u/Impossible-Sign7781

I’ve been thinking a lot about how people actually learn vocabulary when learning a language, especially Korean.

One thing I’ve noticed (for myself and friends) is that a lot of apps seem very grammar-heavy early on, but the biggest barrier to understanding content often just feels like not knowing enough words.

So I’ve been experimenting with a small vocab-focused learning system based around:

• high-frequency words
• quick repetition
• small games/memory challenges
• learning words fast enough to start understanding real content earlier (videos, shows, YouTube, etc.)

But before I spend more time building this out, I wanted to ask people actually learning Korean:

• What’s been the hardest part about vocabulary acquisition for you?
• Have apps like Anki/Duolingo/Memrise worked for you long term? Why or why not?
• Do you prefer immersion + picking things up naturally, or more structured vocab learning?
• At what point did you start understanding real content comfortably?
• Is vocab even the bottleneck, or is something else harder?

I’m genuinely trying to understand whether this is a real problem or just something I personally feel while learning languages.

Would love honest opinions, including negative ones.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how people actually learn vocabulary when learning a language, especially German.

One thing I’ve noticed (for myself and friends) is that a lot of apps seem very grammar-heavy early on, but the biggest barrier to understanding content often just feels like not knowing enough words.

So I’ve been experimenting with a small vocab-focused learning system based around:

• high-frequency words
• quick repetition
• small games/memory challenges
• learning words fast enough to start understanding real content earlier (videos, shows, YouTube, etc.)

But before I spend more time building this out, I wanted to ask people actually learning German:

• What’s been the hardest part about vocabulary acquisition for you?
• Have apps like Anki/Duolingo/Memrise worked for you long term? Why or why not?
• Do you prefer immersion + picking things up naturally, or more structured vocab learning?
• At what point did you start understanding real content comfortably?
• Is vocab even the bottleneck, or is something else harder?

I’m genuinely trying to understand whether this is a real problem or just something I personally feel while learning languages.

Would love honest opinions, including negative ones.