How to Read Korean Webtoons at Your Level

A webtoon lets you stay on one bubble as long as you like, and the picture helps you guess what it means.

Start with comics about school, work and family. Fantasy and historical stories use harder words. An episode is the right size when the story makes sense to you and just a handful of words are new. Reading like that is called comprehensible input.

1. Absolute Beginner

   I can't read Hangul yet.

   Learn Hangul first, because every bubble is written in it. In the meantime, read the English edition to enjoy the story.

   Learn Hangul →
2. Level 1

   I can sound out words but not much else.

   Sound out the bubbles in a few short episodes of a comedy strip like 마음의소리, where each episode is a short joke, and check your guess in the English edition.

3. Level 2

   I can handle simple exchanges.

   Stay with short comedy episodes and read a whole one at a time. Pay attention to the bubbles where friends and family talk casually, because those are the lines you can use.

4. Level 3

   I follow conversations on familiar topics.

   Try a story about work or dating, such as 유미의 세포들 (start with the first free episodes) or 여신강림. Read an episode in Korean first, and open the English edition only when you want to check a line.

5. Level 4

   I understand most content but miss some nuance.

   Try a campus story like 치즈인더트랩, where characters hint at what they mean and the narration boxes get longer. Reread a scene when a character's words don't match their face.

6. Level 5

   I read complex topics but rare words slow me down.

   Read stories with many characters and long narration boxes. Look up a word only when you can't guess it from the pictures after two tries.

7. Level 6

   I can read almost anything.

   Pick any series that looks fun, including fantasy and historical ones, and follow a new one as its episodes come out.

Try the next level when you can finish an episode and tell a friend what happened. If most bubbles are a guess, go back a level.

These four are good places to start. Naver rates 마음의소리 for all ages and the other three for ages 12 and up.

Naver Webtoon (네이버 웹툰) publishes the Korean originals at comic.naver.com. The first episodes of all four comics above are free to read there. Later episodes are charged, and the free run is 50 episodes for 마음의소리, 34 for 유미의 세포들, 19 for 여신강림 and 10 for 치즈인더트랩. Its apps are WEBTOON KR on the App Store and Naver Webtoon on Google Play, and both are in Korean.

The English edition is WEBTOON. It is free to read, with paid Coins for premium content, and its bubbles are in English, so use it to check your guesses. On the website, Yumi's Cells, True Beauty and Cheese in the Trap show only their first episodes and send you to the WEBTOON app for the rest.

Webtoon text is part of the picture, so you can't tap a word to look it up. Type the word into a dictionary, or photograph the bubble.

Here is an original scene in the style of a webtoon, not taken from any real comic. Two friends wait at a bus stop in the rain, and then a teacher walks by. Read the Korean first, cover the middle column, and check yourself.

A bubble is written to be read in a second, in the voice of the character. That gives you four things to watch for.

The subject is often missing. Korean leaves out a word the listener can work out, and a comic's pictures make it easy to work out. When a line has no "I" or "you", look at who is speaking and who is being spoken to.

Friends and elders get different endings. Casual speech is called 반말. Friends and close family use it with each other, and older people often use it with younger ones. Until someone says you can speak casually, use the polite -요 style with strangers and anyone older than you. A character who says 우산 있어? to a friend says 우산 있으세요? to a teacher. Watch the endings, because they show how close two characters are.

The spelling follows the voice. The dictionary lists 아냐 as the short form of 아니야, so a bubble writes 아냐 where a textbook writes 아니야. Both mean "No." Not every spoken spelling is in the dictionary, so say a strange word out loud and listen for the word you know.

Speakers often squeeze a word and its particle into one.

The big words around a panel copy a noise or show how something looks or moves. The dictionary describes each one as a sound, a look, or both. Many of them have no dictionary entry at all. A 2024 study of 300 of these words in the free episodes of two webtoons found that many were missing from dictionaries, changed in form, or made up by the artists. A comic may stretch 쿵 into 쿠웅, and the dictionary does not list the stretched form. If you can't find one, look at the picture, say the word out loud and guess.

1. 1
   📖Pick One EpisodeChoose an episode you can finish in about ten minutes. A comedy strip or a slice-of-life episode is a good place to start.
2. 2
   👀Read It for the StoryRead the whole episode once without stopping. If a bubble confuses you, look at the faces and the next panel.
3. 3
   🔍Look Up a Few WordsPick up to five words that really block you. Skip names and sound words, which a dictionary may not have, and look up the rest.
4. 4
   🧐Read It Again for the EndingsRead the episode a second time and notice who uses the polite 요 and who doesn't.
5. 5
   🗣️Read the Bubbles Out LoudSay each bubble out loud in the character's voice. Pick two lines you'd like to say to a friend and say them again.
6. 6
   🔁Check With the English EditionOpen the same series on WEBTOON in English and see whether your guesses fit. The English wording will differ from the Korean, and the episode numbers won't match.

Bubblegum has no webtoons. Tell Poppy, your AI tutor, which series you like, and she writes Korean lessons about it at your level. When a bubble stops you, send her a screenshot of the panel and she goes through what it says. Her guide to reading webtoons and fan culture in Korean is a good first lesson, and the Hangul course is the place to start if you can't read Hangul yet.