Korean Made Simple: A beginner's guide to learning the Korean language

I can’t praise this book enough. I had tried Talk to Me in Korean Level 1, but progress felt really slow. Switched to this book and, just in the first 5 chapters, I felt like I was making way more progress - building vocab, grammar, and actual reading/writing skills. What makes this series stand out is how much Korean text you actually work with and how much vocab you’re introduced to. Other books sometimes feel like an English book about Korean, but this feels like a Korean book for learners. You’re exposed to full Korean passages and lots of text right away, but the way it’s broken down makes it click by the end. That little bit of immersion makes a huge difference. The workbook is a must too! Lots of fill-in-the-blanks, sentence building, dictation exercises - so you’re actually using the language. If you’re a beginner self learner and want the best introduction to really reading, writing, and understanding Korean, this is it!

I'm about half way through the book so far, and I feel like I've used it enough to leave a thoughtful and (hopefully) helpful review. The first thing that you should know is that this probably isn't the best "stand alone" book. It's not a textbook, so it's not going to have everything that you need to learn the language. It IS, however, very helpful for a beginner to gain a lot of basic understanding to the language and how grammar fits Korean sentences together. The information is pretty clearly laid out and is to-the-point. Not a lot of unnecessary confusing topics right off the bat, and then it goes a bit deeper into complex rules later on. It's set up in a format that is really easy for me to follow. I really like this book and will definitely move on to the others as I continue learning the language. That being said, there are a few things that I would have liked to see, especially in a beginner's book. Some of these are entirely preferential, so if you're okay with these things missing, then that's okay. Use of a "handwriting" font is extremely confusing. It took about 8 chapters before I felt comfortable reading the Hangul font, and I was often copying down the WRONG spelling due to my complete inability to read that font. I would have liked to see the first chapter or two have both the typical font and the handwriting font for all the words in order to better familiarize the differences between the two fonts. Only occasionally in later chapters are new concepts introduced with the cleaner font, but most new words are in the handwriting font. Though there are audio files available on the site (which are very useful), they are only of the conversations. This is good for listening practice, but there are a lot of new words introduced in each chapter and (especially as a beginner), you kind of have to guess at what they sound like. There's an in-depth Appendix on pronunciation rules, but very few people will read and retain all the rules, and you often find yourself learning a mispronunciation and can't identify the word if you hear it elsewhere. It'd be nice if on vocab words that have special pronunciation, if there was a bit of a reminder "hey, this looks like this, but is pronounced like this!" Not enough repetition. Again, totally preferential, but I find myself diligently taking notes through out a chapter, do the 6-10 lines of practice at the end, and then moving on to the next chapter without realizing I'm not ready due to a lack of real structure in the chapter's end. There are lists and lists and lists of vocab words, most of which were not used in the chapter. It'd just be nice to see a bit more repetition, a bit more "work" in order to drive home concepts that were taught during a chapter. Even with these minor flaws, I still find this to be a helpful book, and I recommend it to anyone learning Korean. It's a valuable source of information and the narration style is comfortable, easy to read (not like a dry textbook). Edit after finishing the book: Of all the resources that I've been using for learning the language, this one is definitely my favorite. It explains things pretty well and gives you a bit of cultural insight. Right now I'm just going through again to review each chapter. There are a few things that I'd already forgotten, but the rest of it is really sticking with me. I already purchased the second book, and I'll definitely get the third later on. I'm updating my review from 4 stars to 5 stars. Thanks!

Well-written and easy to understand. Definitely also get the workbook. It really helps reinforce what you learned. I recommend making flash cards for the vocabulary also. It is also well-organized. This is the first language textbook I have ever been able to stick with. I believe this is a great place to start and I recommend going through all three books over time.

Let me start out by saying that I'm basically very new to Korean. I had a little knowledge before this book, mostly just some vocabulary knowledge. If you're already experienced with Korean, you might need the sequel to this book. But this book is great! I'm hardly half way through it so far, but it's taught me in just a couple of weeks what other books have failed to teach me so far in months. After getting this book, I've dropped the others to spend my time focusing on this one. I think after I finish this one (and it's sequel), I'll be ready to pick up and attempt the other books that I originally had. Here's why: Each chapter has a bunch of vocabulary that you have to memorize, but with any new language, that's to be expected. You have to learn words to make sentences and this book seems to teach you a lot of very commonly used words. I love it! Most other books I've looked at are more concerned with teaching you grammar right away, but what use is that if you don't know any words to begin with? Each chapter of this book starts out with a conversation, breaks the conversation down, and explains the words and the grammar that you see in the conversation. The writing is very simple and easy to follow. Everything is explained very thoroughly, so you're left with no questions about what's being explained. There's so much vocabulary that you learn that you could make a multitude of sentences within just a few chapters. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who really wants to learn Korean!

Den zahlreichen positiven Rezensionen kann ich mich uneingeschränkt anschließen. Von diesem Lehrbuch bin ich ganz und gar begeistert. Mich überzeugen der klare Aufbau und die wertvollen Lerntipps. Der Lernstoff wird sehr übersichtlich präsentiert, durch Illustrationen aufgelockert und landeskundliche Info ergänzt. Das Buch enthält viele Übungen und - was mir besonders gefällt, da ich selbst Fremdsprachen unterrichte - der Grammatik wird große Bedeutung beigemessen. Der Autor stellt sehr richtig fest 'Grammar is more important than vocabulary'. Zusätzlich zum Lehrbuch unterhält der Autor einen Youtube Channel mit sehenswerten Beiträgen. Fazit: So macht Lernen Spaß!

Not so helpful

Amatörmässig bok

Love the layout,very easy to understand Within days i was reading and writing,even now i see words on kdramas and kpop i understand.

Fué para regalo