Customer Reviews

Korean in a Hurry: A Quick Approach to Spoken Korean (Tuttle Language Library)

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

 

 

Okay, this book is really quite worthless. First, it is romanized. This is a terrible way to learn a non-roman script language. Second, my biggest complaint, it is out-dated. Since the book is from the 50's, yes, the 1950's, the younger generation in Korea can't understand you. Thirdly, the book does not teach all three levels of speech. Okay, there are other books out there. Don't buy this one... .

I understand the previous reviewer's attitude towards this little book. The author, Samuel Martin, includes Hangeul only right at the end of the book, which really isn't helpful. But books for learning Korean generally have drawbacks - your challenge to overcoming these is persistence and, in this case, perhaps, a dictionary, which you must have in any case? With only a few characters, unlike Chinese which has thousands, Korean should not be all that difficult.

Let me suggest, then, that far from being useless, this book has simply left the learner with his/her work cut out. Remember that it was written at the height of 1950s anti-Communist paranoia and intended primarily for the likes of American servicemen who would have a limited tour of duty there and in fact, remains useful. It contains a lot of grammar and examples which would put a lot of later texts to shame - I know them because I have most of them, here in Korea!

My suggestion: don't scorn older textbooks because they are usually of better quality than whatever came afterwards. If the fact that the book is written exclusively in Romanised script irritates you, may I suggest that you use this as a good and practical excuse for practising writing in Korean? Look the parts up in a Korean dictionary and grammar textbook and write it out; it's always helpful. Or if you can already speak Korean, why not write to Tuttle and offer to rewrite it with examples in Korean and Roman?

For a book that's over fifty years old, this is actually excellent. I myself deplore the fact that it has almost no Hangeul, but that does not make it fully useless. The usefulness of any information you encounter in this life depends on how you view it. I am looking at some pages from this book as I sit here writing and I can visualise much of how it would be written in Hangeul.

Conclusion. Very useful, but you must look at it in the right way.

PRO: 1) concise grammar points, which I prefer when I study a foreign language because it saves time and referencing specific points is quick and easy. 2) It does not have exercises like high school or university textbooks do for practicing, which keeps the size of this book very small and thus portable. I can make my own practice pages in my journal and do as many or as few as I want. 3) It does not spend time on university life, meaning it's not aimed at college students and their conversations about dorms and majors. 4) It covers the basic grammar of Korean and the reader gets a good foundation of the language with various and clear examples which build on prior chapters and can be modified and adapted by the reader. You'll have an understanding of present, past, and future tense and conditionals (if) from which any language is built. 5) It's written in English, not Hangeul, so memorizing the grammar goes faster because the reader need not spend time slogging through Hangeul while trying to learn the grammar (I learn languages faster when I can see the new language in English; I worry about mastering the new language's letters later. I want to be able to speak ASAP!). 6) Its size is very small, making it easy to carry at all times. It fits in your pants pockets!

CON: 1) It was written during the War, so the chapter on military only applies to servicemen (but this can be skipped). 2) According to some of my Korean friends, some of the language is a little outdated. 3) There are a few wrongly transliterated words, such as 'cat' (kwaengi versus the correct koyangi). 4) The transliteration from Hangeul into English could be streamlined and easier to read. The author tried his best to get the rhythm and pronunciation with English letters, but the system can be a hindrance. He should have simplified it and advised the reader to study Hangeul so he would have a clear understanding of the pronunciation before it gets mangled into English.

OVERALL: A solid reference for learning the basics of Korean to build a foundation, but in need of an update to make it reflect contemporary speech and delete the military sections, and fix the few corrections. I'd be pleased if the publisher doubled or even tripled its size by adding more grammar points and phrase usage to go even deeper into the language. It would still be a small, handy, and portable book that the reader would enjoy referencing for a very long time and which would make it a five-star bargain.