Korean is one of the slowest languages for English speakers. The US Foreign Service Institute lists it in Category IV: 88 weeks, or 2,200 class hours, to professional speaking and listening. Yonsei University's language institute teaches in 200-hour terms and compares its fourth level to roughly B2. Learning Hangul is quick; reading Korean well takes years.
- FSI group
- Category IV, with Arabic, Chinese and Japanese
- FSI time
- 88 weeks (2,200 class hours)
- Intensive course in Seoul
- Yonsei KLI: 10-week terms of 200 class hours, Levels 1–6
- Yonsei level compared to B2
- Level 4, after 600 hours of Levels 1–3
- Contos Korean library
- 48 series, 296 chapters (October 2026)
How long does Korean take compared with other languages?
The Foreign Service Institute (FSI) trains US diplomats and publishes how long its students usually need to reach a score of 3 in speaking and listening on the Interagency Language Roundtable scale, a professional working standard. A typical FSI week is 23 hours in class and 17 hours of self-study. Korean sits in the slowest group, which the FSI calls "super-hard languages".
| Language | FSI category | Time published by FSI |
|---|---|---|
| Spanish | I | 30 weeks |
| German | II | Approximately 36 weeks (828 class hours) |
| Russian, Turkish, Ukrainian | III | Approximately 44 weeks (1,012 class hours) |
| Korean, Japanese, Mandarin, Arabic | IV | 88 weeks (2,200 class hours) |
Few independent learners study 40 hours a week, so it helps to turn the 2,200 class hours into everyday terms:
| Study time | Hours in a year | 2,200 hours takes |
|---|---|---|
| 30 minutes a day | About 180 | About 12 years |
| 1 hour a day | 365 | About 6 years |
| 2 hours a day | 730 | About 3 years |
| FSI pace: 23 class hours a week | About 1,200 | 88 weeks, plus 17 hours a week of self-study |
The FSI target is high: working as a diplomat in Korean. Reading simple stories, travelling and following everyday conversation come long before it. What the numbers tell you is to plan in years and to make the daily habit easy to keep.
How long does a full-time Korean course in Seoul take?
Korean universities run intensive language programmes, which give a second, more practical benchmark. Yonsei University's Korean Language Institute (KLI) teaches its Regular Program in 10-week terms of 200 class hours, four hours a day from Monday to Friday, across Levels 1 to 6 designed in line with the TOPIK exam levels. Yonsei also publishes an approximate comparison of its levels with the CEFR.
| Yonsei KLI level | Class hours by the end of it | Yonsei's approximate CEFR level | TOPIK level in Yonsei's table |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 200 | Below A1 to A1 | 1 |
| 2 | 400 | A2 | 2 |
| 3 | 600 | B1 | 2–4 |
| 4 | 800 | B2 | 4 |
| 5 | 1,000 | C1 | 5 |
| 6 | 1,200 | C2 | 6 |
Finishing Level 4, which Yonsei compares to roughly B2, takes 800 hours of class with a teacher, plus homework. At an hour a day that is a little over two years. These are intensive classroom hours, not self-study, so treat them as a floor rather than a promise. For what the levels mean, see our guide to Korean CEFR levels and TOPIK.
Why does Korean take English speakers so long?
The alphabet is the quick part
Hangul has 24 basic letters, 14 consonants and 10 vowels, and a regular way of stacking them into syllable blocks. Learning it is a small, closed job, and our guide to the Korean writing system walks through it. The time goes on everything after it.
Sentences run in a different order
The verb comes last, and small particles attached to each noun say who does what. This line from an A2 story shows both:
서연은 쪽지를 낡은 차통에 넣었습니다.Seoyeoneun jjokjireul nalgeun chatonge neoeotseumnida.
Little of the vocabulary is familiar
Apart from loanwords such as 카페 (café) and 로봇 (robot), Korean words rarely look or sound like English ones, so each one has to be learned rather than guessed. That is the biggest single cost, and it is why reading volume matters.
The words change with the listener
Korean verb endings change with how formal the situation is. The stories show this from A1: narration in one style, dialogue in another. Our page on whether Korean is hard counts how often each style appears.
What does the Contos library show about each level?
Every Contos Korean series is written for one CEFR level. Measuring the free chapters shows what moving up a level means on the page. Because Korean leaves a space after each word together with its particle or ending, we count those spaced units (eojeol) and give syllable blocks alongside.
| Level | Chapters in the library | Average free chapter | Spaced words per sentence | Different spaced forms in the free chapters |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A1 | 74 | 105 spaced words (297 syllables) | About 3 | 1,152 |
| A2 | 74 | 151 (432 syllables) | About 4 | 1,859 |
| B1 | 74 | 186 (521 syllables) | About 5 | 2,382 |
| B2 | 74 | 236 (667 syllables) | About 6 | 3,044 |
A B2 chapter is about 2.2 times as long as an A1 chapter, and its sentences about twice as long. The number of different forms nearly triples. The step from A1 to A2 is the biggest jump in chapter length, which is why reading the same level for longer before moving up pays off. The Contos reading report compares these numbers with the other 15 languages.
What does a realistic first year of Korean look like?
- First: Hangul. Read every block aloud until you no longer have to think about the letters.
- Months 1–3: one A1 chapter a day. At about 100 spaced words, a chapter takes minutes to read and longer to understand. Read it twice, and reread it the next day.
- Tap only the units that stop you. Each tap shows what the word means with its particle or ending in that sentence.
- Review saved words daily. Spaced repetition does the remembering; see why flashcards work.
- Move up with your vocabulary. Contos moves you to A2 at 500 known words, B1 at 1,500 and B2 at 4,000.
- Train your ear elsewhere. Contos is for reading, so pair it with audio and conversation.
For a ready-made start, follow the 30-day Korean reading plan, built on real A1 and A2 series.
Start an A1 Korean story in your browser. Chapters 1 and 2 of every series are free.
Read free in your browserFrequently asked questions
Can you learn Korean in a year?
You can make real progress. An hour a day gives you 365 hours: about a sixth of the FSI's 2,200 class hours, or a little under two of Yonsei's 200-hour terms. That is enough to read Hangul, simple stories and everyday phrases, not to be fluent.
How long does it take to learn Hangul?
Far less than the rest of Korean. Hangul has 24 basic letters that combine in a regular way, so it is a small, closed job. The quickest route is reading real words aloud every day until the letters come without effort.
Is Korean faster to learn than Japanese?
The FSI lists both at 88 weeks. Korean is quicker to start reading, because its alphabet is small and it needs no kanji. Our Korean vs Japanese guide compares them in detail.
How many hours a day should I study Korean?
As many as you can keep up every day. A short daily session beats a long weekly one, because words need to come round again before you forget them. Fifteen minutes of reading is a good floor; see our daily reading routine.
What level can I reach with Contos?
Contos Korean stories run from A1 to B2, in standard Seoul Korean written in Hangul. Contos moves you up a level as your known words grow: A2 at 500, B1 at 1,500 and B2 at 4,000.