Customer Reviews

Fast and Easy Korean (Living Language)

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

 

 

This is good at teaching you the words, but it doesn't teach you the right words. If you want to know how to say, "Up the corner to the right.", cool, but you're going to need more than that. This only teaches you 300 words or phrases. If you are going to learn Korean, you need to start with the basics. This teaches you some useful phrases, but most of it is useless. Unless you are going there on a 2 day buisness trip.

If you need a quick crash course in tourister Korean, this tape is a good start. The narrator gives you brief English-Korean quizzes, and you practice listening to short Korean conversations. However, the transcription is romanized, not actual hangul. This is ok if you only want a basic introduction, but it will essentially render you illiterate in Korea. If you are at all serious about learning Korean, find a tape that has actual hangul script. It is more difficult to read at first, but the alphabet is completely phonetic and quickly mastered. This course is a good beginning, but not complete.

I love the Living Language series because it doesn't cost much and gives a great basic introduction. I've listened to Living Language sets for Japanese, Arabic and Spanish. After learning that I would be sent for two years to Korea with only a couple of weeks to prepare. I listened to the Living Language tapes on the treadmill and during lunchbreaks. It was a great start. By the time I arrived in Seoul, I was repeating from rote whole phrases to my Korean professors.

Of course, for less than 10 bucks, it will not make you fluent in Korean. It is, however, a great introduction. From there, you can get much more value out of language classes or move onto a more pricy, extensive CD or CD ROM program.

Yes, it's true that the series doesn't explain much. For example, the phrase on the tape for "How old are you?" is extremely formal and typically used only with people who are over 50 years old, if you are below 40 years old. This created a lot of laughs when I used this very formal sentence to ask a 10-year-old child how old she was.

Korean, like other Asian languages and similar to the "Tu" and "Usted" distinctions in Spanish, Portuguese, French or Italian has formal and informal structures. This basic introduction to the language does not delve deeply into cultural understanding or accurate usage and as a result, the speaker will have to accept some comedy for speaking a bit oddly. Nonetheless, everyone understood what I was asking.

For pure functionality, this set is great.

I bought this cassette to learn to pronounce Korean but it didn't do any good. The tape is hard to follow and it's also extremely boring. It doesn't teach you anything you can't find on the Internet - at no cost.