Korean, Conversational: Learn to Speak and Understand Korean with Pimsleur Language Programs (Pimsleur Instant Conversation) [Abridged, Audiobook] [Audio CD]

Pimsleur (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0743551206 | ISBN-13: 978-0743551205 | Publication Date: February 27, 2006 | Edition: Abridged

Korean is the official language of both North and South Korea. ItÕs also spoken in neighboring Yanbian, China. Some 72 million speak Korean. There are two standard dialects, Seoul (South Korea) and P'yongyang (North Korea). Pimsleur's Korean teaches the Seoul dialect of South Korea.

Korean, Conversational

• Sixteen 30-minute lessons of spoken Korean language instruction. These sixteen lessons are the same as the first sixteen lesson of Pimsleur's 30-Unit Comprehensive Program.
• Each lesson includes an introductory conversation, and new vocabulary and structures and includes practice for vocabulary introduced in previous lessons.
• Essential grammar and vocabulary. Topics include: greetings, numbers, meals, shopping, telling time, scheduling activities, and asking and giving directions.
• No mindless repetition! Converse with native speakers in natural (and useful!) conversations.
• Easy, fast, fun and effective language acquisition.
• Completely Audio - anytime, anywhere. No computer necessary! Unlike expensive software programs which tie learners to a computer, Pimsleur courses are available in CD or mp3 format to meet your needs.
• Receive an instant credit of $150 to trade up from the Conversational to the full Level 1 Comprehensive CD course.

Pimsleur® equals success. Just one 30-minute lesson a day gets you speaking and understanding like no other program.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Pimsleur programs provide plenty of positive reinforcement that will keep learners on track, and we found that Pimsleur gave us more proficiency and confidence in speaking the new language than any of the other language programs we reviewed." -- AudioFile Magazine

"EXTREMELY ACCESSIBLE...each section within the lessons is short enough to hold our attention, and there is enough repetition to teach even those who consider themselves slow learners...Pimsleur [programs] are extremely thorough and easy to use -- quite lively!" -- Boston Herald

"Learn French while commuting, German while jogging, Spanish (or Russian, Italian, and Japanese) while cooking all with NO WRITTEN MATERIALS!" -- New York Daily News

"Designed for the ear and not the eye...the lessons provide PERFECT 30-minute bites of work." -- St Louis Post-Dispatch

"Learn to habla español or parlez français before your next trip aboard. The interactive LESSONS CHALLENGE STUDENTS to use new words in conversation instead of memorize them." -- American Way (American Airlines inflight magazine)

"I tried other language programs with little success...This is the best by far!" -- Pamela A. Mitchell, Pilot, International Society of Women Airline Pilots

About the Author

Dr. Paul Pimsleur devoted his life to language teaching and testing and was one of the world’s leading experts in applied linguistics. After years of experience and research, Dr. Pimsleur developed The Pimsleur Method based on two key principles:  the Principle of Anticipation and a scientific principle of memory training that he called “Graduated Interval Recall.”  This Method has been applied to the many levels and languages of the Pimsleur Programs.

Product Details

• Audio CD
• Publisher: Pimsleur; Abridged edition (February 27, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743551206
• ISBN-13: 978-0743551205
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 7.9 x 2.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #819,831 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Dr. Paul Pimsleur (b. 1926, d. 1976) devoted his life to language teaching and testing and was one of the world's leading experts in applied linguistics. He was fluent in French, good in German, and had a working knowledge of Italian, Russian, Modern Greek, and Mandarin Chinese. After obtaining his Ph.D. in French and a Masters in Psychology from Columbia University, he taught French Phonetics and Linguistics at UCLA. He later became Professor of Romance Languages and Language Education, and Director of The Listening Center (a state-wide language lab) at Ohio State University; Professor of Education and Romance Languages at the State University of New York at Albany; and a Fulbright lecturer at the University of Heidelberg. He did research on the psychology of language learning and in 1969 was Section Head of Psychology of Second Language Learning at the International Congress of Applied Linguistics.

Dr. Pimsleur was a member of the American Association of Teachers of French (AATF), American Educational Research Association (AERA), Modern Language Association (MLA), and a founding member of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL).

His many books and articles revolutionized theories of language learning and teaching. After years of experience and research, Dr. Pimsleur developed a new method (The Pimsleur Method) that is based on two key principles: the Principle of Anticipation and a scientific principle of memory training that he called "Graduated Interval Recall." This Method has been applied to the many levels and languages of the "Pimsleur Programs."

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars very good program, June 28, 2007

By 

Marc Judson "Engaged to a Korean" (Charleston, SC USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Korean, Conversational: Learn to Speak and Understand Korean with Pimsleur Language Programs (Pimsleur Instant Conversation) (Audio CD)

You have to ask yourself what you're going to get out of a program that consists of 16 30-minute units. You are not going to be fluent in Korean at the end of this course. I still can understand only snippets of Korean conversations. However this course gives you the basics to converse simply and ask simple questions in Korean. Although it is true that my Korean friends have said that some of the language on these CD's is stilted, most of it is acceptable. With the Korean language, you speak with different levels of respect to different people; and to teach you all the different ways to speak in this course would have been impossible. I pronunced some words/phrases wrong but this was a problem of my ear...my Korean friends heard the CD and had no problem with the Korean speakers. I therefore recommend this CD...mainly because my Korean friends understood me and were glad that I was making an effort to learn the language.

9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Terrible, April 23, 2007

By 

David Szymczyk (Irvine, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Korean, Conversational: Learn to Speak and Understand Korean with Pimsleur Language Programs (Pimsleur Instant Conversation) (Audio CD)

My wife is a native of Korea, and I got this to better communicate with her and her family. Each day I would go through a lesson and practice what I learned with her. But more than 70% of the time, she couldn't understand what I was saying. After getting across what I was trying to say, she said only someone born before 1930 would talk like that. I gave up after 10 lessons.

There's also no mention of grammar in the lessons. Now I'm not looking for the intricacies of linguistics, but in Korean, the verb comes at the end of the sentence. This is never mentioned! Instead they force you to memorize backwards English, "Now say, I would like 2 beers - literally I 2 beers would." Very confusing. They also say, "Sometimes you add the ending 'ga' to the end of words", but they fail to mention when and why. I had to look online to find the answer.

This is not a good place to learn Korean.

8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Buying it was a mistake, March 19, 2007

By 

George Ehrhardt (Blue Ridge Mountains, NC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Korean, Conversational: Learn to Speak and Understand Korean with Pimsleur Language Programs (Pimsleur Instant Conversation) (Audio CD)

I got this for my family with high hopes. We have many Korean friends and wanted to understand what they were saying to each other. After practicing a few lessons we tried it out, but no one understood what we were saying. It turns out that the language used on the CD is out of date and doesn't emulate modern speakers. This isn't so bad (my experience learning Japanese at school was similar), but it also turns out that one of the "native speakers" on the CD actually has a strong Korean-American accent.