Customer Reviews

Your First 100 Words in Korean : Beginner's Quick & Easy Guide to Demystifying Korean Script

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book has many errors in it.
The pronunciation for some of the letters are wrong.
("aw" is shown as "o", for example)
And even the definition of some of the words are wrong.
(the book shows the word "nan-lo" means "stove", but, really means "heater")
Don't use this book to learn how to read and write Hangul.
It can be helpful to learn vocabulary, as long as you have a friend who knows Korean to make sure you are learning the words correctly.

The format of this book is fantastic- a fun and effective way to learn some basic Korean vocabulary!
Unfortunately, there are some BASIC errors in the given pronunciations of Korean letters. If you just use this book, you will be mispronouncing some common, necessary letters.
My recommendation: Get another book, CD, website, or friend to learn to pronounce Hangul. Then use this book to ease the drudgery of memorizing vocabulary, and have make a game of finding the mistakes in it!

My Korean wife chose this book for me as a beginning. I have yet to find a more advanced book that I like as much. It was fun to use, and very easy. I found the romanization helpful while I was learning the Korean characters (Hangul).

A great way to start.

I see there is now a version available with CD. That should be even better, but I haven't had a chance to listen to the CD.

I wish I had this book three years ago, when I first came to Korea. When I saw the profusely illustrated materials which my English students were enjoying, I felt somewhat envious.

If Montessori was right, actual objects aid in learning betters than pictures, and pictures aid in learning better than print on the page. Too bad we don't have books like this for foreign language students at all levels.

This would have been 5 stars but I don't like the english phonetic translation of the Korean characters. It is better to learn the Korean alphabet and use it to learn words.
The book is great, simple to follow. It may be designed for kids, with all the Korean word games etc... but it helped me retain what I had learned and I strongly reccommend this as a starting point for studying Korean.
It comes with cards you cut out and can carry around and use to help study when you have a spare minute.
It is good value for money.

I am trying to learn enough Korean to be able to function in Korea even if on my own. The words chosen for the flash cards are not much help for what I wanted (unless I am at the zoo). This is a great concept but...if you are like me and want to learn words that will help you communicate in everyday situations save some money and make your own flash cards.

This book is great to get you started with learning some of the basic words so that you can apply them to sentences later. However, like many books on Korean, the Romanization is aweful. If I did not already know the alphabet and pronouniations, I would have been been saying all the words very wrong (www.langintro.com is a great place to learn along with a native Korean speaker). I was always having to cover up the Romanizations on the flashcards because my native-English eye would go right to them. I also found that I stopped using the little excercies mid-way through the book and just used the flash cards.

This does exactly as the name suggests. It teaches you 100 words in korean. However, that is the only reason why I gave this book 2 stars. It is also glaring with problems.

First, I will no longer buy any korean language book that gives romanized translations of words. Most of the time the roman version is wrong, and it attracts the eye. Instead of reading and practicing hangeul, I would find my eyes drawn to the incorrect roman versions.

Second is a problem that I find with many language learning books (not just this book) is the choices of words. Most words like "lion, mouse, monkey, bed, farm, etc." are utterly useless for beginning to learn a language. These words will not be used enough to be useful when speaking to natives. They could easily and should have been switched with more common words. Sure, "lion" is an interesting for a child to learn. But I, and most people learning korean are not children and should not waste our time with these words.

Very good book for the begginer, not an advanced book. Very simple to follow and the flash cards are a nice feature. You will not learn Korean from this book, but it will make a good companion to begginer just to get familiar with korean words.

I like the book. Plenty of exercises to beat the script into your head. Kinda fun to do these childlike exercises, too.