Let's Learn Korean

Sunday, October 30, 2005

Total words: 118

This is not well adapt as a textbook, but it is excellent as a quick reference guide to Korean grammar. It does an especially good job at highlighting a large number of particles, verb endings, conjunctions, and as well as other intricacies of Korean grammar such honorifics, post-modifiers, etc. All of the entries are accompanied by thorough and diverse examples all in Hangeul (thankfully no Romanization) with very good English translations.

Friday, June 17, 2005

Total words: 16

王音癡

사린미소 has posted a review of what appears to be a Korean-Korean dictionary. Check it out.

Posted by 王音癡 on Friday Jun 17, 2005 at 10:14 AM in Books |
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Thursday, June 16, 2005

Total words: 78

王音癡

David is coming to Korea and would like some advice on what books to purchase before arriving to help him learn Korean. The details to his question can be found in a comment on my EFL Geek blog: this entry. You can leave advice for him there or here, though he has told me he won’t be joining this blog until he feels a little stronger in his, currently non-existant, Korean skills.

Thanks for your helping him out.

Posted by 王音癡 on Thursday Jun 16, 2005 at 08:57 AM in META | Resources | Books |
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Wednesday, April 27, 2005

Total words: 136

王音癡

I just found out that Making out in Korean has been released again but this time instead of having only really crappy romanization it now has 한글 as well. I picked up this book my first year in Korea (1997) and found it interesting, though difficult to read because of the romanization.

Why do so many publishers insist on romanization for learning resources? Especially with Korean, it is so easy to learn how to read/write that it is unnecessary. And anyone who is going to want to or be able to use a book like this will be able to read Korean anyhow.

I wouldn’t recommend this as a serious resource for learning Korean, but it is definately something fun and you will learn some new vocabulary - some of it definately not usable in public.

Posted by 王音癡 on Wednesday Apr 27, 2005 at 09:23 PM in Books |
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Tuesday, April 05, 2005

Total words: 253

ㄴㅇㄷㅇ ㅠㅇㅜㅌ

Reading a post on The Miseducation of Si-jo a while back, I came across a book with a title that caught my eye: Learn Hanja the Fun Way.

I picked up the book about a month ago at 교보 in 강남, and it’s now taken first place as the most useable Korean/Hanja book I’ve ever had. I love the fact that it doesn’t treat me like an absolute idiot that couldn’t spend the hour it took to learn 한글, so there’s not a bit of romanization (thank GOD~!!). The biggest thing that drives me crazy about Korean study books is the mind-numbing romanziations I have to sift through (how do you say pet-peeve in Korean?). Anyway, this book requires a decent level of Korean language ability to complete the exercises , basically paragraphs written in both 한글 and 한자. I’ve found that there are only about 5 or 6 words or constructions in each paragraph that I don’t already know well, so I just mark those and figure them out easily through the translation (that I cover while I’m reading the 한글/한자 version). It makes for a really good review of the 한글 I know, and the feeling of satisfaction I get from understanding a paragraph written in two different countries’ characters (which a year and a half ago, I didn’t know a bit of) is amazing.

Learn Hanja the Fun Way: 12,600원
Pink highlighter to mark the words I don’t understand: 300원
Understanding a paragraph written in mixed 한글 and 한자: priceless

Posted by ㄴㅇㄷㅇ ㅠㅇㅜㅌ on Tuesday Apr 5, 2005 at 01:19 PM in Books | Hanja 한자 |
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Sunday, February 13, 2005

Total words: 121

tanstaafl

Has anyone used ‘(A Historical Literary and Cultural) Approach to the Korean Language’ by Alexander Arguelles and Jong-Rok Kim? Not sure how to put up a nifty pic of the book. I purchased it the other day. For a complete beginner, it would move too fast, but I think it will be useful for someone at my level (marginally above beginner) to see the grammar I am kinda familiar with (or not so familiar with but within my grasp now i think) used to discuss interesting topics. If anyone has a copy or gets one quickly I would be interested in some kind of parallel study, discussing chapters/points of interests/whatever. I plan to move through it rapidly, 3-4 weeks at most.

Posted by tanstaafl on Sunday Feb 13, 2005 at 02:10 PM in Resources | Books |
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Monday, December 20, 2004

Total words: 546

ㄴㅇㄷㅇ ㅠㅇㅜㅌ

I picked this book up at 교보 about a week and a half ago, and I absolutely love it~!!
I know I’m crazy, and I too make weird faces at those people who say they like to read the dictionary just for fun; ......however, although it’s just like a dictionary, this one’s simply fun for me to read.
What I love about it is that it makes connections between words - not just random vocabulary. It must have something to do with the whole hitting more than one part of the brain at a time stuff, but in any case, for me connections just make the world a more interesting place.

Another thing I like about it is that it’s missing all the wordy useless frills that most Korean study books have. I find them somewhat interesting (much more interesting than the stuff you should learn), so I spend all my time on the frills and get through the book without learning anything. This one is just straight-forward words.
I strongly suggest this book for anyone beyond the absolute beginner phase, especially people living in Korea. You most likely won’t find yourself riding the bus and pulling this one out for fun (like I did last weekend), but in any case, it’s worth the money~
Don’t take my word for it - check out the rave reviews on Amazon.com~

Dibs to Ozzie for telling me about this one in a comment~ ^^

Here’s a clip from Ozzie’s comment:

There is a book titled :

“Handbook of Korean Vocabulary” - A resource for word recognition and comprehension. Written by Mihn Choo & William O’Grady and published by University of Hawaii Press.

This book is not a dictionary, but a ‘root’ dictionary, in that it sets out common Hanja (listed in 한글 alphabetical order) and then expands each one to show the way various common words are constructed using that Hanja ... if that makes sense

The good thing is that you don’t have to learn Hanja to use it. In short, it can help take out some of the rote memorisation of vocab - because as you see for yourself how many of the words are formed, you can remember them a lot more easily. Also, because you learn multiple words at once, it can increase your vocab pretty quickly.

There is also a seperate section with Native Korean Origin Roots.

an example from the book :

root 고 (高) high
최고 - the highest; the best (최 - 最 the most)
고급 - high quality; advanced level (급 - 級 grade)
고등 - high; advanced (등 - 等 grade) eg 고등학교 -
high school
고층 - a high rise (층 - 層 story) eg 고층건물 - high rise building
고속 - high speed (속 - 速 speed) eg 고속도로 - freeway; 고속버스 - express bus
고온 - high temperature (온 - 溫 temp)
고기압 - high atmospheric temp (기압 - 氣壓 atmospheric temp)
고혈압 - high blood pressure (혈압 - 血壓 blood pressure)
잔고 - the balance (in an account) (잔 - 殘 remainder)
etc ...

If you are interested - and I do think it is a great resource, it’s available at 교보문고 for 13,000원 - it’s easy to spot with a bright blue/red cover.