Korean Verb Practice That Doesn't Suck
갈 거예요... that's 가다. Okay, that makes sense. 매웠을 거예요... that's gotta be 맵다. A little weirder, but no biggie.
"못들었겠냐"
...듣다???
Sound familiar? If you're nodding so hard your neck hurts, welcome to the club. Learning Korean verb conjugation is a special kind of torture that feels like doing rocket surgery. But don't worry - I've got good news.
Massive shout out to Chooky (github) from the Kimchi Reader Discord server, who has blessed us with what might be the coolest little Korean verb practice tool I've seen since I discovered you could bribe your Korean friends with an 아이스 아메리카노 to correct your writing:
동사마스터 | Verb Master
This isn't another flashcard app that makes you mindlessly swipe through words until your thumb starts learning Korean faster than you do. This isn't a product pitch from some Silicon Valley dropout guessing what language learners need. This is a simple, straightforward tool built by a learner - one who understands the struggle.
What Makes 동사마스터 Different?
동사마스터 is free and open-source software, with some great features.
- Comprehensive Conjugation Library:
- Present, past, future, and future conditional tenses
- Declarative, inquisitive, imperative, and propositive forms
- Four formality levels
- 36 total conjugation types (no, really)
- Mobile App
- Install the PWA on your phone through chrome, straight to your home screen
- Offline compatible
- You need a connection to load the app page, but after that, it works without using any data!
- Clean, Distraction-Free Interface
- The UI is minimal enough to make Marie Kondo look like a hoarder. No ads, no "10 CRAZY KOREAN SLANG WORDS" pop-ups, just you and the verbs in a conjugation thunderdome.
- Customizable Practice Sessions:
- Choose exactly which forms you want to practice. Struggling with formal high forms? Drill those bad boys until your boss stops making you work overtime.
The Killer Feature: Kimchi Reader Integration
Here's where this tool goes from "oh that's neat" to "shut up and take my money" (except it's free, so… just shut up, I guess) You can import your own verb lists directly from Kimchi Reader!
This means:
- Find words from your favorite media and save them to your account
- Export those words as a CSV file
- Upload them to 동사마스터
- Explore the conjugations of the exact verbs you're encountering in the wild
This isn't vocab for vocab's sake. It's your words, from your input, on your journey.
Instead of practicing random textbook verbs like "to do laundry" when we both know you don't do that, this workflow lets you focus on the exact vocabulary relevant to your media diet.
How to Get Started
Getting started is easier than convincing yourself you'll finally learn all of the irregular verb patterns by next weekend:
- Choose your practice parameters
- Select from the built-in "Kimchi Reader most frequent words" deck or upload your own list
- Start conjugating!
The app will show you a verb in its dictionary form, ask you to produce a specific conjugation, and give you immediate feedback. No waiting three days for your Korean friend to respond to your "quick grammar question" that they're definitely not answering "because they're busy."
What's especially cool is that the tool doesn't just tell you if you're right or wrong – it actually breaks down the grammatical changes happening. Notice in the screenshot how it explains exactly what vowel contractions are occurring (웅변하 + 여 → 웅변해) and how the different parts join together. It's a great application of Kimchi Reader's grammar companion feature, and it's cool to see it proliferating throughout the community.
For the Technically Inclined (⚠️🤓NERD ALERT 🤓⚠️)
For those of you who aren't satisfied unless you're running things locally and can brag about it in Discord:
- The project is completely open-source on GitHub
- You can clone it and run it locally using Bun
- Custom datasets can be created with simple CSV files (no PhD in data science required)
The GitHub repo has the instructions, check it out yourself. Nerd.
Built by the Community, for the Community
I want to emphasize how awesome it is when community members build tools that address specific pain points. This kind of specialized tool—focused on one specific thing and doing its best to integrate with other tools—is the future of the community.
So, there you have it. 동사마스터 is an open-source tool made by someone in the learning trenches. A clean site that loads instantly and does what it says on the tin.
🔗 Try it here, if you still need the link: https://korean-conjugation-drill.vercel.app/
💻 View the code: GitHub repo