# Korean Reading: TTMIK Stories — user reviews > 150 indexed App Store user reviews of Korean Reading by G9, rated 4.60/5 from 469 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/korean-reading-ttmik-stories/id1659613381/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/korean-reading-ttmik-stories/id1659613381.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 373 · 4★ 55 · 3★ 22 · 2★ 7 · 1★ 12 ## What do users think of Korean Reading? Overall sentiment: positive **Pros** - 🚀 Excellent progression and narration - 🚀 Engaging and interesting content - 👍 Helpful for improving reading, listening, and vocabulary - 👍 Convenient for practicing on the go - 👍 Effective for learning Korean **Cons** - 💰 Expensive subscription - 🐛 Bugs and technical issues - 👎 Limited vocabulary lookup and translation options - 👎 Inconsistent or confusing quiz/review functionality - 👎 Not suitable for absolute beginners **Commonly reported bugs** - Audio not working consistently - Quizzes have incorrect grading - Vocabulary review feature has bugs - Navigation and UI issues **Most requested features** - Add dark mode option - Improve vocabulary review system with spaced repetition - Allow highlighting and translation of any word, not just bolded words - Provide English translations or summaries of stories - Offer discounted subscription for existing TTMIK members ## Newest reviews (16 of 150) ### 2/5 — Justin *2026-07-17* Used to be amazing for reading korean practice. But turned into subscription based game app. Should have made two seperate apps instead of changing everything. ### 4/5 — Very good but confusing *2026-05-29* I’m finding reading the articles and figuring out what they say to be good, I’m hoping I’m hopeful I’ll get better at reading! But since I’m a beginner, I can’t actually understand what the quiz and practise sections are actually asking/saying, perhaps an option to see a translation in those portions would be helpful. As well as a verbal translation of the word as it is written in the article, instead of or as well as the stem word to help with reading and past/present tense info, too. ### 3/5 — Great Potential *2026-05-09, version 1.18.3* This is really great, but people are tired of looking at their tiny screens on their phone. not sure if there’s an iPad app version, I couldn’t find one. Please make an iPad version of the app! ### 4/5 — Great but bigger size fonts please *2026-03-23, version 1.18.0* I am liking the content and how the story flows. But the hardest part for me is how small the print size is. I don’t see an option to make it larger. Can that be an option? ### 4/5 — Vocabulary *2026-03-15, version 1.16.3* This could be an amazing app. However, it needs a better way to study vocabulary. One should be able to make more vocab study sets than just mastered and learning as well as smaller study sets. ### 2/5 — Expensive and buggy *2026-02-10* First if all the content is great, and there is a LOT of it. To be honest I’d prefer to be able to buy a physical book. The app regularly updates, logging you out when it does so. * This is frustrating for people like me who have limited time. Text size is often way too small and doesn’t scale along with iphones accessability settings. A recent update changed the word appearing in bold to underlined. This is a terrible design choice and makes somewords really difficult to read. *A recent update has broken the ability to sign in with google. Now I can’t access the content I’ve paid for. Extremely frustrating. Even though I live in Korea, my apple store is UK so this app is extremely expensive - almost 200,000won. You need to do better if you want to keep my subscription. ### 4/5 — Great App to learn to read Korean *2026-01-03* A very structured app that helps you learn Korean, with quizzes and written comprehension tests after every story you read! I didn’t give it 5 stars because I wish I could highlight any word in the story to get the meaning of it. For some reason only black bolded words can be selected to get a full breakdown (pronunciation and an English definition). ### 3/5 — … *2026-01-01, version 1.16.0* This is a really good app if your more advanced but for a beginner who only knows Hangul and sentence structures this is impossible ### 3/5 — とても勉強になりそう！ *2025-12-28* 日本人です🇯🇵韓国語多読アプリ、大変ありがたいです！母国語は日本語選択できるのですが、実際に翻訳された言語は英語になっています💦 今後は日本語も対応して頂けると非常に助かります！よろしくお願い致します！ ### 4/5 — Love this! *2025-12-24, version 1.16.0* I love this app. I use it everyday. Trying to teach myself Korean is definitely hard and I struggle, but this app helps me through it and keeps me motivated to never quit. My only complaint is, that after an update a few months ago, if you don't remember to click "mark as read" after you finish a story, it doesn't log in the app as a day completed. That is the only critique I have as of right now. ### 4/5 — Effective learning, but details *2025-12-03, version 1.15.2* The system that lets you see the definition of a word is finicky, and what you are allowed to see the definition of is not consistent with the bolded words. ### 5/5 — Great material, bad narration *2025-11-09, version 1.15.1* The story content is amazing and exactly what I’d want from a graded reader—however, the voices that read the stories sound robotic (if not AI generated). Since it is great to have a native speaker “read aloud” as you’re learning, the app would massively benefit from less robotic, more natural recordings in the style of the TTMIK Iyagi podcasts. Update: It’s only the early stories that sound like that, the later ones sound quite natural, changed to 5 stars :-) ### 3/5 — Not For Beginners *2025-11-03, version 1.15.1* Nice app but too much too fast for beginners. ### 5/5 — It’s fun! *2025-10-30, version 1.15.1* Learning Korean is complicated for a Westerner. This lets you practice some of the difficult aspects (prononciation, reading comprehension), in a fun way. I like the voices, and the easy word lookup feature. ### 5/5 — Love How Easy It Makes Korean Reading *2025-10-25* As an author and publisher myself, I can say this app offers a format that ebooks and paperbacks simply can’t. You can easily look up words and grammar used in each story and even create your own vocabulary lists. Plus, every story includes audio, so you can read and listen at the same time—or test your listening after finishing a chapter. I also love that you can choose from different story levels based on your reading ability, and each level has plenty of content to enjoy. I highly recommend this app to all Korean learners! ### 5/5 — Excellent Stories - Really Accelerated My Learning *2025-10-24, version 1.15.0* I’m about 150+ articles in and really love the audio narrations that go along with stories. Listening and reading at the same time has improved my ability to understand normal conversations quite a lot. I find myself getting lost or stuck on unfamiliar words less often than before I started this app. The stories themselves are thoughtfully crafted and you see repeated vocab across stories in an intentional way to improve retention. The vocab section is a bit rough around the edges. I use a small external deck instead so I’ve avoided this part of the app for the most part. Overall if you’re serious about wanting to improve your Korean this is probably the best resource there is! ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — Huh? *2026-06-12* Why am I “Level 1” when all my answers are correct? 😅 **Developer response:** Thank you for your feedback. If your level seems incorrect, please email us at help@talktomeinkorean.com with your account details, and we’ll help you check it. ### 1/5 — Buggy Playback *2026-04-12, version 1.18.1* The app has a playback feature to listen to Korean stories, but it only plays the first sentence or two and then jumps to the next story. This would be a great feature, but has been a persistent bug. ### 1/5 — Not yet thought through *2025-12-23* In my opinion, the app is not yet thought through content, conception and UX wise. I love though that the texts are read by a human and a native Korean. Regarding the price point: the price point is very high compared to other highly developed and advanced apps. On top, the app hasn’t been working for two days now on my end. I‘m optimistic the app will improve over time and that I‘ll be updating my review. This kind of app is actually what is missing on the market. Update: it‘s been quite some time I wrote the review and decided to give the app another try. The price gas come down as I expected but realised how awful the app still is. Not thought through from a UX point and super boring. All the feedback we have provided, don’t see any of them considered. **Developer response:** Thank you for sharing your feedback with us. We appreciate your insights on the content, conception, and user experience of our app. We're glad to hear that you appreciate the audio tracks! We thought about how to create an app that would help our learners improve their Korean skills and we appreciate your positive feedback on the audio tracks! Regarding the pricing and UX issues you've encountered, we understand your concerns. We continuously strive to provide value for our customers while ensuring a unique and amazing experience with the app. We apologize for any inconvenience caused by the technical difficulties. If the app is not working, please delete the app and install it first. If the issue persists, please let us know! We will identify the issue and assist you as soon as possible. Thank you for studying Korean with us :) 감사합니다! ### 1/5 — Cannot Access App *2025-11-27, version 1.15.1* The forget my password feature does not work. ### 1/5 — Thumbsdown for no trial *2025-07-11, version 1.13.0* How about giving potential customers a taste before asking for signup? I don’t like to hand over my personal info or money before even knowing what the learning experience looks like. ### 1/5 — Too expensive *2025-07-09* The app is pretty good, however it's way too expensive. Could also have been a one time purchase. Will be deleting app and getting stories and articles from elsewhere. ### 1/5 — The point *2025-02-10* I do not understand the point of this app if it won’t let you go past the first articles without paying huge money for the rest. It’s a good app but a straight ripoff. **Developer response:** When you sign up for our app, you should automatically receive a 7-day free trial period to explore all our features. If you haven't received your free trial after creating a new account, please send your registered email address to help@talktomeinkorean.com, and we'll be happy to assist you right away! ### 1/5 — Incorrect grammar? *2025-01-03, version 1.9.2* I tried giving the app a second chance after it kinda disappointing me the first time but i wanted to like it. although it has bugs it's still not horrible. But I came across a story in level 5 where the sentence said "가족들이 찾기 곳에 두길 잘했다고 생각했다“ I initially didn't understand it , so I went to AI for help and it told me it was incorrect grammar AI can be wrong sometimes so I asked three of my Korean friends. Was this sentence natural or even grammatically correct, they all said no and said they'd change to "찾을 수 있는 곳에" now i'm skeptical if i should continue reading using this app if they're giving me incorrect grammar. ### 1/5 — Really wanted to love it :( *2024-12-18* I’m the exact right demographic for this app (intermediate learner studying for topik and I love using apps to study in free moments) but even I can’t get past the drawbacks. It’s really very expensive, especially when I’m already paying for the normal TTMIK subscription. And from the get go the app has issues - no back button on the sign in page, doesn’t recognise my login details even though they work fine on the ttmik website. I’m definitely not going to pay a huge fee for an app with bugs. It’s honestly a real shame because I would’ve loved an app like this that worked and wasn’t so expensive or was included in the main ttmik subscription. Edit: Not only was I unable to login, I was apparently signed up for the free trial without my knowledge. Just received an email to say the trial is almost over, but I wasn’t able to use the free trial and presumably won’t be able to get another one in the future when the bugs are worked out. Overall not a great experience. :/ **Developer response:** Thank you for taking the time to share such detailed feedback. We sincerely apologize for the frustrating experience you've had with our app, especially the login issues. As your TTMIK Course subscription will not be used on this app, you can sign up as a new user to use the app. If you use the app, the trial activates after you complete the level test. You can try using the service after signing up as a new user, and please get back to us if you still have the same issue. 감사합니다! ### 1/5 — Too *2024-12-05* Expensive **Developer response:** We understand your concern about the pricing. While we strive to provide high-quality graded reading materials and features that support effective language learning, we also value your feedback about affordability. If you'd like to try the app before committing, we offer a free trial period where you can explore all our features and see if it's the right fit for your learning journey. ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — Great app, worth the $$ *2026-08-12, version 1.21.0* I think this is a great app for korean learners who are advanced beginners on up. I wouldn't recommend it for true beginners. But once one has a basic vocabulary and some basic grammar structures down, it's awesome. I have worked up from level one to level five. Five more levels to go! The quality of the stories is good and I think they are written by human beings. There's high-quality voice actors also. Highly recommend!! ### 5/5 — 해ㅐㅇ *2026-06-15, version 1.19.0* 해ㅐㅇ ### 5/5 — Really good and getting better! *2026-04-17, version 1.18.2* I’m a big fan of this app, I use it daily. Each improvement has been really helpful. Definitely trending upwards! One feature I would love would be a background player. It’d be really helpful to be able to walk around and listen to the stories over and over again. Keep up the good work! ### 5/5 — Me encanta!! *2026-03-23, version 1.18.0* Gracias por hacer una aplicación para practicar la comprensión de lectura. ### 5/5 — It’s so good. Thank you! *2026-03-03* TTMIK Stories app is so good, and it has helped me so much. It’s what I was missing! It is helping me to get out of my head and to start putting vocabulary and grammar together in a way that will help me speak. At first I was fearful, thinking it was advanced for me, but I quickly learned to work with it and use all of the resources (hover to look up a word or hear it pronounced, quiz myself on my growing vocabulary, review article or story notes). The pace is gentle and effective, truly. It doesn’t make me nervous like some of the speaking apps do. I highly recommend TTMIK Stories and applaud the teachers and the developers (no glitches here)! ### 5/5 — Perfect missing piece to my studying *2026-01-06, version 1.16.0* I was looking for an app JUST like this where I can practice my reading skills while learning vocabulary. This app has it all. The stories are actually interesting and I really enjoy the podcast feature that allows you to listen to the stories you’ve completed! It helps a lot with listening practice. If you want to focus more on reading, understanding and comprehension, this app is 100% worth the price. ### 5/5 — As expected- Amazing!!! *2025-12-30, version 1.16.0* Exceeded my expectations once again ttmik♥️ ### 5/5 — Exceptional resource for learning Korean *2025-12-25* I am new to the wonderful journey of learning Korean, and TTMIK has been an extremely helpful resource. Their TTMIK Stories app is a truly wonderful app. It includes many different levels so it is appropriate for learners from beginner to advanced which is great. Getting to hear the native speakers read the stories and articles helps so much shadowing/practicing, and the vocab review, with vocab in the context of a sentence/line of dialogue, is very helpful. The stories and articles are also really interesting in and of themselves, which makes me really love and often return to the app, even beyond what it takes to keep my reading streak going. :) I was hesitant to pay for a subscription at first because I tend to subscribe to things but then not use them enough to warrant the cost, but this is not the case with this app at all. It is absolutely worth the very reasonable investment. My Korean has improved as a direct result of this app alone, and I would recommend it to all Korean learners. ### 5/5 — Excellent Stories - Really Accelerated My Learning *2025-12-15* 400+ story read update: Really accelerating my learning in every day life scenarios. I already had read several YA novels in Korean before picking up TTMIK stories and still am finding the app worth every dollar. Killer hidden feature of this app is the ability to reuse the reading lessons as a listening playlist while doing chores. It is the best listening practice I’ve found anywhere online. Sadly I didn’t find out about this feature for my first 300 stories but am now using it every day and making huge progress in my listening abilities. ### 5/5 — So helpful! *2025-12-07, version 1.15.2* This has been so helpful with listening and reading Korean. You can read along to understand the vocabulary but then just listen to test your listing skills. It has really helped me build my vocabulary. --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-09-03.*