Customer Reviews

Colloquial Korean (Colloquial Series)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I speak numerous Asian languages but still have found Mr. Kim's product to be incredibly difficult to follow. The beginning section on learning Korean script is decent enough, but the book falls apart after that. I just finished exercises from a certain lesson which tested me on grammatical structures that are not introduced until three lessons later--rediculous!! You are constantly introduced to new material (not just nouns, which can be easily looked up in the glossary, but also more complex grammatical structures) in lessons, only to find that this material is not actually introduced (and, thus, defined) until later chapters. If you spend enough time searching through the glossary or subsequent lessons, you can eventually find the answer you seek, however, I have found this quite cumbersome and a serious impediment to learning Korean as quickly as I had hoped. Often, I have to give up searching for answers in the book and go to a Korean-speaking friend for an answer. I wouldn't say it has been a total loss though, as I have been picking it up incrementally by referring to these friends, other books, and dictionaries. I would say if this is your first experience learning a foreign language, then keep looking, but for those of you who have prior experience studying a foreign language (especially Japanese) then you may be able to survive through it as I am doing. While at first I intended this book and its tapes to be my primary source for learning Korean, it is increasingly becoming just one of many resources. Everyone learns languages differently though, so if disorganization and hair-pulling is your style, then by all means jump right in!

Let me start by saying... if you are going to buy this course, make sure you buy the TAPES. I noticed they sold the book by itself at the bookstore, without the tapes, but you are going to get nowhere like that. Nothing is spelled out phoenetically in the book, and the relationships they draw between korean sounds and english sounds don't sound even close to the actual pronunciations presented on the tapes. In short: IF YOU DON'T BUY THE TAPES YOU WILL BE WASTING YOUR MONEY IMO.

Having said all that, I absolutely LOVE this book. Instead of dumbing down the language and spelling everything in "english" (a book I saw, "korean in plain english", comes to mind), you learn how to write and pronounce korean script right from the start... and it is a lot easier than most people think! To be honest, within the first hour or two of using this course, I could listen to the speaker on the tape and write the word he/she just said before I even looked at my book.

Yes, this book requires some thinking and effort, and if you are looking for an easy, learn-Korean-in-15-minutes approach, then you will be happier with another language course. If, however, you are truly looking to learn Korean, beginning as you did with English by learning the "alphabet" and the sounds of the language, this is the right course for you.

Kim's text is far from useless but I think its' main problem is that it is too compact. I bought the complete book/cassetts/CD set in Taipei before coming to Korea and it was hard to follow, but that does not mean that it is useless. It's just that there's not really such a thing as a perfect Korean learning book.

His grammatical points have so far been shown to be helpful if you do as I do and use several different sources while learning. Locally-produced texts tend not to understand quite what foreigners residing in Korea are looking for (tantamount to saying that they don't understand foreigners here! ^_^) and most of what you find tends to be rather "touristy", so a good text is worth its weight in gold.

Bottom line - Kim's text is useful as long as you have either the cassettes or the CDs with the book. But learning Korean seems to be badly affected by the persistently poor quality of teaching/learning materials generally.

It is really hard to find good books on Korean in the States. Two books I have found that are excellent are Korean Through English 1 and Speaking Korean 1. KTE1 has cassettes and is really good for the absolute beginner. It teaches how to read and write Hangul using the cassettes for pronunciation, then it teaches a lot of useful vocabulary and sentence structures. It is a little weak on grammar. Speaking Korean has no cassettes so learning to read or write Hangul from it is almost impossible unless you have a Phd in linguistics. It does explain grammar very well and it has lots of drills. After finishing this book you should be able to speak Korean quite well. Both of these books are printed by Hollym International Corp of Elizabeth, New Jersey but they are very difficult to find in the States.

I did not read this book. I am living in Korea and have been studying Korean for more than a year. I once embarassed myself by refering to a coffee shop as a 'Ù¹ę. These days, regular coffee shops are known as a work very similar to the english "Coffee Shop". Dabang have a different connotation. That of the kind of "coffee shop" that is actually a cover for company that sells sex. Noone refers to regular coffee shops as Dabang. The back cover of the book says "completely up to date". Yet in the table of contents of this books it says "Meeting friends at the Dabang". There are so many great new Korean books coming out these days. Why buy something that was published in 1996? Korean culture has changed drastically since then.

Colloquial Korean has helped me a lot, however it is one of the most badly organised and poorly explained language books i have ever laid eyes upon. It all begins well, with lessons on how to use Hangul, and write the characters in the correct and easiest manner, however the pronunciation guide is rather confused. When it comes to the actual lessons, things really begin to get confusing. Grammer rules are inserted ad-hoc, and explained in a manner reminiscent of Monty Python, the dialogues often contain words and grammer structures that are never explained and do not feature in any of the books vocabulary sections or in the short dictionary at the end. The author uses concepts such as 'dark' and 'bright' vowels but never feels the need to actually explain what these terms mean. Throughout the book, Mr. Kim's inability to explain language concepts in any detail, reduces the reader's passage through the book to a series of horrifically frustrating, sudden, and grinding halts. Which is further compounded by the fact that the book moves at a lightning pace totally unsuited to the proposed readership. In the end it raises far more questions than it should, and leaves far too many questions unanswered. The frontpage claim that Colloquial Korean is a "complete language course" is quite frankly a lie. So to conclude, this is only marginally useful as a beginning text on the Korean language. For those with a basic knowledge of Korean, the University of California's "College Korean" is by far the better choice, and for those with no prior knowledge there are a range of much simpler introductory books which in the long run will bring you more success.

I've read many of the other negative, cry-baby comments, and
I think these comments stem solely from the posters' learning objectives.

It is very true that if you are looking for a quick
"phrase book" to just say "hello", "good-bye" and order
"one more beer" in Korean, then by all means this book is not for you.

However, if you are interested in being able to hold a conversation on a variety of topics and set a foundation
to increase that knowledge naturally through interaction with
native Koreans or Korean entertainment programs this book is
for you. I don't know about you, but rather than just ordering
"one more beer", I'd like to get a bowl of chips and ask the
waitress out to boot, but it's really up to you.

Many of these critics also whine about having to learn
the Korean script Hangul (which, by the way, is a snap).
Well, I've studied a number of Asian languages including Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese and have seen some really bad books. The books that use romaji (our roman alphabet script) instead of the Japanese or Korean writing systems are really bad. You know why? Because if you start transliterating these languages with the roman alphabet system instead of using the
native orthography you are hurting yourself. Yeah, it seems
easier at first but you'll ruin your pronunciation ability and it's a lot harder down the road to learn the scripts because you
relied on romaji as a crutch.

This author does it right by starting with a solid pronunciation lesson and teaching the Korean alphabet (which is easy to learn).
Yes, this will "slow" your down for the first week or so,
but then you'll rocket past the cry-baby "romaji" learners. In addition, complaints were made about words not being "introduced"
in the dialogues.

All of those words are listed in the books glossary and the author does it (he even says so in the introduction) to teach you how to deduce words you don't know through the context of
a dialogue. This is what humans do everyday. You know, if a Japanese were to walk outside, look at the sun, throw their hand over their eyes and scream, "mabushii" you could guess it means
"blindingly bright". You don't have to be a genious.

Lastly, if you get the books and use it to study on your own,
be sure to BUY THE TAPES!! A language book (especially entry
level) without tapes is worthless because you need to hear
the pronunciation, intonations and rythms.

Have a fun!

First of all, Korean is a difficult language. No matter how good your book is, it is still a difficult language to learn, but a bad book doesn't help.... The introduction of this book mentions about a current trend in teaching new languages. Attention has shifted from teaching grammar and so on to actually doing something with the language which is not a bad idea. However, I'm a bit puzzled by the authors intentions. When trying to do the exercises I have found that most of the words you need to do the translations are not mentioned in the text before the exercises, so the student has the following options: a) browse through the lessons following the exercise, b) look up the words in the (not too extensive) wordlist in the back of the book c) read the key to the exercise and copy it, d) make a wild guess. Whichever option is chosen, I think the effect is far from optimal and, quite frankly, I find it highly annoying. Another point is grammar. It's not explained well and I'm sometimes confused by what seem to be inconsistencies in the dialogues and exercises. Fortunately, my significant other is Korean and she is a big help, but I don't think everybody has the luxury of having native speakers nearby to help you out. It has some good points though (which explains the two stars): Hangul (the Korean 'alphabet') is explained quite well and thoroughly and you can learn quite a few things about Korean when you work through this book. All in all, I think this book will teach you more than a phrasebook will ever teach you, but I think there are better books available (I wouldn't know which one, because I haven't looked at any other books).

This is a really bad book on two counts, the methodology is flawed, and the production is sloppy.

The author claims to have taught Korean at American universities but appears to have little understanding of Western-style study methods. The syllabus is functional, which is fine, but the grammar explanations are packed with metalanguage which only language teachers and linguists are likely to understand (what is a 'semi-causal sentence ending'?). The listening exercises are spoken far too fast - questions are given which are spoken on the cassettes but which are not printed in the book - very confusing.

What is truly disgraceful about this book though is the standard of production, the book is riddled with mistakes. In lesson 2 - dialogue 1, Kang is written when the person speaking is Jin. In lesson 6 a photo appears of Seoul station which looks like it was taken in the seventies or eighties - the book however was published in 1996! In lesson 11 'jongi han jang' is translated as 'two pieces of paper' when we all know that 'han' means 'one'; on the next line 'yulcha pyo se jang' is incorrectly translated as 'thirteen train tickets', not 'three'. In lesson 12 a 1 won coin is mentioned - the only 1 won coins you are likely to see here are at the flea market!

This book and the accompanying cassettes are expensive and certainly not worth the money. Working through this book shattered my enthusiasm for Korean the first six months I was here.

This book simply has too much information that tries to be packed into the limited number of dialogues and chapters. It might be a good quick review for people with very solid Korean language background, but it's certainly not a book that someone would use to start learning Korean.