Free printable Korean word cards for kids (with pictures)

A handful of picture cards makes it much easier to start Korean with a small child. These are free to download and print.

They are made from the stories in Kiara, a picture-book app. Each card has a picture, the word in Hangul, a romanised reading and the English word. There is nothing to sign up for and nothing to install.

Download: Korean cards for each story

Pick a story to see its cards, then press "Download the PDF" and print on A4. A page holds eight cards, and a story has roughly 30 to 50 words.

Three games to play with them

Point to it: lay out a few cards, say a word in Korean and let the child point. Understanding comes before speaking, so do not ask for the word back.

Memory: print the same page twice and you have a memory game. Read each card aloud in Korean as it is turned over.

Treasure hunt: choose cards for things you have at home, such as a bed, a window or a ball, and go and find them together.

Do not stop at the cards

Words learned as a list tend to fade within days. The pictures are cut from scenes in the stories, so a child who has heard the story first remembers the scene along with the word.

A card has no sound. In the app, tapping an object in the story plays how the word is pronounced (the voice is synthetic). The first story is free, so it is easy to try the two together.

Printing, and other languages

Slightly heavier paper keeps the back from showing through and is easier for small hands. Laminate them if they need to last.

The same cards can be made for any two of 16 languages, for example Japanese and Korean, or Spanish and English.