Others say...

"Essential to Learning to Read/Write Korean"
Looking for more than an English transliteration of Korean phrases? Look no further. I must say though - GET THE WORKBOOK - it is from the same author/publisher. It's purple. It is vital.

This book provides an approach that was challenging but not so difficult that you can learn at home. I understand that most people who own it had to purchase it because it was required for a class. I unfortunately live in an area with many Koreans but with no formal classes. This book (along with the workbook) finally got me over the barrier - the language barrier - that prevented me from learning Korean. Essentially, I learned to read, write, and speak Korean through this book (and separate workbook).

Having said that, it didn't provide everything, but it laid the groundwork for me to use other sources to supplement my learning. Take the plunge - spend more than 10 bucks on a language book and buy this textbook.

"Too much useless information"
I'm Korean and bought this to brush up on my language skills. Half the book is filled with a stupid introduction that has nothing to do with the language. The remaining portion teaches things you can learn on television. This is a commercial book for people who want to have it in their bookshelf to show off. This is not a good book to learn from. They don't even have the alphabets listed together on one page that can serve as a reference for writing skills!!!!!!! If you don't have something as basic as that, the glossary in the back isn't going to help you out very much. Returned the book as an unsatisfied customer. Don't get this book - waste of time and money (lost shipping costs).

"If you want to Teach Yourself korean, this is the book!"
I'm so glad I bought this book, because I find it very complete, useful and very easy to understand. It's very well organized and not boring. Excellent introduction, with all the pronunciation rules. The Grammar is very clear and well explained. It has a list of vocabulary,loanwords, the adjectives, adverbs, conjunctions, etc, everything well organized.And it has a section about the Korean culture.At the end of the book they have a mini korean- english/ english-korean dictionary. And you can listen to the audio in real player from the website or you can go to the section of downloads of the University of hawaii and download the Mp3 audio for free!! and make an audio cd.So I'm planning to buy all the other series. If you want to teach yourself korean, this is definitively the book!.


"Very Usefull for Korean 101"
I am currently taking Korean 101 in college, and this is the textbook we are using. The textbook is very affordable and very easy to learn from. Perhaps most important is the books usefullness as a vocabular and grammar reference. Here is a short list of some of the parts of the book:

-An introduction to Korean
-An explanation of the Korean alphabet (easy to learn)
-Short sections on Korean culture
-Dialogues at the begining of each chapter and throughout the chapters
-Online audio files of each dialogue and vocabulary list
-Clearly organized vocabulary lists (by word type and subject)
-Usefull Korean to English and English to Korean dictionary
-Very usefull grammar reference at the back of the book

I found the explanations very clear, and the chapters well organized. The references are especially usefull for looking up words or grammar usage. Although there is not as much Korean culture mixed in as there is in French textbooks that I have used. I don't see this to be a problem since there is plenty more up to date cultural information online. Information about how culture influences the language is mixed in, which is important for understanding concepts like which form of speech to use (honorific, polite, etc.), as well as using "Our brother" instead of "My brother."

Additionaly and perhaps most important is the fact that no romanization is used except perhaps in the introductory chapter.

There isn't that much audio from the book online, so I would really suggest either talking with someone who knows Korean, or listening / watching something in Korean, but that's true for any language. However, vowels are really important and you're likely to mess them up if you don't have someone correct you.

My friend Leo says the cover is ugly, but I disagree.

"From an English teacher living in Korea"
Wait!....If you are actually going to go to Korea for any length of time, I would suggest getting Korean Language One instead. You can find it at any major bookstore in Korea. It's published by Seoul University (the Harvard of Korea) and costs 15.000 won, ten dollars less than the University of Hawaii book. It covers more material, and while there aren't as many explanations, the vocabulary is more applicable (the U. of Hawaii book has a lot of college-related vocabulary that isn't that useful for the rest of us.)

I didn't think that using the real files from the U. of Hawaii website was that difficult, but I have internet access at home. It would have been nice if they had made them downloadable MP3s so I could have put them on my iPod, burned them to CD, etc.

Overall, though, I agree with the other reviewers: this is the best Korean language textbook available in the United States.