Customer Reviews

Roadmap to Korean

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Puts learning the Korean language within reach. Something unique about this book is that it is written from the perspective of a non-Korean who has struggled to learn Korean himself. This is an advantageous perspective because he understands the hurdles we English-speakers have in approaching the language's structures and deviations. The author really did an excellent and thorough job. He even included the Chinese characters for those of us who would one day like to read Korean like an intelligent adult and not just a 1st grader. I would recommend this for self-study and for instructors trying to teach Korean to those of us who just don't seem to get it with other publications.

Roadmap to Korean is a great book explaining the languistic structure, culture, and history of Korea(n). Richard Harris has done a great job explaining the most important parts of the language that no other book has bothered to cover. Harris explains the troubles that English speaks will have with the language and specific differences are explained in an English speaker's point of view. I have read over this book many times since I have been studying Korean and each time I get something else out of it. It is a definite buy for anyone wishing to learn the language or just want to simply learn what it's about. It makes an excellent reference for verb conjugations, phrases, numbers, and much more. If you want to learn Korean, this is the book to start with. You will not be disappointed.

New to Korean language and culture and not really sure where I should start from, a friend recommended Harris' "Roadmap to Korean" last month and I haven't looked back since. As I prepare to work in Seoul this coming fall, I feel so much more ready and educated to work and live in Korea after reading through my "Roadmap". Moving from Confucianism to the Chinese Zodiac all the while infusing easy-to-understand explanations of the workings of Korean, this book is my bible as I prepare for my Korean experience. Thanks, Mr. Harris!!

This is an absolutely ESSENTIAL item for ANY student of the Korean language, especially those whose native language is English. Why? 1) It bridges a gap no Korean educator has ever thought (or perhaps known how) to address or even acknowledge. 2) It does the job superlatively well.

While Korea has no shortage of well-meaning and skilled teachers of their language (including several I've had) they invariably fall short in one key area: understanding exactly what obstacles a foreigner faces in learning Korean, and how to help us past them. (In fairness, Korea is still relatively new to the game of exporting their language and culture on a major scale - compared to, say, America or Japan.) Richard Harris turns out to be just the guy for the job; a long-suffering yet enthusiastic student of the language, and a straightforwardly engaging writer to boot.

Aside from drastically different grammar, most of the roadblocks turn out to be conceptual - areas of culture and living where Koreans and non-Koreans simply think differently, in ways that defy literal translation. (this is a language in which one might ask "How are you?" by saying "Have you eaten?" or "Where are you going?") It's in the illustration of these tricky areas that Harris truly excels; anyone who's spent much time in Korea, such as yours truly, has stumbled into more than one of these minefields!

Bottom line: if you're learning Korean, BUY THIS BOOK. It'll save you an incalculable amount of time and frustration, and enlighten you about a lot more than just the language in the bargain.

This book has a lot of good information that will probably be helpful in learning Korean, but if you are looking for in depth explanations of grammar systematically, this is not the book for you. I suggest you find a book used in a classroom. The author gives lots of insight into the culture and history of the language and points out a few of the barriers that he had to overcome, but all in all, this book did not help me actually work with the language. He explains the problems that you will have, but he does not actually introduce the grammatical conundrums that bring about those problems. If you have a grammar book to go along this one, that might be a winning couple, but I do want people to know the limitations of this book. It is not a systematic and comprehensive Korean Grammar. You'll have to find that somewhere else.

Roadmap to Korean by Richard Harris takes a look at learning Korean from a historical, cultural, and pop linguistic point of view. There are twenty-two chapters, five sections and an extensive appendices that combined make this a book that the Korean language student will find invaluable. The value doesn't come from teaching you Korean as that is not what Harris is trying to do, but rather from providing a new perspective and insight into learning Korean and finding avenues to overcome obstacles and difficulties...

(...)

As a beginner in Korean, I was looking for something more than a dictionary, but with the understanding of an English

speaking person who has learned Korean. This is it! Richard Harris explains the joys and pitfalls of learning

Korean in an entertaining way. It's just shy of having a conversation with the author. Very enjoyable learning

experience!

I bought this book along with 3-4 others in order to start learning Korean on my own. Although it does have an extensive list of "useful phrases," conjugations, and vocab, it is NOT (in my view) a workbook or a step-by-step instructional guide to learning to read/write/speak Korean. I saw this more as a very successful attempt to explain the language/cultural pitfalls that a non-Korean can and will face, while also teaching the basics of Hanguel, grammar, culture (current and background), and conjugation.

Listed are two, of the many, "simple" things he pointed out in the book that my Korean friends never realized (because it was natural to them) until I asked them to verify, which they did, surprised that it never occurred to them. 1) With time, hours are counted using Korean and minutes/seconds with Chinese Derivatives; 2) there are 23 ways to say "Do you know?" IN THE SECOND PERSON, IN THE PRESENT TENSE, depending on who you are speaking to. This, along with the countless examples of insightful personal experience, made it both humorous and extremely practical.

Although I have already read through it once, I am going through it a second time (now that I have a basic understanding of Korean) and continuing to learn and pick-up tips that I didn't understand the first time though. I foresee multiple readings through this book in the months/years to come.

This book gives tons of great advice on how to learn Korean. If it were up to me, it would be standard issue for students studying Korean at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, CA.

There's a lot of resources out there for students of Korean. Some are written by Koreans for he benefit of foreigners. Most of said resources are laughably bad while few and far between are quite good. On the other hand, some are written by foreigners for the benefit of other foreigners. Most of said resources are either for learning slang or are simply MIA. An exceptional resource is Richard Harris's Roadmap to Korean. Interestingly enough, his previous effort (Faces of Korea) is also hard to find and also very valuable.

Don't let the textbook-like cover fool you because this is a resourceful heart-to-heart conversational with you and the author. Harris has compiled his personal notes, stories, charts, tips and tricks all into this neatly presented package. Imagine a super-awesome blog written on paper. It's a very light read and written casually; almost spoken-like. The author has lots of advice to give whether you've never studied the language before or have been for years. There's some history and culture as well as some grammar pitfalls and speaking taboos that are enough to learn from as well as laugh at. His perspective is golden and there's a lot to learn from his book, make no mistake.

I don't have much to say about this book that hasn't already been said. It's a great guide. The only thing I want to criticize is the author's plea to learn hanja. Although I also strongly encourage learning hanja because of its usefulness, he does little in terms of pointing one in the right direction of how to actually study hanja. A minor gripe for such a fabulous study guide. Yes, this book is enough to warrant me saying the word "fabulous".

I would also like to point out that this book is the book I should have written. If I ever had aspirations to publish a "Guide to Study Korean" book, this would have been it. Everything to the comical voice to the practical breakdown of a simple phrase such as "How are you?" Thanks a lot Harris for beating me to the punch and doing a better job than I probably would have done.

I wish I read this years ago.