90 Day Korean Review: Is 90 Day Korean a Good Course?

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I’ve learned nine languages to conversational level, all as an adult. So I’ve got a good system in place for picking up a new language.

But when it came to Korean, something was different. Regardless of how many resources I used, I just couldn’t wrap my head around the grammar or the pronunciation. It just didn’t make sense.

I wondered if it would always be like that. In fact, the first time I learned, I gave up after six months. It was my first language defeat. I wondered if perhaps it and I just weren’t meant to be.

But a few months later, I realised I wasn’t ready to give up Korean. I wanted to give it another try.

I decided to commit to learning Korean as part of the original Add1Challenge, along with using 90 Day Korean.

Disclosure: Fi3M uses affiliate links in this review. If you buy through one, Fi3M may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.

What is 90 Day Korean?

90 Day Korean is an online Korean course built around four main levels. The company presents each level as roughly 90 days of study, taking a learner from beginner material towards intermediate conversation.

The name describes those 90-day stages rather than the length of the whole programme. The current sales page lists all four levels and more than 500 step-by-step lessons.

Lessons combine vocabulary, grammar, audio and practice activities. The exact curriculum and plan features have changed since I took the course, so this review separates my experience from current sales-page facts.

Before choosing a plan, check which support features are included rather than assuming the coaching I describe below comes with every membership.

The current product offers community features on both listed plans, while personal coaching and homework feedback are listed for VIP. This distinction matters because the support I used during my review is not included with every plan.

The course is web-based and self-paced. The current sales page says learners can access all four levels, while subscription, price and support details depend on the plan shown at checkout.

The current sales page lists four core levels and more than 500 step-by-step lessons across vocabulary, grammar, listening, conversation and cultural context. Exact lesson counts and access terms can change, so use the live plan page for the current details.

• Vocabulary and phrases organised around common situations
• Grammar and sentence patterns introduced step by step
• Exercises, worksheets and audio for practice
• Community access for learners on both listed plans
• Coaching and homework feedback on the VIP plan

Coaching Depends on Your 90 Day Korean Plan

When I took 90 Day Korean, I was assigned a coach and could message them about lessons. I asked about pronunciation and irregular verbs, and I found the replies detailed and useful.

The current sales page separates Standard and VIP membership. It lists 1-to-1 coaching, homework grading and pronunciation feedback under VIP, so do not assume every plan includes the support described in my experience.

Coaching was valuable when I felt unsure about a lesson, but compare the current plans and decide whether that support is worth the higher price for you.

Getting Started with 90 Day Korean

Even if you have some experience with Korean, I highly recommend starting from the very first module of 90 Day Korean.

I recommend beginning with the first module because the course introduces its memory methods and study sequence there. That does not make the methods universally proven, but it helped me understand how the later lessons were organised.

My Experience Using 90 Day Korean: The Good

When I started 90 Day Korean, the writing stood out to me. It was engaging, well-paced and written with a sense of humour, while stories made the grammar and vocabulary more memorable for me.

This helped me get acquainted with an important part of the Korean language. You see, one of the things that I picked up on when learning both Japanese and Korean is that verb endings are important. Basically, endings attach to Korean verb stems to convey grammatical information such as tense, sentence type, honorifics and speech level.

For example, in Korean, 하다 means “to do”. If I want to say “I do”, I would change it to 해요. From there:

• 하고 싶어요 – “want to do”
• 해 보세요 – “please try doing it”
• 할 수 있어요 – “can do”
• 할 수 없어요 – “cannot do”

These endings are key to learning to speak the language, but the first time I tried to learn Korean, I had a hard time finding all the most common verb endings in one place. 90 Day Korean turned out to be that place.

In working through 90 Day Korean, I finally had the chance to see all of these different endings in action, read well-written explanations, and do guided practice. It was exactly what I had been looking for in a Korean language resource.

The course introduced these forms gradually. I found the grammar easier to handle when it appeared beside vocabulary, cultural context and practice rather than as one long sequence of grammar points.

90 Day Korean has several extra features on top of the core course. This includes the option to take notes and store them directly in the course. Personally, I still prefer to take notes by hand. It helps with memory and it’s a pretty rewarding way to see everything you’ve worked on, but it’s still nice to have the option to quickly jot things down and save them for later all in one place.

You learn a lot of material in 90 Day Korean, but as I said before, it’s organized in a way that doesn’t feel overwhelming. It also builds naturally, so everything you learn spans out from what you’ve already studied in earlier lessons.

I started 90 Day Korean a little bit after I began learning Korean for a second time, so I didn’t have a lot of experience with the language.

I worked through the course faster than its suggested pace and finished the material available to me in about four to five months. The release and access system described in the original review has since changed, so that timing is historical rather than a description of current enrolment.

As you work through the course, you can mark what you’ve gone through as complete. This makes the course extremely versatile because you can bounce around from lesson to lesson, focusing on new material and reviewing old material however you see fit.

Learning Korean with the 80/20 Rule: Maximum Results, Minimum Effort

90 Day Korean uses the Pareto Principle as a prioritisation method: begin with high-frequency language and practical patterns before spending time on rarer material. Treat 80/20 as a study heuristic, not a guaranteed result-to-effort ratio.

Here’s an example from the course:

“Is there a past tense of -(으)세요?

“Yes, there is. However, the amount of time you need it compared to the time it takes to learn makes it fall out of the 80/20 category. If you want to learn the most useful Korean as fast as possible, then you’d be better off focusing your time on other parts of the language.”

When learning a new language, the amount of information that’s thrown at you can feel overwhelming. It’s not hard to wonder: “do I really need to know all of this?” 90 Day Korean seeks to eliminate this feeling by eliminating the material you probably don’t need. That way, when you study, you can focus all of your attention on what’s given to you rather than allow yourself to get distracted by that lingering question in the back of your mind.

My Experience Using 90 Day Korean: What Could Be Better?

Each of the lessons in 90 Day Korean have fun titles, but when you’re working through the course in a non-linear way, this isn’t very user-friendly. For example, after completing the course, there were a couple of lessons that I wanted to go over again, but because the titles didn’t always tell me what the lesson includes, I had a difficult time finding the particular lessons I was looking for later on.

When I took the course, its app opened the mobile-friendly web course rather than a separate native course experience. Interfaces change, so check the current product if mobile access matters to you.

The search problem described in an earlier version of this review was later fixed. I have removed the obsolete complaint rather than presenting an old interface issue as current.

My Conclusion: Do I Recommend 90 Day Korean?

90 Day Korean gave me the structure I had been missing, and I found its lessons, exercises and explanations useful. That is my experience of the course, not a promise that every learner will reach the same level on the same timetable.

The current sales page lists four course levels, self-paced lessons, community features and plan-dependent support. Standard and VIP do not include exactly the same service, so check the comparison before choosing.

If that suits how you study, you can see the current course and plans here. This is an affiliate link, which means Fi3M may earn a commission if you buy through it, at no extra cost to you.

For a free starting point, the Korean alphabet guide now sits behind the older free-resource link.