Korean is friendlier to beginners than it looks: Hangul, the alphabet, was designed to be learned in an afternoon, and it's phonetic. But reading fast enough to follow a webtoon or order lunch in Seoul is another matter. The right method depends on what you're looking at.
Signs, menus and the real world → camera
For anything physical (a subway sign, a café menu, a product label), point a camera translator at it and read the English in place. This is the fastest route in Korea, where a lot of signage outside central Seoul is Hangul-only.
The English sits where the Hangul was, so a menu keeps every dish beside its own price and a station board keeps its columns instead of collapsing into one line. See the same approach for reading a menu, identical for Korean.
Webtoons and manhwa → in-bubble
This is the big one. Korean webtoons and manhwa update fast, and the English versions often lag months behind, if they come at all. A general translator dumps a caption in a box; a manga/webtoon translator replaces the Korean inside the same speech bubble, so long vertical-scroll chapters stay readable.
If you read raws, this is the method that keeps you current. Full walk-through: how to translate manga and reading raws in English. Both cover vertical webtoons. If you're weighing an app against a browser extension for this, see the honest comparison.
Messages and text → paste it
For a KakaoTalk message, a caption, or anything you can select, paste it into a text translator. The engine reads exact Hangul instead of guessing it from pixels, so accuracy is highest here, and a good one shows the romanization so you learn the sounds.
Speaking → voice
Asking directions, ordering, a quick exchange: a voice translator listens in English and speaks Korean back (and the two-way mode lets each person use their own language). Just mind background noise, which hurts recognition more than bad lighting hurts a camera.
A word on Hangul
Because Hangul is phonetic and regular, learning to read it (even if you don't understand the words yet) pays off fast: you'll sound out brand names, station names and menu items. Reading real Korean with the English and romanization shown side by side, the way a camera translator does, is a low-effort way in.
Which app, in one line each
Papago reads Korean register best, Google Translate covers the most languages, and neither is built to put English inside a speech bubble. The head to head is in Papago vs Google Translate. For raw manhwa, skip both and use a reader that solves bubbles, which is the whole point of the webtoon translator comparison. For the method by method breakdown behind all of this, see how to translate Japanese to English; the principles carry straight over to Korean.
Yomi does the camera, webtoon, text and voice sides for Korean in one app, with the English landing where the Hangul was and no account to create first, so a Hangul-only sign or a raw webtoon chapter stops being a wall.