Customer Reviews

Integrated Korean: Beginning Level 1 Textbook (KLEAR Textbooks in Korean

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I have been trying to self-study Korean for a fairly long time now and I definitely agree with the other reviewers that the currently available Korean language materials are not of the highest quality. This fact becomes particularly apparent when one wishes to learn the language on his/her own. Every publication that I have encoutered so far seems to have some severe deficiency ("College Korean" - not enough exercises and small vocabulary; "Teach Yourself Korean" - oversimplification; "Elementary Korean" - too many dialogs, not enough prose; etc.) The KLEAR series with "Beginning Korean" as its specific representative appears not to contain any of these shortcomings, as it provides a large (and useful) vocabulary to master, a wide selection of readings, and the workbooks provide ample practice in terms of the grammar as well as reading and writing. Furthermore, the book contains exhaustive cultural notes that provide a truly solid introduction to the intricacies of the Korean culture. However, the series contains one exceptionally annoying flaw - it does not have tapes coming along (at least as far as I know). In the classroom environment it may not be a problem but this deficiency makes the series quite awkward for self-study. Once one knows hangul it may be possible to cover the material but the sound of the language is necessary to reinforce learning and to reduce the accent - attempting to learn any language with a limited contact with its sound inevitably leads to an incorrect pronounciation, bad speaking habits, and additionally deprives the language learning process of its most fundamental and enjoyable dimenstion. To summarize, I find the KLEAR series to be the most thorough Korean language publication so far but have to agree with one of the previous reviewers that it is more appropriate for classroom use, and leaves self-learners nothing else but to grind and gnash their teeth.

I finished Book 1 and just started on Book 2. The material is well paced out, without too much crammed into one chapter. Good division of the new vocabularly in each chapter into Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives, Adverbs, etc to aid learning. There is also a small section on difficult to pronounce words. The Grammar is clear but not as well organized as Ross' Elementary Korean, which I considered the best in terms of grammar exposition for beginners. Dialogs are well crafted and practical. A narrative prose passage after the dialogs summarizes the contents of the dialogs. This provides valuable training in reading prose, complementing the direct speech in the dialogs.

A few easy exercises come after each topic segment covered, to reinforce the key points. Pictorial sketches go with some of the exercises to stimulate visual memory as an aid to learning, which I find quite helpful. I dont have the WorkBooks so I c'ant tell if there are enough good & challenging exercises there to reinforce the rather easy exercises provided in the text.

Some have complained about the lack of a CD to aid aural comprehension. However, most of the audio material is available on the web at:
http://languagelab.bh.indiana.edu/korean101.html
http://www.indiana.edu/~korean/K101/week1.html

I found the web material generally well recorded and adequate providing valuable aural training.

Overall, this series, without doubt, ranks with Ross' Elementary Korean as best in its class.

I am currently taking Korean 101 in college, and this is the textbook we are using. The textbook is very affordable and very easy to learn from. Perhaps most important is the books usefullness as a vocabular and grammar reference. Here is a short list of some of the parts of the book:

-An introduction to Korean
-An explanation of the Korean alphabet (easy to learn)
-Short sections on Korean culture
-Dialogues at the begining of each chapter and throughout the chapters
-Online audio files of each dialogue and vocabulary list
-Clearly organized vocabulary lists (by word type and subject)
-Usefull Korean to English and English to Korean dictionary
-Very usefull grammar reference at the back of the book

I found the explanations very clear, and the chapters well organized. The references are especially usefull for looking up words or grammar usage. Although there is not as much Korean culture mixed in as there is in French textbooks that I have used. I don't see this to be a problem since there is plenty more up to date cultural information online. Information about how culture influences the language is mixed in, which is important for understanding concepts like which form of speech to use (honorific, polite, etc.), as well as using "Our brother" instead of "My brother."

Additionaly and perhaps most important is the fact that no romanization is used except perhaps in the introductory chapter.

There isn't that much audio from the book online, so I would really suggest either talking with someone who knows Korean, or listening / watching something in Korean, but that's true for any language. However, vowels are really important and you're likely to mess them up if you don't have someone correct you.

My friend Leo says the cover is ugly, but I disagree.

what good is a text with no answers? I found the book almost unusable, as I study by myself. There was no way to check my answers. I emailed the publisher, and they said there were no answers or teacher's book. Can not recommend a book like this.

I chose this book due to the reviews that I saw on Amazon. It seemed that it was the most promising of a few bad books out there. I noticed that it was used as the course textbook for the University of Indiana and the University of Hawaii, and thought "how bad could it be?"

I feel as though I have wasted many hours of study on completely pointless exercises.

Flaws of the book:

1. Since this is used as a textbook for college students, it focuses on college-related vocabulary. While this may be great for role-play conversations in a college class, it is terrible for practical applications. I learned words like: freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, biology, economics, etc. Words that you generally don't use in everyday conversation.

2. More useful vocabulary words that are presented as part of the chapter's vocabulary but are not presented in the chapter or used in context.

3. Mindless drills. One drill that specifically comes to mind: the book teaches you that you can combine two sentences to make one sentence using the word ±×¸®°í (the word that means "and").

4. Useless vocabulary loanwords: when is the last time you heard "Charlie Chaplain" before right now? I think that sums it up.

5. Absence of verb-conjugation exercises. They present the conjugated verb for you but don't explain how to do it.

6. Presentation of different verb tenses simultaneously. Past tense was touched upon in one chapter. The following chapter brought in future tense. That doesn't sound too bad as I write this review, but "touched upon" is the key here. Not much in the way of conjugation or exercises. Most good language books would spend 1 or 2 chapters focusing almost exclusively on the tense being presented before moving on to another tense.

Don't waste your money or your time on this book. Google Click Korean (Seoul National University's interactive website for Korean beginners). It has a good introduction to Hangul (the Korean alphabet), and it also has useful vocabulary. YouTube has the Old Series Learn to Speak Korean (with Anh Chakhee), which also has very useful material in 15-minute lessons. Both are free and a much wiser way to spend your time studying Korean.

I have made it half-way through the first book and have the second book in this series. I also have many Korean language texts and in the last 2 or 3 years we are starting to get some texts with which you stand a chance of actually learning the language. This series shows promise, especially with the depth, if you study the entire series it would seem you should be familiar with a lot of Korean. However, I prefer the series Elementary Korean and Continuing Korean by Ross King and Jae-Hoon Yeon. Their descriptions of language elements seem much more clear. Also, the Integrated Korean series seems to lack some organization. Words which are related and are introduced in the same chapter may not appear in the same section of the Vocabulary list, leaving you to search the list. Finally, this series does not come with audio CD's - the audio is available on the net but it is not nearly as convenient as a CD. It is also not the best quality (IMO). This particular book is a good text in itself, but slight disorganization and the not-so-good audio drop this from 4+ stars to 3 stars in my opinion.

I'm a student who's been using this textbook series for two years (volumes 1 through 4) at Columbia University. One of the editors, Carol Schulz, was my teacher. This series is very helpful for learning grammar and vocabularly in a directed setting, but it is not recommended for self-study. As another reviewer commented, there are no answer keys to the question sections. Also, the new grammar--particularly in the later books--is poorly explained with mimimal comments and few examples. The conversations, which are translated in the book, can be confusing since they are written in colloqial Korean that leaves out the particle endings. It would have been better for the student if the particles were included in parentheses.

Like all Korean textbooks, there are good and bad points about this series. I'd recommend it if you are more interested in speaking/listening, since this is the strongpoint of the series. The free online audio files are helpful too, although the weblink isn't printed in the book. I used it here: [website]

The Integrated Korean Series is the best overall textbook for learning Korean that I have found. I contains plenty of exercises, and even more in the separate workbook. There is more vocabulary than in most other books. Much of the vocabulary has to do with college and classes, but the book teaches more than enough vocabulary that an be used in all situations. Integrated Korean explains the grammar points well, and teaches different styles of speech that are useful for talking to seniors, people of the same age, and juniors. There are many useful cultural notes which help to understand how to act when with other Koreans in Korea. It would be difficult to understand many parts of the language without knowing about how Koreans relate to each other. There are helpful appendices for regular and irregular verb conjugations and vocabulary used throughout the book.

Every chapter begins with the objectives for the following lesson. Next there are two conversations that use the new vocabulary for the chapter, and a narration which does the same. After that, there are lists of new words and expressions, sorted by the parts of speech. Next there are "Notes on New Words and Expressions" which explain specific grammar points from the conversations and the narration. Next are the notes about the culture, which help to understand what Koreans do that is different from the US culture, and the reasons why they do them. The next point is the grammar, where it explains about different styles of speech, and sentence structure. The last part of each chapter is translations for the conversations.

Overall, this is the best book for self-teaching, or for learning Korean in a class, because of its high amount of useful vocabulary, its clear explanations of grammar, and its interesting cultural notes. My advice is do not stop at the start of the book if you feel discouraged, just keep going and practicing and doing the exercises.

...and I've used them all. Or, at least, I've bought them all.

I lived in Korea from 1995-2001. At first there were very, very few texts available and they although they were for adults, they always felt as if they were aimed for children. Then I found a couple of college level textbooks that were good, but I felt too technical. Then in 2006 I finally had the chance to study Korean at a university in the US and we used Integrated Korean. It is the first textbook I used that I wanted to re-use. All the others ended up on my bookshelf or trashcan.

Integrated Korean--along with its workbook--is good because it had scenarios and vocabulary that were realistic for someone studying at a university. I appreciated the clear explanation of grammar, particularly post-positions and verb construction. Most astonishingly, I finally came to understand things I had been saying for years but could never get a Korean to explain to me exactly WHY I was supposed to say it that way. The text invites using more than one sense. You need to read, write, speak, hear a language in order to be able to know it and use it in the real world. Integrated invites the user to engage all of your senses (except smell and taste...that comes from eating kimchi) and it does the job well.

I highly recommend this as a college course book and for adults who are motivated and want to self-study or have a private tutor. I have just moved back to Korea after an 8 year absence. I have just placed an order for Integreated Korean, and I can't wait for my tutor and I to get started with it.

BTW, there's also a website with sound files courtesy of the University of Hawaii.

I've already gone through this first book and the 2nd edition of the Integrated Korean series. I didn't study by myself but with a small class and found this book to be well set up with dialog, vocab, cultural notes, grammar, and accompanying tasks to do. Also has a separate workbook for each text that you can order.

The first book is more in English (roman) characters as it caters to beginners just learning but the 2nd book and onward have MUCH more hangul in it, including all the dialog which helps. BTW, all the dialog is translated at the end page of each chapter.