Mastering Korean CD Package (Mastering Series/Level 1 Compact Disc Packages)(2nd Edition) [Paperback]

B. Nam Park (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 2005 | ISBN-10: 0764178822 | ISBN-13: 978-0764178825 | Edition: 2

Barron's intensive language immersion course in Korean has been updated for Fall 2005, with 12 compact discs to replace the previous edition's tape cassettes. Originally created by the Foreign Service Institute to train diplomatic and other U.S. Government personnel serving in foreign countries, this program consists of a book that presents a detailed grammar course and vocabulary instruction plus approximately 14 hours' audio training to develop students' listening comprehension and conversational skill in Korean. The book may be purchased separately. Barron's publishes FSI language-learning programs in nine different languages.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

[box, back panel]
TEXTBOOK AND 12
AUDIO COMPACT DISCS
BARRON’S
MASTERING
KOREAN

LEVEL ONE
SECOND EDITION

THIS COMPREHENSIVE LANGUAGE COURSE GIVES YOU MUCH MORE THAN LISTS OF WORDS AND PHRASES FOR TRAVELERS. IT WILL HELP YOU DEVELO FLUENCY IN

KOREAN, AND IN LESS TIME THAN YOU EVER THOUGHT POSSIBLE.

YOU’LL MASTER GRAMMAR, PRONUNCIATION, AND VOCABULARY AS YOU GAIN COMMAND OF THE SPOKEN LANGUAGE.

BARRON’S MASTERING KOREAN, LEVEL ONE, IS THE SAME COURSE USED BY THE U.S. GOVERNMENT TO TRAIN DIPLOMATS.

PACKAGE INCLUDES AN IN-DEPTH TEXTBOOK

PLUS 12 COMPACT DISCS USING NATIVE SPEAKERS TO FAMILIARIZE YOU WITH THE SOUND OF CONVERSATIONAL KOREAN.

Product Details

• Paperback: 556 pages
• Publisher: Barron's Educational Series; 2 edition (August 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0764178822
• ISBN-13: 978-0764178825
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 9.9 x 2.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,256,529 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Good Course at a Good Price, June 17, 2006

By 

peekaboo - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Mastering Korean CD Package (Mastering Series/Level 1 Compact Disc Packages)(2nd Edition) (Paperback)

Introductory Unit aside, this course comes with 18 self-study units with accompanying audio on CD. It is broken down into five different parts: Dialogues, Notes on the Dialogue, Grammatical Notes, Drills, and Exercises.

The Good

The best part of this course is the repetition. Dialogues are are spoken three or four different times: to listen and repeat, to hear a natural speaker, for comprehension. The Notes on the Dialogue and the Grammarical Notes are superb and unlike most Korean courses, does not overwhelm the beginning student. After you have repeated and mastered the dialogues, there are plenty of drills and exercises to practice with.

The Bad

The worst part of this course is the horrible Romanization of Hangul, and the frequent use of it throughout the notes, grammar, exercises, and drills. Hangul is easy to learn and quite necessary and I recommend that everyone ignores the use of it and try to become fluent in reading and writing it. I have found that both with my memorization and practice that writing out the Hangul and then the English on paper (instead of reading from the book) really helps!

Additionally, the English speakers on the audio obviously are native Korean speakers and sometimes they are hard to understand when speaking English. However, since there isn't much English this is a relatively minor flaw.

This course is wonderful, if you are like me, and you are an academic learner: sitting down with a pen, paper, and book, and listening to the recorded CDs. There is plenty of drills and exercises and reviewing each unit from top to bottom a few times each will give you a clear command of that unit.

If you are more of an audible learner, try Pimsleur's Comprehensive (ASIN: 0743536134) and if you are more of a visual learner, try Rosetta Stone's (ASIN: B00005APYQ). For those who want a nice Vocabulary Builder, try VocabuLearn's Korean (ASIN: 1591253829).

14 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mastering Korean CD Package, Second Edition is Superb for Learning í*œêµ­ ë§�, December 2, 2005

By 

1385279604 (Location 36284195) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mastering Korean CD Package (Mastering Series/Level 1 Compact Disc Packages)(2nd Edition) (Paperback)

It may be necessary to set the encoding to Unicode UTF-8 to properly display the í*œê¸€ (Hangeul â€" Korean writing) and special characters in this review. A font containing the set of Hangeul syllables is also necessary to display the Korean in this review.

This edition of Mastering Korean uses a book accompanied by compact discs replacing the cassette tapes of the previous version. A booklet is also included which lists the tracks found on all the discs. The CD's make navigating the audio as easy as finding the text in the book. The course includes spoken dialogs, drills of various kinds, and exercises. The book uses its own transciption system and is different than Romanization systems found in other texts. Each word is transcribed morphophonemically. For example, the vowel ã..." (pronounced ì-'), is transcribed as É™. The vowel ã...¡ (pronounced 으), is ı. The vowel ã...� (pronounced ì* ), is æ. For instance, the statement ì €ëŠ" í*™ìƒ�임니다. is transcribed as CÉ™ nın haksæng imnita. and means "I am a student." í*œê¸€ is transcribed as Hankıl. Most other books spell it han’gÅ­l or hangeul. The dialogs and some of the common expressions are in Hangeul. Drills and grammar notes are Romanized.

There are some minor inconsistencies in the course most notably with "yes". Both 네 (ne) and ì~ˆ (ye) mean "yes". On the recordings and in the Romanization "ne" is used. But in the Korean text "ye" is used.

This course uses both Formal Polite Speech as well as Informal Polite Speech. For example, the verb stem ê°€ (ka-), meaning to go, becomes ê°�니다 (kamnita) in Formal Polite Speech and ê°€ìš" (kayo) in Informal Polite Speech.

This course covers so many things I simply cannot describe them all. Overall, this may possibly be one of best Korean language self-study courses available.

I hope this review has been helpful. Good luck to anybody who is learning any new language.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars drill, drill, drill, July 22, 2009

By 

perekladach (Carbondale, Illinois United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mastering Korean CD Package (Mastering Series/Level 1 Compact Disc Packages)(2nd Edition) (Paperback)

When I first took up Korean, there were many fewer choices available to learners than is now the case. Basically, there were two options- this one, the first half of one of the old Foreign Service course, and the book "Beginning Korean" by Samuel E. Martin, Martin's work being the more extensive grammatical treatment. What made this course invaluable was the audio, especially for learning the difficult pronunciation of Korean, beginning with a lengthy introductory section. Working through it, it is possible within a comparatively short time to not only recognize the distinction between the unaspirated, aspirated and tense consonants but to produce it accurately in speaking.

This is a rigorous and serious course for anyone who wants to get a thorough grounding in Korean, as long as they don't mind very repetitive drilling. As mentioned, it started its life as a Foreigh Service Course, and its method (common to all Foreigh Service Courses) is based almost entirely on repetition. Each chapter starts out with dialogues, which are repeated at different speeds- both with pauses between the speakers so that the student can repeat the sentences, and then with no interruption, the goal being for the student to be able to understand the complete dialogue by that point. Although it may seem numbing, it is effective- from very early in the course it is possible to hear rapid Korean speech and be able to understand it. After the dialogues, there are very extensive drills that drive home the grammar and rapidly increase vocabulary. For those who like a comprehensive treatment of grammar, this course isn't great- there are notes at the end of each set of dialogues that spell out the essentials, but that's about it. Fortunately there are several books available now that go into the grammar in much more detail, especially about the Korean verb, far and away the most complex feature of the language, than the rather sketchy coverage that it gets here. But having worked through the course the student can acquire a surprisingly accurate intuitive feel for the different inflections verbs can take.

A major minus- and one I don't, frankly, see much excuse for, is the very limited coverage of the Korean writing system. The dialogues are given in Hangul and in romanization, but the grammar and exercises are only in transcription. Hangul is not difficult- the letters are amazingly simple and easy to write, and the way that they combine into syllables, while a little more complicated, also doesn't take a lot of time to master. Transcription is a dead end- it holds back a student from learning a very approachable system of writing, and the student will never use it again after finishing the course.

Still, what this book and CD set sets out to do, it does very well.. If you grew up with more contemporary methods of instruction, or if you strongly prefer courses with a more interactive approach, this course will probably seem like a forced march. But if you can come to terms with its almost military-style drills, it is an effective way to not only reach an intermediate level in speaking the language but also to understand a lot of what other people are saying- something that unfortunately can't be said about a lot of language courses.