Let's Learn Korean - 오디오 북, 한국말로

Total words: 355

I’m starting to prepare for Korean lessons again. This coming December I’ll be enrolling at Sogang’s Korean language program - I am not sure what level I’ll be but probably lower than I would like. Anyhow I’m going to be picking up an MP3 player in the next couple of weeks and want to use it primarily for listening to Korean. I’ve looked at the bookstores but the only audio books I was able to find were in English. If anyone knows where I could find a Korean audio book I’d be very grateful. Preferably something that is at a lower level (think Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing) I don’t mean audio translations into Korean of those books, but rather original Korean stories at that level in audio book. (BTW both of the prior books are available in English audiobook format).

If I am unable to find, audio books then I’ll try listening to Korean language podcast - though I suspect that will be far too difficult. To that end, if you can help me with either solution I would be very grateful. Direct me to Korean audio books or a good Korean podcast (directory).

comment here or in the forums
adding more to the extended entry

Alternatively I would like a good text to speech voice. I’ve found several programs that do TTS and the quality of the voice is great (in English) provided you buy the premium voices. However the only Korean voice I could find is terrible, not even a native speaker could understand what was being said. Unfotunately I wouldnt’ even know what to search for in Korean so I had to conduct my search in English.

A friend of mine, picked up an mp3 player which has a firmware upgrade and does Korean text to speech, (and the quality is excellent) but there are some features of his player that are turning me off of it. I may end up getting it, if I can’t find a way to do text to speech on my computer. Any help in this area is appreciated.

Posted by 王音癡 on Tuesday Sep 20, 2005 in Resources | Discuss in the forums |

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Here are some audio books I found. The page doesn’t seem to load in Firefox, though.

http://www.kyobobook.co.kr/digital/dwshop/DwList.jsp?BKIND=DWN&CATE=09

Posted by 마익 on Thursday Sep 22, 2005 at 05:04 PM
If you look back and read “starting to prepare” I hope you see the humor.

I once made the prediction that podcasts wouldn’t be very popular in Korea. But if you see material that’s suitable for the need you’ve described here I’d be interested in learning about it so please post news of what you find. I’ve never heard of an audio book of a Korean story.

They used to read stories on the radio, and many Korean MP3 players have both FM radio and recording functions, so you could record stuff for playback later.

Posted by oranckay on Saturday Sep 24, 2005 at 10:50 AM
Ah, so I see at the linke 마익님 left 김훈‘s novel <칼의 노래> is available in WMA format. That’s the only novel I’ve seen as audio book but the story is set in Chosôn times and probably wouldn’t be very helpful in learning modern spoken Korean.

Posted by oranckay on Saturday Sep 24, 2005 at 11:50 AM
Hi 왕음치,

Here is a link to a CD set of Korean short stories:

Korean Short Stories

Posted by Gerry Bevers on Saturday Sep 24, 2005 at 02:16 PM
For some reason my above link did not work. Here is the link again:

http://www.arisuedu.co.kr/script/Pdt/PdtViewF.asp

Posted by Gerry Bevers on Saturday Sep 24, 2005 at 02:17 PM
Sorry for the previous two posts. I do not understand why the links do not work.

Posted by Gerry Bevers on Saturday Sep 24, 2005 at 02:29 PM
Oranckay,
I found several Korean podcasts by searching http://podcast.net - I’m sure there will be more at a Korean podcast portal.

Interestingly I also searched Kyobo online and found what I thought was a page of audio books, only to be told that all the books were in English even though the covers were in Korean. audio books are a niche market and it’s probably not profitable enough in Korea - though I would kill to be able to buy audio books at the grade 5-6 or middle school level.

Gerry,
I’m not sure why that happens, but sometimes the internet is inexplicable. Do you remember the title of the book? I could always search the site for that. thanks for the help.

Just in case no one noticed - I added additional info to the extended entry of the post.

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호랑이 굴에들어가야 호랑이 새끼를 잡는다

Posted by 王音癡 on Saturday Sep 24, 2005 at 02:53 PM
왕음치,

Try this link:

http://naerimallrim.com/bemarket/shop/index.php?pageurl=page_goodsdetail&uid=168

Posted by Gerry Bevers on Saturday Sep 24, 2005 at 03:19 PM
test comment

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호랑이 굴에들어가야 호랑이 새끼를 잡는다

Posted by 王音癡 on Friday Oct 28, 2005 at 03:31 PM
When I was at Kyobo, Gwanghwamun last month, at the same corner where KPT past year exams books are to be found, I bought a KBS published book with tapes for W16,000. This set seems to be meant for Koreans to perfect pronunciation.

For all time fave TTS site is http://www.voiceware.co.kr

Posted by HuangSY on Thursday Nov 10, 2005 at 10:53 AM