I attended "free" beginner lessons by Korean consulate in Canada but I'm still not an expert and also a bad learner, because I have been "inactively" learning Korean for more than 2 years and still did not reach intermediate level yet but I'll just write my opinion, I hope it might be helpful to you. I don't say that you should not learn vocabulary but we cannot also say that is the only second step. As we take more steps, at each step we add up more learning activities in language learning, that's what I realized all these years of language learning. What I mean is, first step was 'learning hangul', 2nd step could be of 2 or more activities like learning vocabulary, learning greetings and/or few expressions and may be also learning some basic grammar like the particles (subject/object/topic particles). Then you can start learning the numbers, days. Remember, as you keep learning you will be learning some vocabulary at the same time because we will come across so many words in the example sentences of lessons we browse in internet. As Mojave mentioned, TTMIK (talktomeinkorean.com) is a great for some simple and effective lessons, they are pretty organized by levels too. Unfortunately, they were not very effective for me as I didn't practice consistently. You might also want to check blogs of other Korean language learners to see how they are learning, for sure we can pick up some tips from here and there. Shanna has a popular blog here: http://www.hangukdrama.com/ this is my blog : http://prashlearnskorean.wordpress.com I hope that helps! Good luck!