Korean Job Discussion Forums

[crazy tigger]

I am after some books, tapes and CDs to learn Korean from, I am at the total beginner stage.

Also after teaching books, both theory and textbook, aswell as any other teaching materials.

Books in general are also good as I read A LOT!

If anything has anything then PM me, I would neeed things delivered as I live manhy hours from Seoul.

[pesawattahi]

Grab a copy of "A Guide to Korean Characters" by Bruce K. Grant ISBN 0-930878-13-2. It is out of print so you will have to get a used copy. It mainly deals with korean hanja. You don't really have to learn the symbols but just the meanings. If you learn your vocab through th hanja esp as a foriegner it will give you a thourough understanding of the language and you will be able to memorize more words faster than if you didn't.

For example:
수입=輸入=su ip=import
수출=輸出=su chul=export
입구=入口=ip gu=enterance
출구=出口=chul gu=exit

One can go on and on in this manner, I associate the Chinese meanings with the symbols in my head when I think about them. However with the native Korean words you will have to go off rote memorization. I'll have to get back with you on grammar books I have some titles written down somewhere but I don't remember where I put them.

[artyom]

http://langintro.com/kintro/

I found that this site was pretty good for learning the characters and then for a starter book you might like to try:

'Survival Korean' by Stephen Revere I think it is about 21,500 W with two CD's available at most Kyobo bookstores I guess

[smwood]

I have a copy (almost unused) w/CD's of the "Survival Korean" book.

PM me if you are interested.

~ smw

[pesawattahi]

If you can't find the book (I prefer reading books plus it has the stroke orders in it)I am currently working on a hangul+hanja-english dictionary in microsoft excell format. It isn't quite done yet but there are over 2000 entries with english meanings and another 3000 with korean meanings. Also the naver online dictionary is pretty good for korean-english but english-korean kind of sucks.

[Atavistic]

[pesawattahi]

If you learn hanja from the begining you will be surprised how fast and easily you can learn vocab. After a while you will be able to intuitivly be able to make up words from the hanja and they will be correct most of the time. Looking back I wish I had learned hanja right from the start. Also hanja has only a few basic shapes that will either have strokes added or be arranged in a different sequence in the characters so it is not like you will have to memorize thousands of unique distinct characters. In fact about 70% of commonly used words are made up from only about 400 different hanjas. After a while it will besome more familiar to you, but really you don't have to even memorize the symbols (I do I am a visual learner) but just their meanings. As far as learning hangul, which you should do from the start to get away from shoddy transliterations I recommend getting a copy of "Your First 100 Words of Korean" it will take about a day to complete, more if you are lazy like me. As far as a learning strategy for hanja you can either start with ones that have fewer strokes or ones making up words that you want to learn. Either way has its own shortcomings. The Naver online dictionary will have the hanjas for the Korean words if it is Chinese in origin. Typing in Korean is also pretty easy I can now do it almost as fast as I can in english (which isn't really saying much).


Hanja Lesson!!
인=人=in=man, mankind
입=入=ip=enter, put in
대=大=dae=big, great
태=太=tae=great, grand, excessive, extreme
부=夫=bu=huaband, man, laborer, artisan, sage, philosopher

practical:
외국인=外國人=wei guk in=foriegner
중국인=中國人=chung guk in=chinese person
한국인=韓國人=han guk in=korean person
미국인=美國人=mi guk in=american
대통령=大統領=dae tong ryong=president
대변=大便=dae byon=poop
태평양=太平洋=tae pyong yang=pacific ocean

[Atavistic]

[crazy tigger]

Thanks for the advice everyone, justthought I would bump this again

[djvink]

I got a few things that might help you. I bought them before I came and haven't used them too much. The first is "Teach Yourself Korean" which comes with two CD's, the second is a study/workbook called "First step in Korean" (it has about two pages filled in, the rest is empty), a Korean/English Dictionary (+vice versa) and a Basic Hangul wall poster for learning the basic alphabet. Its helped me get a basic grasp but I've been too lazy to take it to the next level. Plus, My contract is up in a few months and I don't think I'll be coming back. Let me know if your still looking for resourves.

[email protected] if you can't PM