Basic Korean: A Grammar and Workbook (Grammar Workbooks) 1st Edition

tl;dr : This is a SUPPLEMENTARY text for the serious learner. Do NOT buy this as your only resource or if you're an ABSOLUTE BEGINNER. Yes, it's called "Basic Korean", but that's not the same as "Beginner Korean". That said, as a supplementary text in combination with other resources, this is a GREAT book that will make a HUGE difference in your learning. I cannot recommend it enough. If you've already learned Hangul and know some basic Korean, this is an ESSENTIAL text.Review: I've tried a number of resources while learning Korean, and this books is one of the best I've come across. However, it's not the best text for someone just starting out. Rather, it's a great supplementary text to other materials or books such. I was using Integrated Korean prior to purchasing this book, and although I like this book a lot more, it's not enough by itself.Strengths:The first strength of this book is the key it has for the exercises. Unlike a lot of books, Basic Korean wasn't designed for the classroom, but instead as a really dense, concise grammar guide that puts a lot of the work on the learner. The answers to the exercises not only reinforce your study, but they keep you from making common mistakes. This might not seem like a big deal if you haven't used other texts that don't have keys, but it really makes a huge difference.Another strength is that it doesn't try to be easy. Learning a language is hard, you have to really dedicate time and effort, and this book expects that from you. Rather than easing you through a dozen vocab words at a time, almost every chapter throws a lot of grammar and vocab at you which you have to memorize before going on to the exercises. You have to dedicate a lot of time to only a few pages. It's grammar. Grammar is the backbone of language, and it's the stuff you have to just straight up memorize. The slow pace can be frustrating, but serious learners will find the amount of information to really improve their knowledge.The way the vocabulary is structured is, to me, the greatest strength of the book. The author uses compound words that reinforce one another. If you're paying attention, you'll see the pattern in the vocab presented, and that makes it MUCH easier to learn. When you see a few words that cover similar ideas share similar elements, you'll be able to guess that a new word containing those elements has something to do with that same idea. For example a word containing 학 will most likely be about learning, school, etc.. Rather than dealing merely with vocab words which all link to a theme, such as "Now let's go to the bookstore!" in Integrated Korean, this book presents vocab words which all link to EACH OTHER. One of the things I love about Korean, and probably the most beautiful aspect of it, is the Sino-Korean roots of the words. This book emphasizes that and uses it as a tool to make learning easier and bring out the beauty of the language.Weaknesses:There's no guide to pronunciation. This is the main reason you need other resources to learn. Written Korean is an entirely different ball game than spoken, and you simply cannot learn to understand or pronounce the words by just reading them, no matter how well you know the sounds of the characters. Intonation is a huge part of the language. So you must reinforce what you learn with other resources, such as other books with audio like Integrated Korean.By FAR my biggest complaint with this text is the number of times it asks you to convert English names into Hangul. It totally interrupts the rhythm of the language and you end up having to flip through the text just to figure out how to write "James". Also, from time to time it uses vocabulary that you haven't learned yet (for example, a word in an exercise for chapter 6 isn't defined until chapter 7). But nothing, NOTHING is as frustrating as the English-to-Hangul transliteration of names. Transliterating loan words is important (there are a lot of them in Korean and they're used very frequently) but transliterating names is such a chore. It's the only thing about the book that I really am bothered by.Finally, there's no vocabulary index at the back of the book as is the case with most texts, forcing you to flip through pages if you can't remember a word you were supposed to have learned in an earlier chapter. But if you're a serious student you should already have a dictionary of some kind on hand, so it's not too big of a deal.Overall I think this book is one of the best texts for independently learning Korean, but not a standalone text at all. The price tag is also kinda high for how short it is, but it's very dense and has as much if not more grammar than Integrated Korean Beginner 1 and 2 combined. I highly recommend this book for the serious learner. It will really help reinforce and clarify grammar, and make learning through other resources much easier.I gave it a 5/5 as a supplementary text. It's not meant to be a standalone text, so if you're looking to purchase one, look elsewhere (Integrated Korean is best, in my opinion).

I enjoy Routledge publications for their academic, yet still practical explanations of different languages. I have read their advanced Mandarin Chinese grammar book as well and am very pleased with the level of detail and usefulness of their examples. The book includes grammar exercises for each chapter and vocabulary lists. I highly recommend pairing this book with the website How To Study Korean dot com. This book gets you started right away with proper grammar and practical vocabulary. It is not set up like the average Rosetta Stone, Berlitz, or Pimsleur book that teaches you greetings, then family members, and such and such categories of words. The book teaches grammar, just like an English grammar book from grade school. Find another source for a learning schedule and more extensive vocabulary. I am only approximately a month into learning Korean for two hours a day and always keep this book nearby when learning new phrases and words from other sources. I'll probably post another update later down the road when I'm ready to advance to the intermediate grammar publication from Routledge. Always happy to answer questions about this book. 화이팅!

I've been casually studying Korean for a while, but I thought I'd get serious about it. I purchased this book and I'm very happy with it. The first section of the book teaches you how to read Hangul, and then delves into grammar and vocabulary afterward. Though I would recommend using this book as more of a reference book and not completely rely on it for all your Korean learning. Always incorporate other methods and resources into your language learning.The book is very thorough, though almost too thorough. A lot of the exercises are repetitive and have you do the same thing over and over again. But this is good for anyone who likes to dive deep into each section, spending a lot of time on the rule they were just taught. I'm more of a person who goes through all sections and constantly revisits them.Also the vocabulary words seems random at times. I wish it was a little more categorized or organized, like food vocabulary, household objects vocabulary, etc. One sections key vocabulary includes words such as: dog, eggs, rubber, door, needle, room, bakery, wild edible greens, fan, music, nosebleed, migratory bird, needle, seaside, and so forth... like I said, random!The book is also falling apart on me! I've only had it for a while and the pages keep coming out and I keep having to tape them back in. I wish the binding was better. I've had to tape it three times already.Other than these things, I recommend the book very much for beginners. It's really been able to help me grasp Korean grammar, which can be very confusing and different for an English speaker. These two languages are very different, but this book has helped me a lot.

I lived in Korea for three years and mostly self studied. This was one of my absolute favorite books for studying Korean. I had several Korean books, and I felt like this was the most clear/concise when I was learning basic Korean grammar. While not all of the vocabulary words are instantly useful, I benefited from all of the exposure. cannot commend this book enough. It's not something to 'fly' through; I spent time memorizing the vocabulary and practicing the grammar of each chapter before moving on to the next.

I am so pleased with this workbook. Trying to learn a new language is difficult, so the more resources you can find, the better. I had been looking for a better way to practice my grammar than what is normally in beginner books and this one really filled that void. I wish there were more good workbooks available like this one, or that more basic/beginner Korean books had more written exercises in a format similar to what this offers. I will definitely purchase the Intermediate workbook when the time comes.

Livre reçu rapidement. Très bon livre d'exercices de grammaire pour maîtriser les règles élémentaires du Coréen. Je cherchais un livre pour apprendre la grammaire sans romanisation j'ai trouvé mon bonheur. Je le recommande!

El aprendizje del coreano a través de manuales es muy complejo. De todos los libros que he comprobado y analizado, casi ninguno consigue sustituir a un profesor de verdad. Este libro es de los más mediocres. No lo recomiendo.

Interesting clear and very helpful. This is my third language and this book is exactly what is needed to get to grips with sentence structure, and conjugation.

Ich habe mit dem Buch Pons - Power Koreanisch angefangen koreanisch zu lernen und mir dann als Ergänzung dieses Buch gekauft. Ich habe es nicht bereut. Die Grammatik ist in einfachen und verständlichen Sätzen erklärt. Die Übungen sind abwechslungsreich und sinnvoll und die Kapitelgestaltung übersichtlich und in logischer Reihenfolge.Nur mit diesem Buch hätte ich z.B. die Aussprache nicht erlernen können, denn diese ist nur sehr kurz und nicht sehr anschaulich beschreiben. Alles andere hat aber ein dickes Lob verdient.Wer also ein deutsches Arbeitsbuch hat und sich mit einem ausführlichen, zusätzlichen Buch ausstatten möchte um die Grammatik zu erlernen, liegt hier genau richtig.

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