Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Adventurer]

Are there any CD programs for learning Korean that can be found. I have attempted to learn Korean before, but the books weren't good.
I am not sure what's good out there for someone who is a total beginner. I can't read Hangeul except here-and-there.

[English Matt]

The KLEAR textbooks, published by the University of Hawaii are excellent. You can pick them up from What the Book? in Itaewon. I think there is supposed to be some audio that goes with the course although I haven't seen it for sale there yet; I'm sure they can order it in for you if you ask though.

Apart from that, Pimsleur audio courses are awesome, but expensive. However, you can download them using a torrent client or Soulseek for free. When I was getting back into learning German 6 years ago I was introduced to Pimsleur by a friend and have to say they are very good and an easy way to dip into the language on a daily basis.

[Ukon]

I thought you were leaving...

[Adventurer]

[jkelly80]

I'm sorry but I think that the Pimsleur Korean is terrible. you end up with the same "imnika" crap (the public speaking/super honorific form) that I studied at hagwon. I think it's great for Mandarin, and a guy who has used it for Russian liked that one, but I'm not a huge fan of the Korean.

KLEAR is good as noted and has audio that you can download, but I'm not sure of the site.

Sogang has some good textbooks as well that come with audio, but most of the speaking/listening is intended for classroom work.

[English Matt]

I haven't used Pimsleur Korean extensively but I certainly think it helps with pronunciation of the language. And when you are even a little bit familiar with the language it is fairly easy to alter the words you learn / hear pronounced to their more informal counterparts. But, yes I do hear it is better for other languages, and as I said I found Pimsleur German to be excellent. So in summary I think it is somewhat useful, and a lot better than many of the audio courses out there when it comes to self-study.

If anybody knows the website that you can download the audio for the KLEAR textbooks that would be awesome - I'm starting to have to skip a lot of the exercises at the moment because I don't have access to that.

[el_magico]

I'm a big fan of "Survival Korean" by Stephen Reevere.
The material is really practical and useful so it can be used on day to day basis, this also makes it easier for retention. On top of that, it is really well laid out and the people on the CD sound intelligible and cool.

Koreanclass101.com is good in theory, but the host is a douchebag and it makes me want to punch him in the face every time I listen to the podcast.

IMO Pimsleur is worth listening to (not sure if it's worth whatever ridiculous price they are charging though)... For Conversational Korean there are only 16 30min lessons, so 8 hours all in all. During those 8 hours the vocab will be really drilled into your head you will remember it for sure. Good bang for your study buck.

[English Matt]

Hey Adventurer,

I found the website for the KLEAR textbooks,

http://www.kleartextbook.com/

You can download the files or play them in Quickplayer online. So KLEAR might be what you wanna go for - audio and textbook. There's about 6 textbooks and 6 workbooks. The textbooks are about 33000 Won each and the workbooks are about 24000 Won each.

Hope that helps.

[samd]

Another vote against Pimsleur and another vote for Survival Korean.

I agree with jkelly, Pimsleur Korean is absolutely woeful. I also did Pimsleur Mandarin 1, 2 and 3 and got a lot out of it, so was shocked that the Korean version is so bad.

[katepult]

I liked "Korean Made Easy for Beginners." It's bright pink, which has nothing to do with the quality of the book, but makes it easy to see.

http://www.langintro.com/kintro/ is a good website for instant gratification. I learned Hangeul from this site and it's generally fun. It's a good introduction.

[skeeterses]

The Pink Korean for Foreigners Book and the Survival Korean book by Stephen Revere are good for people starting out, since they have the pronunciations for the hanguls and cover the basic phrases.

[English Matt]

Adventurer, you've been here a while yeah? How have you managed to get by without being able to read Hangul? You must have picked up a bit. Not trying to have a dig at you, just curious.

[Atavistic]

Adventurer, you can learn Hangul at the langinto link already posted. There are also free resources here that should help you get started.

http://ezcorean.com/online_korean_class

I like the Sogang books, but it's nice to have someone to help you through it. A language partner or whatnot.

Good luck.

[i4NI]

[Kevtron]

I found learning really tough until recently, and I've now been here over a year. I've started using the Easy Korean for Beginners, as well as the Pimsleur audio, combined with a bit of language exchange. My learning is finally proressing, though slowly still (mostly b/c of motivation).

I think Survival Korean is ok, though I've found Korean Made Easy better since it starts you out with things you really need, like 'my name is' 'where are you from?' etc. I bought Survival first, and plan to go back to it once I get the basics down from Korean Made Easy.

Pimsleur is just helpful to have on my mp3 player when I'm on the bus. Something to listen to, and it is helpful. Plus as someone above said, once you know the very basics, it's easy to not use the imnika stuff that it's teaching, but still learn the root vocab.

To sum (imho):
Korean Made Easy is a great start (and I just saw a 2nd book in the series the other day)
Pimsleur is helpful, but don't rely on it
Survival Korean has good stuff, but it's not the same intro material
Finally a language exchange and/or just going and talking to cute girls with the little bit you have is the best.