Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Mikejelai]

Korean Made Easy (by SNU)

Active Korean ( by a former Sogang materials developer/teacher)

Teach Yourself Korean (Teach Yourself press)

Likes/dislikes/comments?

[AliciaJC]

hmm, is the korean made easy a pink book?
korean made easy for beginners (darakwon) is AWESOME.

[kinerry]

[banjois]

I'm working through the Teach Yourself. It's has wierd romanization, but I'm just ignoring that. The way information is laid out is by far the best I've seen. I've tried to start on three other textbooks and given up pretty quickly, despite having a knack for languages....

[Mariella713]

[uhfotis]

I started with "fast and fun Korean" and found it 100 times better than the pink book (Korean made easy) because it covered the same things but also taught reading much more comprehensively. It also built in a lot more writing than the pink book. I'd say the main advantages that the pink book has over it are that it gives more expressions and comes with a handy phrase book.

as to where to find any of these books, gmarket has them all and they're very reasonably priced.

[noraebang]

I recommend the book 2000 Essential Korean Words for Beginners.

The book includes an example sentence for every single word. I recommend you put the example sentences into your spaced repetition software and cut up the audio CD with audacity so you can add MP3 files to each card.

You have many options. You could do listening cards, where you are played the MP3 and then have to write down the answer correctly. The opposite side of the card should be the written sentence. You can get a friend to help you with translating the sentences, and put the Korean sentences on the front with English translations on the back (I currently do this).

I wouldn't buy any type of book for learning Hangul. There are some free websites that are actually easier to learn from and of better quality than most books.

Now that I have self-studied to an intermediate level, I feel like I can look back and give advice on how to chart your study as a beginner:

1. Learn Hangul online.
2. Listen to a lot of Korean starting from now (this step carries on forever). Dramas, songs, the news, radio, podcasts, etc. Check out the user KPOPSUBS on Youtube. Watch KBS News (free online) for your news from now on. And definitely look up KoreanClass101 after your learn Hangul because they have awesome free audio blogs.
3. Get the book Making Out In Korean and study it with a language exchange partner, get them to test you orally by memory. Type them into an SRS like Anki with the Korean on the front and the English on the back. If you can record your language exchange partners voice and add it onto the card, that would be great too.
4. You could sign up for Koreanclass101 and do all of their beginner lessons. They let you sign up for a week free, so I would just download them all. Do a couple each day, and put the dialogues (which contain no English) into your MP3 player and listen to them all on repeat when you're cooking, cleaning, on the subway, etc.
5. I would say now is the time to jump in to actual Korean. Listen to Sun Hunwoo's podcasts that are posted for free on Koreanclass101, his blog, and TalkToMeInKorean. They have accompanying .pdf's which have great English translations. Play the audio blogs on repeat in your MP3 player all the time. At the same time, get the book I originally recommended and begin SRSing it in Anki.

After all that you should be well on your way, and will be able to study with native materials and a dictionary. Everything is free except Making Out In Korean and 2000 Words for Beginners. Most importantly, I think all of it is fun. Making Out In Korean is hilarious. All of this is very light on explicit grammar study, but you'll grasp a lot of it implicitly.

[ticktocktocktick]

I like the Active Korean series for it's simple grammar explainations, but it is a little short on practice. Pair it with The Sogang practice books, and you're all set.

[jomiro]

i took korean classes and they used the ganada books.
the text book is good. comes with english translations to the texts and vocabularies.
the work book sucks. everythings in korean. no translation. so its rather difficult to understand what you are supposed to do (unless they give you an example or its easy linking of words).

i like the 'easy korean' book. im on book two (green cover). simple things, easy to learn, comes with translations, cds and has a work book available. not too many vocs at a time.

as for learning online. never tried that. but i use the innerwebs to check out stuff i dont understand from the books. grammar rules, etc. fairly nice.