Customer Reviews

Continuing Korean

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

 

 

Very challenging sequel to the Elementary Korean book. This one seems a bit more difficult(as it should be as the material becomes more advanced)......but my Korean friends say the lessons are gramatically accurate and useful. As with the first one, a ton of useful vocabulary and many exercises (with answers in the back of the book)....

This was my second book on the Korean Language and I am almost finished with it. The first book I had was Teach Yourself Korean- avoid that book if possible folks! It concentrates on romanized Korean. Do yourself a favor...LEARN HANGUL! Anyhow, I found Beginning Korean an easy read (for a Korean grammar book that is). I do not like how the book is laid out, however. The first two chapters are strictly about memorizing a huge list of phrases and expressions. This can be extremely boring to a newcomer to the language. Furthermore, at the beginning you have no idea how these phrases are constructed. My advice is to start at chapter 3 and go back to chapters 1 and 2 when you finish chapter 5 and 6. This way, you'll at least be able to intuit some of the grammatical structure.
One more note on the layout. They wait until, I believe chapter 14 (don't quote me on this), to cover the future tense particles. When I finished chapter 9, which has the past tense, I jumped ahead to learn the future tense. This worked out fine.
There is a TON of vocab in this book (about 1000 items in all). I have not even come close to memorizing them all. However, the book is laid out in such a way that if you memorize the items in chapters 5, 6 and 7, you can understand the grammatical explanations throughout the rest of the book- which is nice.
The CD-rom is OK, maybe a bit fast. Also, I wish they had spoken all of the vocab items on the CD. They only do this for chapter 5, and from there on its just example sentences and dialogs. On an up note, my Korean friends say that the language is relevant and not too archaic.
There is also very little, if any, discussion of the intimate form of verbs. I have found that I use this form most when speaking to friends and loved ones in Korean. The upside to this, is that this book, unlike most Korean textbooks, doesn't spend too much time on the ultra-formal "-hamnida" stuff. I have found that the -yo forms and -aseyo type forms are more than sufficient for daily use.
Anyhow, get this book, its good.

This book finishes where book one left off with more advanced grammar and vocabulary. However, the included cd only covers the dialogue, leaving the example sentences with no audio examples, which is unfortunate. There are cheaper and better audio courses available. For example, the Kanada course comes with five audio cds and runs only $20. This course also covers more territory and grammar. So for about the same price as continuing Korean with postage, you could get four books and 16 cds from the Kanada course. Try that instead.

this book was highly recommended by the person who was teaching me korean and i must say it is very helpful, i was kind of skeptical because of the negative review somewhere below here that the book i would be receiving wasn't the one pictured.

but when i got the book it was the correct one with the green cover as pictured.

This book is perfect in every way and was the major, if not central, contributor to my fluency in Korean. The grammar is perfect for the second and third year of a Korean course and the dialogues have a very rich and native flavor to them. The vocabulary is extremely useful and complete. I believe that complete is the exact word for this. This book is complete in every way from the table of contents to the very accessible glossaries in the back.

With the CD that comes with it or a standalone textbook, this book is ideal. The exercises within it are perfect and they reinforce what was learned in the previous chapter. Even the cheesy reading passages are appropriate for the corresponding skill level of a learner at the corresponding level for every chapter.

The color of the cover, the layout of the book is perfect; the font is perfect. The quality of the paper is perfect. Even the introduction is perfect. And the mistake count? To be honest I read this whole book and it only has 4 mistakes in all of its 500 pages. That's like less than 0.01% - as flawless as a book gets in my book.

The only problem I found with this book was that the subsequent volume that Ross King promises within it has not been delivered. Long story short, if all foreign language textbooks were like this, the world would be a more polyglotal(polyglotish?) place.

This book's audio CD has done absolute wonders for my Korean ability! I listen to it in the car and while doing dishes every day. It is at a solid intermediate level, which means that when you master its contents, you are fluently able to understand and to speak Korean (but you're not quite there when it comes to watching TV and reading adult-level books for pleasure.) The written activities are very thorough, with multifarious examples, so there is plenty to read as well. In my case I was already beyond the grammar level of the book by the time I came to it, but was behind on a bit of the vocabulary and at the ability to understand the spoken word and to speak from my hear on the spot. The audio CD for this course changed my (Korean-speaking) life! Good job Ross King (a fellow Canadian!) and friends! Thank you! I personally think that if you team this book, which deals with overall ability, with Andrew Sangpil Byon's book, "Intermediate Korean: A Grammar and Workbook" which deals primarily (and teaches everything there is to know about it) with grammar only, you will be 100% able to exchange emails and to translate Korean as well as to carry on conversations with people easily. There do not seem to be any "advanced level" Korean study books available, so I guess the next step past intermediate is to actually just do lots of reading et cetera with a dictionary.

If you are hoping for the nice white and blue book you will not receive it. Instead you will receive a grayish-green textbook from back in 2002. This is my second attempt at sending the textbook to get the book that is advertised above. It is the same book as far as content, but it is an older version. I did email amazon the first time I was sent the wrong book. They said they would resend the right one, but it is the same wrong covered book again. It is like asking for an apple but instead you get an orange.