Register  Login  Active Topics  Maps  

Still really struggling to grasp Korean.

  Tags: Korean | Difficulty
 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages Post Reply
30 messages over 4 pages: 1 2 3 4  Next >>
Po-ru
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5478 days ago

173 posts - 235 votes 
Speaks: English*, Japanese
Studies: Korean, Spanish, Norwegian, Mandarin, French

 
 Message 1 of 30
22 June 2010 at 5:51pm | IP Logged 
I have been studying Korean for about 3 months now and I have really yet to find good
materials to help me study. I have been trying to use a combination of books but so far
they have all in my opinion really sucked. I do NOT like the TYS book, I bought another
book which was written in the 1950's which seems good but has no Hangul, and other than
that I have just been using Pimsleur and the Let's Speak Korean TV series. I am
wondering if anyone can help boost me the right way because compared to other languages I
have studied, I feel there is a real lack of solid material that I can find for this
complex language.
1 person has voted this message useful



Enki
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 5831 days ago

54 posts - 133 votes 
Speaks: Arabic (Written), English*, French, Korean
Studies: Japanese

 
 Message 2 of 30
22 June 2010 at 6:11pm | IP Logged 
Your profile says you're studying Japanese as well. How good is your Japanese? You're right, Korean textbooks are pretty scarce...in English. There are many more options in Japanese.

If your reading abilities are at a decent level I can't recommend 외국인을 위한 한국어문법 enough. It's basically a grammar dictionary that explains all the major grammatical forms of Korean, with a whole lot of example sentences to learn from (an entry is roughly 3 sentences explanation, 10 sentences of examples). It's all in Korean, though.

Since Korean textbooks are so...well...bad, to be perfectly honest, I think immersion is the best way to go.

Naver.com should be your primary source of learning. Read some daily comics (comic.naver.com) and watch some Korean news with transcripts (news.naver.com) while looking up words (Korean-English, English-Korean, and Korean-Korean, with lots of example sentences!) on naver dictionary @ http://dic.naver.com/
5 persons have voted this message useful



noriyuki_nomura
Bilingual Octoglot
Senior Member
Switzerland
Joined 5338 days ago

304 posts - 465 votes 
Speaks: English*, Mandarin*, Japanese, FrenchC2, GermanC2, ItalianC1, SpanishB2, DutchB1
Studies: TurkishA1, Korean

 
 Message 3 of 30
22 June 2010 at 6:53pm | IP Logged 
Perhaps you could get those books that are targeted at Japanese learners to learn Korean, if you can already read Japanese.

I personally am using the following textbook:

http://www.amazon.co.jp/%E6%96%B0%E8%A3%85%E7%89%88-%E3%81%A 7%E3%81%8D%E3%82%8B%E9%9F%93%E5%9B%BD%E8%AA%9E-%E5%88%9D%E7% B4%9A1/dp/4872177231/ref=pd_sim_b_2

in conjunction with a Korean textbook that's targeted at Italians. Because content-wise, both books are really fantastic, whereas for CDs, the Italian version is way better.
2 persons have voted this message useful



johntm93
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5325 days ago

587 posts - 746 votes 
2 sounds
Speaks: English*
Studies: German, Spanish

 
 Message 4 of 30
22 June 2010 at 7:51pm | IP Logged 
There's an FSI Korean available.
And 3 months with a language as exotic (and plain weird) as Korean is for an English speaker isn't enough time to become really proficient with it.
I hope you can find something that works for you.
3 persons have voted this message useful



Captain Haddock
Diglot
Senior Member
Japan
kanjicabinet.tumblr.
Joined 6766 days ago

2282 posts - 2814 votes 
Speaks: English*, Japanese
Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek

 
 Message 5 of 30
23 June 2010 at 3:48am | IP Logged 
I'm using a Japanese textbook for Korean — like Enki and Noriyuki say, there is just so much more out there, and
practically all language books for Japanese speakers come with audio material as well.

Personally, I need some kind of tutor to help me through the early stages so I can attune my mouth and ears
properly to the language. Since I decided to learn some Korean a few weeks ago, I've been taking weekly lessons
from a bilingual Japanese-Korean tutor.

Korean is hard, but at least the materials intended for Japanese speakers start out by focussing on shared
vocabulary and grammatical similarities.
1 person has voted this message useful



Po-ru
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5478 days ago

173 posts - 235 votes 
Speaks: English*, Japanese
Studies: Korean, Spanish, Norwegian, Mandarin, French

 
 Message 6 of 30
23 June 2010 at 4:47am | IP Logged 
Enki wrote:
Your profile says you're studying Japanese as well. How good is your
Japanese? You're right, Korean textbooks are pretty scarce...in English. There are many
more options in Japanese.

If your reading abilities are at a decent level I can't recommend 외국인을 위한 한국어문법
enough. It's basically a grammar dictionary that explains all the major grammatical
forms of Korean, with a whole lot of example sentences to learn from (an entry is
roughly 3 sentences explanation, 10 sentences of examples). It's all in Korean, though.

Since Korean textbooks are so...well...bad, to be perfectly honest, I think immersion
is the best way to go.

Naver.com should be your primary source of learning. Read some daily comics
(comic.naver.com) and watch some Korean news with transcripts (news.naver.com) while
looking up words (Korean-English, English-Korean, and Korean-Korean, with lots of
example sentences!) on naver dictionary @ http://dic.naver.com/


Thanks for the feedback. My Japanese is probably not good enough to read a textbook to
learn another language though.

I am just wondering if those naver links are English-speaker friendly. I am also
familiar with rikaichan(or something) for Japanese which translates websites for you
from JAP -> ENG. All you do is scroll your mouse over a Japanese word and you have the
English translation right in front of you. Is there anything like that for Korean?
1 person has voted this message useful



qklilx
Moderator
United States
Joined 6184 days ago

459 posts - 477 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Korean
Personal Language Map

 
 Message 7 of 30
23 June 2010 at 7:34am | IP Logged 
Go search for the Sogang series of books and the KLEAR series. Those are easily the best two books I've used and/or looked through, and I've examined over 10 different series published in Korea and America. Survival Korean is also not bad but it's hefty because it has 3-4 books per level to be used in conjunction with each other.

You can get Sogang and KLEAR audio lessons on their respective websites for free.

The grammar manual mentioned above is published by Yonsei, I believe, and has an English version with a large workbook full of example sentence exercises to go with it. I don't recommend the book. When you're good enough at Korean that a grammar manual is useful you'll be able to scan through the Korean ones and find the one best for you. The Yonsei one leaves out some essential grammar too...
1 person has voted this message useful



str0be
Senior Member
Korea, South
Joined 5602 days ago

103 posts - 148 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Dutch, Korean

 
 Message 8 of 30
23 June 2010 at 7:41am | IP Logged 
Seogang is a little difficult for self-study, due to the lack of any English text in the books.


1 person has voted this message useful



This discussion contains 30 messages over 4 pages: 2 3 4  Next >>


Post ReplyPost New Topic Printable version Printable version

You cannot post new topics in this forum - You cannot reply to topics in this forum - You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum - You cannot create polls in this forum - You cannot vote in polls in this forum


This page was generated in 0.3750 seconds.


DHTML Menu By Milonic JavaScript
Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved
No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization.