About Type Hangeul
Hi, I'm Nelson Cho
I built Type Hangeul, a free site for learning to type Korean on the keyboard you already have. It's my own side project, made on evenings and weekends.
Who I am
I was born in Brazil to Korean parents and grew up moving between Brazilian friends, the Korean expat community and international schools. Third-culture kid is the usual label. I studied in the US, took a gap year to volunteer for the Korean Marines, and now live and work in Seoul.
Online I go by @sochourner, a pun on "sojourner." A while back I made a short video about Hangeul that traveled much further than I expected. Typing felt like the natural next step after reading, so I built a place to practice it.
My day job is in product at a Korean-learning app company. Type Hangeul is separate from that work and has no connection to the company.
Why I built it
Lots of learners can read Hangeul and still get stuck the moment they have to type it. On a computer, Korean sits behind an input method (IME) that is confusing to set up, and on a school or work laptop you often can't install one at all.
Then TOPIK moved to an internet-based test. The writing section now means typing Korean essays, including a long one of 400 to 500 characters, so typing became an exam skill.
The typing tools I found were mostly made for native speakers, with Korean-only menus, or they were made for foreigners and then left to go stale.
What makes it different
- You type Korean on a regular QWERTY keyboard. The site builds each syllable itself, so there's nothing to install.
- An accuracy heatmap tracks every jamo, so you can see which keys keep tripping you up (say, mixing up ㅐ and ㅔ).
- Word lists follow TOPIK 1 and TOPIK 2 vocabulary, with a live WPM counter.
- In Battle mode you type words to fight monsters. As of October 2026, about 500 players from 53 countries have finished a battle.
Say hi
The fastest way to reach me is a DM on Instagram at @sochourner.
Found a wrong word, a key that misbehaves, or a feature you wish existed? Send it my way. One person runs this site, so your note goes straight to whoever fixes it.