recall. And by the nature of Korean verbs any words with 다 that have a english translation of “to X something” should have both answers have that not to make it a giveaway, and vice versa for nouns not having the wrong answer be a prompt of “to do X”. Overall this isn’t enough to reduce the experience and isn’t a main function, but I just focus on not trying to memorize the words and acquire them, but this function being better would make it easier to review the small subset of words that never seem to stick despite knowing I’ve seen them 10-20 times already.
Ill end the review by saying no matter what happens, if I’m ever able to speak to and understand my Korean in-laws in casual normal paced conversation, and listen to and understand Korean radio comedy shows with my wife it will be in large thanks to TTMIK stories and the original grammar courses. 정말 장말 감사합니다!Show lessBrian V.d. Lim
Developer Response
Thank you for your detailed feedback on our TTMIK Stories app. We are happy to hear that you've improved your Korean skills by practicing on this app. We've improved the quiz feature and now you can randomize the order of the vocab quiz whenever you want to! Please check it out on the app :) We understand what you mean, and we will continue to improve the app to provide you with the best learning experience. 정말 정말 감사합니다! We hope you enjoy your learning journey!Enjoyable, Most of the Time
I love the app, and especially enjoy the stories. I think being able to build a reading habit with a good interface, high quality voice acting, and an abundance of content is wonderful.
Please, though, make one small change. Any reading app worth its salt has a dark theme. I find myself opening this app at night to read for a bit and immediately need to turn it off due to the brightness.
Dark mode, please!Show lessNarglesplat
Developer Response
Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us! We understand how important it is to have a comfortable reading experience, especially at night. We will keep it in mind and share your suggestion with our team. 감사합니다!Great complement to TTMIK Workbooks/Textbooks
This app creates a great complement to the TTMIK workbook lessons and gives much needed extra practice from those books to solidify understanding.
I think that the vocabulary review features on this app could be improved drastically in order to prevent people from forgetting words they read several days/weeks ago, but other than that the app is very helpful in seeing common idioms and spoken phrases.
One other feature idea would be “script” stories for each level, where all of the reading is dialogue between characters and would allow for more practice with spoken phrases.
Overall, great app for learning Korean!Show lessNac5504
Developer Response
Thank you for sharing your thoughts! We truly appreciate your honest feedback on the app. You can review your vocabulary you've added to your vocabulary list as much as you want, so feel free to use the updated feature. If you have more suggestions, you can also send us an email at help@talktomeinkorean.com. Thank you for your positive feedback! We will continue to provide you with the best learning experience :) Thank you!Much to be improved
The concept is good but the final product is still unpolished. A few things make it so such as spelling errors and also the definition of words. Many Korean words have multiple meanings and instead of defining the word in context of the story, some stories just use the most common definition. I’ve noticed quite a lot of spelling errors in the English definition as well.
Also there’s no way for me to search for a word I’ve learned previously so I can refresh my memory and re-read the story. I’m not about to scroll through god knows how many stories to find it so I just give up.
Another thing that irks me is if you won’t let me copy and paste the stories for me to translate (I understand due to copyright issues), at least have the translated version available so I can check if my understanding of the story is correct.
And the selected learning words in each story is heavily focused on vocabulary. Some grammar would be good.
Finally, the stories are mostly entertaining, original,
and quite relevant to current times. Just need some extras to help the learning process. I don’t mind paying the steep price but it has to be worth it. It isn’t yet.Show lesslarafy
Developer Response
Thank you for taking the time to write thoughtful feedback geared towards improving the app and the experience you gain from it. We apologize for any errors you found within the app that hindered your learning progress. We appreciate your suggestions and will try our best to improve the app to meet your needs as a learner. We will strive to improve our app going forward. Thank you.Best language learning app
This is an excellent app for learning Korean. Read the stores / articles and take the quizzes regularly and your Korean will improve accordingly. Highly recommend. 6/4/24: I recently finished level 5 and I am moving through level 6. I like to alternate 1:1 between stories and articles in order to maximize spaced interval learning effects. Within the profile screen where it shows the user’s progress (X/100 articles and X/100 stories), we should be able to click on articles or stories to go directly to the next item in queue to be read. Currently, you need to click first on the root link to articles/stories screen and then toggle between articles/stories and so on. This creates unnecessary additional clicks..Show lessShimanchew
Developer Response
Thank you for your comment and your feedback! 감사합니다 ☺️ We will continue to improve the app and provide you with the best experience :) We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience you faced due to the grading issue. Our team is actively addressing it to ensure a smoother experience for you and others. Your patience and understanding are greatly appreciated. Updated Review Reply: We are so glad that you noticed the changes and update the review! We truly appreciate your kind words, and we will try our best to continue to provide you with the best learning experience. 감사합니다!Update, Everything is fixed
I’m not able to update or delete my previous review so I wanted to mention, the app was fixed within a day and everything has been working great since then. This app is an amazing learning tool and now the subscription is cheaper so it’s an incredible value!Adonalsium
Developer Response
Thank you for your patience! There was an issue with the version, and we've updated the app right after the bug was identified. Please update or delete the app and install it again to check out the latest version. Thank you for your understanding!Be Wary of 1.5.2!
I just updated to 1.5.2 and now none of the lists for stories/articles will load, so I can’t actually use the app for anything. I’m extremely sad because this app is my favorite Korean learning resource!
(For reference I update to 1.5.2 when on iOS 17.4.1, update to iOS 17.5.1 and the issue is still occurring)Show lessDeveloper Response
Thank you for your patience! There was an issue with the version, and we've updated the app right after the bug was identified. Please update or delete the app and install it again to check out the latest version. Thank you for your understanding!Nice app but needs English translations
Love what TTMIK usually puts out, lessons, videos, podcasts etc. have subscribed and learned a ton. I’m level 5 or 6 depending on what day I take their test. But for this app the stories have too much vocab and regular use of at-level grammar that makes doing the quizzes more like guesswork. Totally appreciate the value of working without translations and do it all the time to advance. But ultimately after doing the exercises the translations should be available to check understanding. If translations were available —post quiz perhaps, it would be worth the money.
But at this price point an app without the dialogues translated is simply not worth it.
The app is stable and not buggy.Show lessKritikal Critic
Developer Response
Thank you for your feedback and for being a loyal subscriber! We’re glad you enjoy our lessons, videos, and podcasts. We understand your concerns about the vocabulary and grammar levels in the stories. Your suggestion to provide translations after the quizzes is very helpful. Our intention was to let our learners translate them with the support from the translation of the words that are in the stories, but we understand that the translation would be helpful. Thank you for your suggestions! We are glad the overall experience of the app was great, and we appreciate your constructive feedback. 감사합니다 :)Good idea - needs improvement
I concur with a prior review that there should be the option to view a translation of the series/article after the quiz.
I think there needs to be some major work on the apps use of “spaced repetition.” Because it’s not really spaced repetition as is. From what I can tell, as soon as one correctly gets it three times, it’s memorized, which simply isn’t true. Additionally, the first set of words I added, which was about 7, allowed me to do the Flashcards back to back. So, I got all the words in my set correctly three times in a row that are now “memorized” but they aren’t. Also, I can’t even see a list of words that I’ve “memorized”.
Memrise has a much better spaced repetition system fleshed out for an app.
Lastly, there should be a function where I can add other words to my vocab set that I don’t know but isn’t flagged as one of the vocabulary words for that series or article.
I was really hoping for more out of ttmik stories, but it’s not something I’m willing to subscribe to without some hefty upgrades.Show lessMTCnon
Developer Response
Thank you for sharing your feedback with us! We appreciate your suggestions for improving the spaced repetition system and adding features like post-quiz translations and custom vocabulary sets. We're committed to enhancing the app based on your input, and we'll consider your ideas for future updates. If you have any further suggestions or concerns, please feel free to reach out to us. Thank you for letting us know :) 감사합니다!Just the resource I needed
This app is so amazing! I honestly wish I’d had something like this when I was studying Spanish. It’s helped me with my Korean so much and has given me a confidence boost.
When I did the level test, it placed me at level 3, but I have been reading at level 1 because level 3 was too difficult for me. And I’m glad I made that choice! There have been a lot of words in level 1 that I’m unfamiliar with and would have missed, otherwise.
This app has so many things to help with my Korean! I can click on words right in the article/series to define it and go right back to looking at the context. I love the audio feature, the review feature, being able to toggle between levels—everything about it, really. I would maybe add more questions to the quizzes, though, and maybe a way to remove an article/series from the list of what has already been read. Or maybe a way to bookmark which story I’m on if I’m going back through the list to review?
I really, really love this app and to me it is worth the price.Show lessChristine (크리스틴)
Developer Response
안녕하세요! Thank you for your kind and nice feedback on our graded reading app! We truly appreciate the feedback and your amazing suggestions. We will continue to update the app and we will also keep providing you with the best learning experience. Thank you for studying Korean with us, and we will get back to you with much more effective and customer-friendly features. 감사합니다!
