The Korean Wiki Project is a collaborative effort to unify knowledge on the Korean language and to make the information easily accessible and highly accurate. First, many of the articles on this site are still under major construction. A lot of the articles are incomplete and have been created for future editing. This website explains Korean grammar patterns, idioms, hanja,  proverbs,  slang, along with practical vocabulary words organized by subject. Basically anything related to the Korean language you should be able to find on this site. This site  also teaches you how to read and write Hangeul (한글), the Korean script, with many examples and even advanced consonant assimilation rules. The site was originally intended to explain everything in English, however we also offer the option for people to translate articles in different languages. People can now learn to read and write the Korean alphabet in other languages such as Dutch, Portuguese and Spanish (more coming soon). In the future we will also have it translated into Chinese, Japanese, Tagalog, Malay, Indonesian, Arabic and any other language we can someone is willing to translate.

What is a Wiki?

A wiki is describe on Wikipedia as:

“A type of website that lets anyone create and edit its pages. Every wiki can be changed, or edited by everyone, although some important pages cannot be changed by anyone. Wikis are central places where we all can share information with each other, people can add new information, and then people read them. Wikis allow information from all around the world to be collected. In a wiki, people can write pages together. If one person writes something wrong, then the next person can correct it. The next person can also add something new to the page. Because of this, the page gets better whenever someone changes it. If someone writes information that is very obviously wrong, and the person actually wanted to vandalise, it would be changed by administrators, and the person will not be able to change the wiki anymore.”

Purpose

Anyone who has studied Korean as a second language knows it’s hard to find a book that is both accurate and easy to read. On top of that, most books don’t provide thorough details on grammar usage and don’t describe the feeling certain grammar and words give. Even the best dictionaries provide no insight into whether the word is mostly used by females, or if it’s inappropriate to use with strangers and if the word sounds too formal to use on most occasions. These types of things are often learned in intensive language institutes and through immersing yourself in Korean, where using the wrong word might’ve made a few people laugh at your expense.

For students studying at a language institute, the standard text book might not provide sufficient explanations, examples or have numerous bad translations. So students often rely on other textbooks (which have their own problems as well) and end up looking through several textbooks. When it’s time to study, no student wants to carry around several textbooks and hunt for the same grammar pattern in each one. Additionally, there will be things the student learns in class or through their own experience that aren’t explained in any of the textbooks.

With a wiki, people who have already figured out accurate translations for Korean grammar patterns can give their own 2 cents on current articles, as well as create their own articles. Telling the textbook it’s wrong isn’t going to change anything, whereas in a wiki if you see something wrong you can fix it yourself and add your own insight. Furthermore no one wants to carry around several text books and pages of notes and go searching through them; it’s much easier to pull up an article on this wiki, not to mention it can be accessed anywhere, anytime.

One of the goals of this project is to provide the most accurate, in depth information and accurate translations for Korean grammar patterns and vocabulary words where other dictionaries and books fail. We would also like to make all information on here simple and easy to understand, as more people edit articles we can get closer to achieving that goal. We strive to provide information that cannot be found in other sources, offer unique material and offer the material in a unique way.

Goals

• Consolidate scattered Korean resources
• Make Korean easier to understand than standard current methods
• Be the most accurate source for the Korean language over time
• Provide full coverage of the Korean language, from beginning to end
• Include information not generally found in dictionaries and textbooks
• Utilize the full power of the internet by using images, audio and video
• Make Korean the second most thoroughly documented language on the internet next to English.

Evolving

• Work as a big group who meets regularly
• Work with universities, have major scholars of the Korean language participate.
• Work with major companies
• More languages
• Unique material like a textbook