Customer Reviews

Read ; Speak Korean for Beginners (Book w/Audio CD): The Easiest Way to Communicate Right Away!

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I absolutely love McGraw Hill's Read and Speak --- for Beginners series. It provides a reassuringly simple introduction to some of the more difficult languages for English speakers to learn.

To anyone not familiar with the series, here is what you get: A book of games, puzzles, light grammar and useful vocabulary with a CD to help with pronunciation. You will not be fluent after finishing but you eill have some excellent knowledge under your belt and confidence to move on.

The Korean entry into the series follows these lines. The book has a very brief section on the Korean alphabet (hangul) in the back but there are dozens of resources available online to quickly learn this easy script. The rest of the book is written in hangul with tranliterations to the side.

I can easily recommend this book to anyone tackling the admittedly challenging Korean language. It gives the bare basics and some of the exercises reminded me of first grade but it will give a solid foundation. I do, however, have one caveat.

The enclosed CD features native Korean speakers (their accents when speaking English are very charming) but they speak very.very.slowly. Each.syllable.sounded.out.

Now, if you have heard Korean, you know that the language flows, almost to the point of slurring sounds together. While the slow pace of the speakers is good for hearing the pure sounds of the language, it will not show you how Korean ACTUALLY sounds. The speakers do speed up slightly later in the CD and I suggest listening ahead if you are not sure how the language sounds. Or better, tune into a K-Drama.

In spite of this problem, I think this set is a good investment. It is affordable and is good for those days when a language learner just can't face the grammar books. It would be pretty useless to anyone who knows the basics already but any beginner can benefit from its easy pace and activities.

This book is simple to understand and straightforward in its approach to teaching Korean. The authors' choice of vocabulary and game building exercises are enjoyable and also achieve the aim of being memorable. Unlike the dozens of mindless repetition-based books, this book teaches you how to build thousands of sentences from a handful of key words. I study from five Korean books, and this is the only book where all terms and sentences are fully translated.

Highly recommended++

I finally found a Korean language that helped me make sense of learning Korean. The most important thing is the CD, which really makes the big difference in making this the best Korean language book I have found. The only problem is that the book does not do a good job of teaching the Korean alphabet/script. It assumes you did the previous book or already know it. But even if other Korean books I have bought did a better job with the alphabet, but after that they got very confusing.

This book explains the words better, and the flashcards and games are a big help. The CD makes it much better, and the best reason to buy this book,
I would recommend buying this book. There is a previous book YOUR FIRST 100 WORDS IN KOREAN, which introduce the Korean script, or there are many online sites that teach the Alphabet but get very confusing afterward.

A very very good starting place. This on top of online tutorials will get you going pretty quick. Haven't really used the audio CD yet, but I'm about 3/4 of the way through the book and I feel its been really worthwhile.

I found that this guide is not for absolute beginners. You still need SOME basics before you use this book. I was disappointed that there weren't any pronunciations or grammar. I would definitely try something else first

i've only partially completed the book, but so far its excellent. but you do really need to know the korean alphabet before you begin. the book doesn't really teach it at all, it just expects you to kind of pick it up as you go. still, things are beginning to make sense very quickly and easily.

I bought this book before I studied abroad in Korea. I was there for 6 weeks, which I thought was long enough to learn a little bit of the language before I went. And I was over satisfied, I was able to say a few phrases and read and write (albeit I studied hanguel from another source). This is my favorite of two books I bought. I like the pictures and large size of print. However, there are games with cards but I never play those. I think this book is meant for a younger audience, or someone who wants to have a little fun.

Yup, this is the best one out there. There are some stuff that I had understood from other books but when I got my hands on this..I became more clear and more understand more grammars. I have gone through halfway, and shamelessly, I may say that I am proud of my Hangungmal..he he he.
If you are thinking to buy it..then stop thinking, buy this book, although the enclosed CD helps me little (man, those Korean speaker speaking too fast like nobody's business)

I got this book of course because i want to learn korean. I had already learned to read when i got the book, so i think it made the experience of going through the book quite different had i not known how to read already. Which brings me to one of my main points.in my opinion, this book has one major downfall: IT DOES NOT TEACH YOU TO READ. It claims you will be able to read by the end of the book, but I assure you, you won't be able to read just by the romanizations it gives you. If you want this book to be a lot more educating experience, GO LEARN HOW TO READ FIRST, then come and buy this book. SERIOUSLY- LEARNING KOREAN WILL BE SO MUCH EASIER IF YOU LEARN TO READ FIRST. I can't stress this enough, I can't imagine what it would have been like if i had not learned to read before delving into the language. Everything will make so much more sense. Plus, learnign how to read Hangeul is really, really easy! :D I mastered it in about 2 weeks. But it will take you only a couple of days to have a very good grasp of it.
Another point I would like to make is that i used this book and more of a supplementary tool rather than my main source of learning. If you arent super serious about learning korean, then i don't think i'd recommend this because you will only know the bare basics by the end. I did like it, however, for the sample sentences it give- thise are very helpful. I actually kind of liked the cd. I put it onto my iPod and i actually used it with the book. The speakers are native which is a plus because you'll know everything is pronounced correctly and naturally, but they speak very slowly. Everything is sounded out- which i guess is also a good thing if you want it broken down, but won't hear what the language sounds like ntaurally spoken. If you want that, listen to k-pop or watch some k-dramas. They're awesome! And easily accecable.
And one last point, I didn't actually play any of the games this book comes with, so I can't give any sort of opinion on those.
So in one sentence i would say this book is good for a younger audience and for someone very new to korean, but already knows how to read, its a good introductory book.

I was looking for a beginner's book for learning Korean that I could follow along with and study at my own pace. This is NOT the book for that. It's a nice little manual that has a few useful phrases and refresher of the Korean alphabet but it really doesn't serve the purpose of teaching the fundamentals to a beginning student of the Korean Language.