Customer Reviews

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

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

 

 

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).

It may be necessary to set the encoding to Unicode UTF-8 to properly display the í*�글 (Hangeul �" 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 �..." (pronounced ì-'), is transcribed as É�. The vowel �...¡ (pronounced ì��), is Ä�. The vowel �...� (pronounced ì*�), is æ. For instance, the statement ì���" í*�ì��ì��니다. is transcribed as CÉ� nÄ�n haksæng imnita. and means "I am a student." í*�글 is transcribed as HankÄ�l. Most other books spell it han’gŭl 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~� (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 가 (ka-), meaning to go, becomes 감니다 (kamnita) in Formal Polite Speech and 가ì�" (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.

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.

The main problem I had with the package was the textbook and the romanization. There's a lot of material that could really be useful but the romanization is ridiculous. You have to basically learn their code for you to understand how words are pronounced; it doesn't flow naturally like some other books do. The romanization, in my opinion, doesn't make sense. It could be easier.

The print of the text is not that great either; much of it looks handwritten and it's small. I think that when you're learning completely foreign characters to write, the text should be clearer. The CDs however are nice and I've mainly used just those along with some other books and literature I have to help with pronunciation and the basics.

If you are thinking of buying this you should know that it is a complete, apparently unedited, version of the U.S. State Departments Foreign Service Institute Korean courses (level I and II).

These courses are public domain and are therefore distributed in many other (cheaper) forms than this nicely packaged, expensively published edition with tapes (older version) or CDs (newer version).

If you can live without the hardcopy book (with very poorly typeset text) and are content to use an iPod rather than a CD player, then you can purchase the same text (as a scanned PDF) and audio (as MP3 files) on any internet auction website for about $6.

REPETITION ENHANCES LEARNING. AND THIS PROGRAM HAS LOTS. JUST WISH I COULD HEAR THE ENGLISH ALONGSIDE THE KOREAN TO LEARN AS I DRIVE. THIS PROGRAM REQUIRES TAKING TIME TO READ THE TRANSLATION ALONGSIDE THE AUDIO PRONUCIATIONS TO ACTUALLY KNOW WHAT IS BEING SAID.

Great product! BUT....

I don't mean to take business away from the publisher, but everything in the book -even the audio that accompanies it- is available for free online. Being created by US government employees during their normal work, the original FSI course is in the public domain (this means you don't need to pay for it). The additional work contained in the present revision, however, is subject to copyright restrictions: You may use and distribute all files of this revised course for personal use. The rights for commercial use of the revised audio files and of the "Notes 2009", however, are reserved. � 2009 Martin Sander.

[...] Basic New

Sadly, I found this out after I had purchased the book and CD package here on Amazon. EPIC FAIL TT_______TT

On the other hand: If you want a hard copy of the book because the online version is PDF, and you only listen to audio from CDs, perhaps this product is really for you.

I hope this info saves you guys a few dollars. Not to mention the site has 40+ languages. Good luck with language learning!

It's a shame that the audiolingual method has so fallen out of favor with the language teaching literati. As a former EFL teacher in Korea I can say that communicative language teaching leaves a lot to be desired; as does any "method": a motivated learner creates her own opportunities; lack of motivation, with even the best "method" leads nowhere.

And so for motivated learners, this audiolingual course is a wonder. If you have the patience to put up with the seemingly mindless drills, this one course will give you a strong, unconscious foundation in Korean grammar. Your grammar will be as instinctive as Daniel's front blocks in "The Karate Kid" after he waxes all those cars.

I completely disagree with those who say that one must learn Hangul first. To this day in Korea I read the English street signs because, even after seven years, I'm faster at reading roman letters. Why does this matter? If you follow audiolingual methodology, you're forced to repeat things until you can say them at native speed. You're cautioned not to proceed to the next lesson until you have mastered the current one at native speed. To do so, you must be able to scan the given sentences quickly so as to repeat them quickly. I still can't do this in Hangul; it's easy in the romanization. After hours of drills at native speed, then, when you talk to people, even in your fledgling stage, they're going to understand you and, in Korea at least, give you the praise that will keep you studying.

If you learn Hangul first you won't acquire that ability to repeat so quickly, as you'll be trudging through the--yes, easy and scientific, but more difficult than the roman alphabet for English speakers--Hangul. You'll also be more likely to have one of the boring, occasionally jingoistic books that line the shelves here. This book cuts to the chase: No junk about four seasons and Tangun; all hard, memory-path-building exercises about taking the bus and going out to dinner.

If you put up with negligble faults: the funky roman letters, the guy's bizarre pronunciation (One of my Korean friends thought he was a non-native speaker of Korean), the formality, and the antiquated expressions (this was written a while ago), you'll be fine.

Not everyone can learn through the audiolingual method, but this course is worth a try.

Not good at all.

1. They made a mess with all different levels of speech (friendly, casual and polite). How is a person not familiar with those levels of speech supposed to see the difference and learn to use the language in proper manner, in accordance with Korean traditions?

2. Incorrect translation. For example, how come [hada] is "speak"? And if you make people learn that [hada] is "speak", how would you convince them that in [dangsineun museun ireul hamnikka] [hada->hamnikka] is "do"?

3. Too much repetition. Waaaay too much.

Although the korean language is difficult. Barron's method of practice until reflex "automacity" works. I have enjoyed this educational journey.