This Korean party trick made me a hit with the locals

The best Korean party trick I ever learned was how to read Hangul. It might sound like homework but if you’re already investing all that money on flights and accommodation, you might as well invest a few hours to learn some of the language. The good news is that Hangul is remarkably easy to learn. With 90 minutes and a YouTube tutorial, anyone can learn the basics of the Korean alphabet.

This is all thanks to Sejong the Great. What makes him so great, you ask? Well, King Sejong was credited with creating Hangul in the 1440s after watching his people struggle with the complex Chinese characters they were using to read and write at the time. He created an alphabet that was so simple even the lowliest peasant (including this travel writer) could learn it.

And learn it I did, with the help of Billy Go on YouTube. His channel is a goldmine for anyone interested in learning Korean before their trip and all you have to do is sit through a few unskippable ads for the privilege. In the six days leading up to my travels, I practised for 30 minutes a day and by the time I landed in Korea, I could separate my maekju from my soju and blow the minds of halmeonis from Seoul to Busan.

Incidentally, I bumped into Billy Go in Seoul. I saw him wearing his signature plaid shirt and ran across a busy Myeongdong road just to meet him. I spent the next 10 minutes gushing about how good his YouTube channel was, how he taught me all the Korean I knew, and how he revolutionised my experience in the country. He gave me a branded pen which I lost the next day.

Good times.

But there is more to learning Hangul than free pens and embarrassing yourself in front of YouTube personalities. It also significantly improves your pronunciation, as Korean is filled with tteokbokki and gyeongchalcheong and other words that can never be fully Romanised. There are sounds we simply can’t make with our alphabet and by learning theirs, the whole language starts to make a lot more sense.

Of course, these days all you have to do is wave your phone at something to translate it. It’s a convenience of this modern world, but what we’ve gained in ease, we’ve lost in those magical, misinterpreted moments that connect you with other cultures. Language is such an important part of our identities and by learning even the smallest piece of Hangul, you will be amazed at how a country like Korea opens up to you.

Nothing beats the look on the faces next to you at a pocha (food cart) when you whip out a menu and start reading it. Koreans adore it when anyone engages with their culture and through this simple, remarkably easy “trick”, I connected with the country on a whole new level. It made me all sorts of new friends and won me the hearts of even the most stoic market merchants.