Korean Job Discussion Forums

[r.]

Pound for pound, which Korean Textbook series would you recommend?

I'm looking for something that starts out with absolute newbies going all the way through advanced levels.

A CD listening package that comes with each book would also be great, so I could practice listening.

Preferably something that a teacher could easily use to teach me, but also studied alone.

[morrisonhotel]

I've been using Ganada KLI's Korean for foreigners. I'm still a little unsure of it, but a few people recommended it to me.

[Son Deureo!]

Pound for pound? Well, they're pretty heavy so they might not be for you but Ross King's Elementary Korean and its sequel Continuing Korean are excellent in my opinion. Some people are put off by their lack of pretty pictures, however.

An excellent free online resource is Sogang University's virtual Korean course at http://korean.sogang.ac.kr/. That does go all the way from beginner to advanced.

[beNNN]

I learnt how to read Hangul online first and i'm currently working through 'Basic Korean: A Grammar and Workbook' which I managed to get for free


http://www.learnlangs.com/RWP/Korean/Korean%20-%20Lesson%201.htm

[jiberish]

I found most Korean textbooks to be rubbish. I sat in kyobo for over an hour looking through them all. Two things I would recommend. Korean made easy. It starts off at newbie level and continues on to around pre-intermediate level. I found it to be the best book to give you a real grasp of the language. Done through lots of fairly good explanations. Also the korean is relevant to speaking now. The first Korean book I ever bought was laughed at by all the Koreans who read it. They said it was overly formal and how their grandparents spoke.

Another option is a website koreanclass101 or something. You just sign up for the 7 day trial and download all the mp3s in that time. They have great real life korean scenarios practice.

[furtakk]

[orangepostit]

Personal faves

Sogang - though I agree with the fact that it's not effective unless you're in a class setting. It's very geared towards conversation. The workbook is good.

Korean Made Easy for Beginners - Also pretty good but the activity section is so short. I'm not sure if it continues beyond a beginner level.

Practical Korean (from Seoul National University) - It gives a good overview of grammar, though I hate how it starts with 습니다 rather than 요. The pace is also a bit fast.

And for a non-textbook book, Survival Korean has it's drawbacks but I think is a good overview for basics.

Yonsei is...okay

I think there are a lot of horrid books out there for learning any language, same goes for Korean. Sogang is my main textbook, but I sort of use all of them since then I can better fill in the blanks caused by using one textbook only.

Good luck!

[lost at sea]

[morrisonhotel]

[that guy]

I like this series.

[Lunar Groove Gardener]

Thanks Lost at Sea.
I really like the verb list.

[lost at sea]

I will be uploading more. I am going to upload a grammar (particles) list tonight that has all of the grammar particles used from lessons 1-4, with a few additions I made and each has an example sentence.

I should probably upload lesson 5's vocabulary as well (from 5 on the vocabulary number seems to pick up a bit )

Hmm, I know I said I uploaded Ganada lessons but if you click my name and check out the lists I favorited there are a few good ones on there.

I tried to dig around the site and favorite the better looking lists.

[Sherm]

I highly recommend Integrated Korean from Hawaii University Press. The series has enough material for five full years of University Level study, starting with the absolute basics in the first volume. The content is pretty colloquial and practical imho.

If you finish two volumes, you will have some good sound basics. If you can finish one volume per year on your own, that will be excellent steady progress, and there are ten of them.

Oh and all the audio for the texts is available for free online. SEC Disclosure: I do not work for Hawaii U, although I'd certainly welcome a job offer there . Hope that helps!

[lost at sea]

^I found those books to use too much English and be way too wordy and not really explain anything too well.

I found the Ganada textbook series to be straight forward and simple to pick up.

[morrisonhotel]

I'm using a Korean kids book with my tutor. It does need some explaining, admittedly, but it's ideal for building vocab and then sentences. A lot of it is explanatory enough as it has pics. I'll get the name and post it after next lesson.