Product Description

Korean Basics Made Easy--and Fun!

Studying Korean is intimidating. Not only do you face the usual challenges of learning a new language--vocabulary, grammar, verb tenses--but you also have to learn a non-Roman alphabet. To help you master the language, Read & Speak Korean for Beginners entertains you while you learn, lessening the anxiety of a new script and increasing your confidence in your language skills.

This program teaches you basic vocabulary and explains sentence structures for eight key areas of everyday life--introducing yourself, saying where you're from, asking what things are, asking where things are located, describing objects and people, asking how to get around, talking about your family, and describing what you do. The accompanying CD features all the key words and phrases so you can hear how they are pronounced and repeat them after the speaker.

Inside you will find:

• Clear explanations of how to use basic phrases in everyday conversations
• Entertaining activities, games, and puzzles with which to check your progress
• Illustrated flash cards to help you memorize key phrases
• Listening exercises and audio games on the CD to further reinforce your comprehension

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #17735 in Books
• Published on: 2008-02-29
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 96 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780071544405
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

About the Author

Jane Wightwick is a highly experienced author and product developer in the field of foreign languages.

Sunjeong Shin is an experienced teacher of Korean to all ages.

Customer Reviews

Fun and easy but the CD doesn't flow
I absolutely love McGraw Hill's Read and Speak --- for Beginners series. It provides a reassuringly simple introduction to some of the more difficult languages for English speakers to learn.

To anyone not familiar with the series, here is what you get: A book of games, puzzles, light grammar and useful vocabulary with a CD to help with pronunciation. You will not be fluent after finishing but you eill have some excellent knowledge under your belt and confidence to move on.

The Korean entry into the series follows these lines. The book has a very brief section on the Korean alphabet (hangul) in the back but there are dozens of resources available online to quickly learn this easy script. The rest of the book is written in hangul with tranliterations to the side.

I can easily recommend this book to anyone tackling the admittedly challenging Korean language. It gives the bare basics and some of the exercises reminded me of first grade but it will give a solid foundation. I do, however, have one caveat.

The enclosed CD features native Korean speakers (their accents when speaking English are very charming) but they speak very.very.slowly. Each.syllable.sounded.out.

Now, if you have heard Korean, you know that the language flows, almost to the point of slurring sounds together. While the slow pace of the speakers is good for hearing the pure sounds of the language, it will not show you how Korean ACTUALLY sounds. The speakers do speed up slightly later in the CD and I suggest listening ahead if you are not sure how the language sounds. Or better, tune into a K-Drama.

In spite of this problem, I think this set is a good investment. It is affordable and is good for those days when a language learner just can't face the grammar books. It would be pretty useless to anyone who knows the basics already but any beginner can benefit from its easy pace and activities.

The best place to start Korean is with this book
This book is simple to understand and straightforward in its approach to teaching Korean. The authors' choice of vocabulary and game building exercises are enjoyable and also achieve the aim of being memorable. Unlike the dozens of mindless repetition-based books, this book teaches you how to build thousands of sentences from a handful of key words. I study from five Korean books, and this is the only book where all terms and sentences are fully translated.

Highly recommended++

Great crash course
A very very good starting place. This on top of online tutorials will get you going pretty quick. Haven't really used the audio CD yet, but I'm about 3/4 of the way through the book and I feel its been really worthwhile.