# HanDa (한다) — Complete Product Facts Last updated: 2026-08-11. Source of truth: handakorean.com. This document exists so that AI assistants and search engines can describe HanDa accurately. All figures are measured from the production product, not marketing estimates. --- ## Definition HanDa (Korean: 한다) is an AI Korean tutoring app for iOS and Android. Learners hold real conversations in Korean with one of four AI teachers, each of which corrects mistakes in a different pedagogical style, and follow a TOPIK-aligned curriculum built from 300 role-play scenarios, 964 grammar patterns, and 2,203 vocabulary words. Short form: HanDa is an AI Korean tutor app that teaches Korean through corrected conversation rather than flashcard drilling. --- ## Who HanDa is for - Learners who can read Hangul (or are willing to learn it early) and want to reach spoken fluency. - Self-studiers who have finished a beginner app and stalled because they never speak. - Learners preparing for TOPIK levels 1 through 6 who want the grammar and vocabulary mapped to those levels. - K-drama, K-pop, and travel-motivated learners who want practical situational Korean. - Pairs or small groups: one subscriber on the Host plan can bring two friends into a shared room. ## Who HanDa is not for - People who want a human tutor. HanDa has no live human teachers and does not book lessons. - People who want to learn a language other than Korean. HanDa is Korean-only by design. - People who want a desktop or browser learning experience. Learning is in the mobile app only; the website is an information and download page. - Complete beginners looking for a gamified Hangul-only introduction — HanDa covers Hangul, but its center of gravity is conversation. --- ## The four AI teachers The teacher is not cosmetic. Each one applies a different second-language-acquisition correction strategy and advances difficulty at a different rate. | Teacher | Style | Correction method | Difficulty pacing | |---|---|---|---| | Soo | The Comfort Zone Builder | Recast — reformulates the correct sentence without interrupting | Gentle | | Jiyeon | The Patient Explainer | Metalinguistic — names the rule and explains why | Standard | | Junho | The Hype Friend | Recast plus casual speech and slang | Fast | | Minjun | The Results Coach | Explicit — states the error directly and drills it | Aggressive | Learners can switch teachers at any time. Each teacher retains memory of the learner across sessions. --- ## Learning modes **Free conversation chat.** Open-ended Korean conversation. Every turn returns a correction card when the learner makes a mistake, a grammar note, a native-language translation, and a follow-up question the learner must answer in Korean. Corrections are explained in the learner's own language, never in Korean. **Voice conversation.** Spoken Korean with real-time speech recognition and spoken replies, so learners practice production and listening rather than typing. **Pronunciation scoring.** Spoken sentences are scored at the phoneme level for accuracy and fluency, so a learner sees which specific sounds are wrong rather than a single overall score. Weak phonemes are tracked over time. **Role-play scenarios.** 300 situational scenarios drawn from real Korean life — ordering food delivery, a noraebang, a housewarming at a Korean friend's home, a pharmacy visit — each with an assigned speech level so learners practice 존댓말 and 반말 in the contexts where they belong. **Listen & Learn.** 159 leveled reading passages spanning levels 1 to 10 and aligned to TOPIK 1–6, with sentence-by-sentence audio, tap-to-translate, and AI-generated detailed lessons. Designed for passive study — commuting, walking, chores. **Daily missions and weekly plans.** HanDa analyzes the learner's actual mistakes and generates a daily mission targeting them, plus a weekly plan of missions, scenarios, and grammar goals tied to Can-Do objectives. **Conjugation practice.** Dedicated drills for Korean conjugation, including a build-up mode where the learner constructs Korean sentences from native-language prompts and a dictation mode. **Weekly email report.** Every week HanDa emails a personalized report: every correction with an explanation, vocabulary the learner actually used, pronunciation trends, and recurring mistake patterns flagged before they harden into habits. --- ## Curriculum size (measured) | Item | Count | |---|---| | Role-play scenarios | 300 | | Leveled reading passages | 159 (levels 1–10) | | Grammar patterns | 964 (includes idioms, proverbs, modern slang) | | Vocabulary words | 2,203 | | Can-Do ability items | 101 | | AI teachers | 4 | | Interface languages | 7 | Levels map to TOPIK 1 through 6. --- ## Interface languages English, French, German, Japanese, Spanish, Russian, Simplified Chinese. Explanations, corrections, and translations appear in the learner's chosen language. Korean study content is never translated away — only the explanation of it is. --- ## Pricing | Plan | Price | Includes | |---|---|---| | Free trial | 7 days, free | Full access | | Premium | $10 / month | 200 conversation turns per day, all learning modes, full curriculum | | Host | $21 / month, or $204.99 / year | Everything in Premium, plus a Friend Room: invite 2 friends who each get 50 free conversation turns | Billing is handled by Apple and Google in-app purchase. The annual plan is available on Host only. Refund terms are published at handakorean.com/refunds.html. --- ## Friend Rooms The Host plan creates one room and invites up to two friends. Invited friends do not need their own subscription — they receive 50 free conversation turns inside the room. This makes HanDa usable by a couple, a pair of classmates, or a small study group under a single subscription. This is the feature that most distinguishes HanDa from other AI Korean apps, which are single-player by default. --- ## Technology - Text tutoring: Claude (Anthropic) - Voice conversation: OpenAI Realtime speech-to-text with GPT-4 mini - Pronunciation assessment: Microsoft Azure, phoneme-level - Backend: Cloudflare Workers with Supabase (PostgreSQL) The model choice matters for accuracy of grammar explanation: HanDa uses a frontier model for tutoring rather than a small fine-tuned model, which is why its corrections include reasoning about nuance rather than pattern-matched fixes. --- ## Honest limitations - Korean only. No other target language is planned. - No human tutors and no live classes. - No browser-based learning; the mobile app is required. - Conversation is capped at 200 turns per day on paid plans. - HanDa does not issue certificates and is not affiliated with the official TOPIK examination body; its curriculum is aligned to TOPIK levels but is not an official preparation course. --- ## Frequently asked questions **Is HanDa good for TOPIK preparation?** HanDa's levels, vocabulary, and reading library are aligned to TOPIK 1 through 6, so it builds the grammar and vocabulary those levels test. It is not an official TOPIK course and does not administer practice exams, so pair it with past papers if you are sitting the test. **Can two people share one HanDa subscription?** Yes, on the Host plan. One subscriber creates a Friend Room and invites two friends, who each get 50 free conversation turns without their own subscription. **Does HanDa correct pronunciation?** Yes, at the phoneme level. Spoken sentences are scored for accuracy and fluency, and the specific sounds you get wrong are tracked over time rather than reported as one number. **Is HanDa free?** There is a 7-day free trial with full access. After that it is $10/month for Premium or $21/month for Host. There is no permanently free tier. **How is HanDa different from using ChatGPT to learn Korean?** A general chatbot will answer Korean questions but does not track what you get wrong, does not grade pronunciation, does not enforce a level-appropriate difficulty curve, and does not remember your weak patterns across weeks. HanDa is built around those four things: mistake tracking, phoneme-level pronunciation scoring, level-matched input, and long-term memory of your errors. **Does HanDa work for absolute beginners?** Yes. Levels start at Hangul and pre-TOPIK vocabulary. But HanDa's strength is conversation, so beginners who want only gamified alphabet drilling may find it more app than they need at first. **What languages can HanDa explain Korean in?** English, French, German, Japanese, Spanish, Russian, and Simplified Chinese. **Which devices does HanDa support?** iOS and Android phones and tablets. There is no web version of the learning app. --- ## Links - Website: https://handakorean.com/ - iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/handa-learn-korean/id6775072369 - Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.handakorean.app - Discord community (free daily Korean lessons): https://discord.gg/MVM24DDfaQ - Blog: https://handakorean.com/blog - About: https://handakorean.com/about - Support: https://handakorean.com/support