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Anyone read Stephen Revere’s Korean book? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| IronFist Senior Member United States Joined 6436 days ago 663 posts - 941 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 1 of 37 27 January 2010 at 1:47am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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(man I wish titles could be longer here, I couldn't even fit "has anyone read stephen revere's Korean book).
Anyway. This guy was one of the hosts on that Airirang show about How to Speak Korean years ago in Korea (vids on youtube). This guy is white and AFAIK is fluent in Korean, which is admirable since Korean is a tough language. I see he has a book out and I was wondering how it is. It's not available on Amazon (one used copy for like $90) but you can get it elsewhere. Is it a decent book or is it craptastic like 99% of the other Korean books out there? Also, can anyone recommend any Korean books that are written by Americans? I want a book that is specifically designed for the unique challenges faced by Americas trying to learn this language, such as "hey, I understand it's impossible to hear the difference between k, kk, and k'. Let me tell you about my struggles learning them and how I was finally able to master it" rather than the horrible, two-second description that normally accompanies them. Also, hearing that one is a "non voiced allovelar fricative" and another is a "semi-voiced aspirate whatever" (I just made those descriptions up, but the actual descriptions are something like those) doesn't help, because I, like 99.9% of other language learners out there, have no idea what any of those adjectives mean. I'm sure there are some people out there who can read such a description and go "oh, I know exactly how to pronounce that!!!!!" but I have no clue what it means. I also found it comical that language books included those descriptions, yet didn't define them. It's like using jargon without defining it first. It doesn't help anyone. Wow I kinda got off topic here. Cliffs Notes: 1) Has anyone read Stephen Revere's book? Is that guy the real deal? 2) Are there any Korean books written specifically from the standpoint of specifically teaching English speakers rather than just being general and non-specific (an approach which works with some languages but not Korean)? Thanks! Edited by IronFist on 27 January 2010 at 1:48am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| unzum Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom soyouwanttolearnalan Joined 6913 days ago 371 posts - 478 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Mandarin | Message 2 of 37 27 January 2010 at 4:06am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Roadmap to Korean might be what you're looking for, though I haven't actually read it.
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| Warp3 Senior Member United States forum_posts.asp?TID= Joined 5534 days ago 1419 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Korean, Japanese | Message 3 of 37 27 January 2010 at 4:30pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Interesting timing as I just ordered both "Survival Korean" and "Survival Korean Basic Grammar" (both of which include audio CDs with native speaker audio) from hanbooks.com yesterday. My assumption is that if he can keep the grammar explanations interesting in Let's Speak Korean (the name of the Arirang TV show I believe you are actually referencing above), he can hopefully do the same in book form.
As for pronunciation, I've seen some good recommendations for "Sounds of Korean" by University of Hawaii Press, so I've got that on the way from Amazon (also ordered yesterday). Not only does it include an audio CD with native speakers, but the explanations in the book are supposedly very in-depth covering mouth shape, tongue position, etc. for each sound. (If you are wondering about the timing of my Korean material purchasing yesterday, it's because I'm about to finish Pimsleur Korean II and need something else to move onto afterward.) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| IronFist Senior Member United States Joined 6436 days ago 663 posts - 941 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 4 of 37 27 January 2010 at 6:46pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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^ Please let me know how the books are when you get them (bump this thread or PM me... or both!)
What did you think about Pimsleur Korean II? I remember back in the day (10 years ago) I got the 10 lesson course of Pimsleur Korean (it was all they had at the time) and it was horrible. It was super formal and didn't sound like any Korean I had ever heard on Korean TV (which I watched every day). So I was like, alright, this is useless... Then I got the new 30 lesson Pimsleur Korean I a few years ago and, much to my surprise, it was completely redone and sounded exactly like the Korean I heard on TV. I ended up never finishing it, though, because I was getting annoyed at the language because even the same word would sound different to me each time it was said. "NalSsi" (weather) sounded like "dal-shi" half the time. "Mot" (as in "mot-hae-yo") sounded like "boot" (like what English speakers wear on their feet in the winter) half the time. I couldn't understand them and I sure couldn't remember how to write any of it (contrast with Japanese where after you hear the word once you know exactly how to write it). But recently I got the itch again to try and learn Korean again, so I want to approach it differently this time. That's been the story of my life for the last 10 years: Get super motivated to learn Korean --> Study it hardcore --> realize that I have no idea what they are saying --> get discouraged --> quit --> a few months go by --> start over again --> repeat I feel like somewhere out there is a book written by someone who experienced the same problems that I am experiencing and that when I find it and read it, finally the lightbulb will go on in my head and it will click and then I'll be able to progress with Korean as quickly as I can with Japanese. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Warp3 Senior Member United States forum_posts.asp?TID= Joined 5534 days ago 1419 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Korean, Japanese | Message 5 of 37 27 January 2010 at 8:22pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Survival Korean Series: Will do. :)
Pimsleur Korean / Pronunciation: Overall, I liked it. It's an odd experience to start out learning a language with a program like that and then find that you have better listening comprehension than reading comprehension when you are done. It's a bit odd to sound out a Korean word you don't recognize at all only to realize you do already know the word once you vocalize it. However, I'm glad I started with an audio-only, inferred grammar course, though, since now the textbooks should help all that existing word pattern data click into place (which I've already noticed quite a bit from looking up a few basic grammar concepts online). Regarding the speech levels, most of the phrases are in the "~yo" speech level for all 60 lessons, though some more formal phrases are still in the "~mnida / ~mnikka" speech levels instead, like greetings, introductions, apologies, thank-yous, etc. Some of those also get taught in both speech levels. For example, initially "~su isseumnikka" / "~su isseumnida" are taught as the "can you" / "i can" forms, but later during Korean II they switch to using the more common "~su isseoyo" for both instead. For what is worth, both native speakers are different in lessons 31-60. The guy sounds about the same as the other guy, just a bit deeper voiced. The woman sounds notably different, though, and she doesn't seem to have some of those odd pronunciation quirks that annoyed me about the first one. However, many of the pronunciation issues you note seem to be more quirks of the language rather than person-specific. I never really heard "nal-shi" for weather in Pimsleur, but did initially mishear "nugu" (who) as "dugu" and several times I've heard native speakers say "ne" (yes) more like "de" instead. I also did hear "boot-hae-yo" for "mot-hae-yo", "bood-eul" for "mur-eul" (water with an object particle), etc. However, after listening more closely and trying to emulate the sound, they almost seem to be dull nasal Ns and Ms rather than actual Ds and Bs (think N and M but with a head cold). As for the the consonants that sound similar, I'm getting better at those after more exposure, but they are still tricky. Hopefully the "Sounds of Korean" book/CD will help with that issue. Edited by Warp3 on 27 January 2010 at 8:25pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| IronFist Senior Member United States Joined 6436 days ago 663 posts - 941 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 6 of 37 27 January 2010 at 10:25pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I thought the word for "who" was "dugu" for a few months just from watching Korean TV before I ever started studying it. I remember reading it in a book and thinking it was a typo. "No, what is this 'nugu' stuff? The word for 'who' is 'dugu!' I know because I hear it 10 times a day on Korean TV shows!"
Same here.
That reminds me of a poster I saw once when I was a teenager. It was for some cold remedy or something, and it had a picture of a kid with a red nose on it (red from wiping it all day cuz it was runny, I guess), and the caption said "Bom, I tink I have a code." ("mom, i think i have a cold" said with a stuffy nose). I had never thought of that before, but when you mentioned the cold thing it reminded me of that. Maybe Koreans perpetually have colds!!!
Yeah, I'm definitely interested in hear your review of that book. In my experience, almost everything in Korean seems to be slurred together or somehow shortened or otherwise not pronounced how it is actually written. Although maybe it's just my American ears being unable to distinguish between 24 different vowels. For example, I have an .mp3 of a song called "느껴봐" that distinctly sounds to me like "neu-kyeo-ba" (instead of -bwa"). And I'm not even going to touch that middle cluster, "kkyeo", because it sounds the same to me as "kyeo" and "k'yeo" do. In fact, I've just made a rule in my head that, in Korean music, whenever I hear a line end with "ba" they're actually saying "봐". (i've yet to learn what that ending actually means, however, but I hear it all the time, including a phrase that sounds something like "sen-gak hae-ba" which means it's probably actually "sen-gak hae-bwa." I've wondered if Koreans would understand you if you said "de" instead of "ne" or whatever. I hear, however, that it's very common in Korean for native speakers to not understand you despite multiple attempts at saying the word, until you actually write the word down and show them. Unfortunately, the few native speakers with whom I've discussed the language have been way too enthusiastic about the fact that I was studying Korean and were too busy being excited to actually correct me. Either that or my pronunciation is actually perfect and there was nothing to correct (joking... I guarantee you this isn't the case)! Many of them also weren't strong enough in English for me to be able to explain to them what my question was. I remember trying to ask one woman what the informal word for "you" was, like the 2nd person version of "na", but she didn't understand what I was asking, and kept saying "no, just call me Mrs. Lee! Or you can call me ji-soo!" I couldn't explain that I wasn't asking her how I should specifically refer to her, but in general what the informal version of the word "you" is. Edited by IronFist on 27 January 2010 at 10:27pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Yukamina Senior Member Canada Joined 6263 days ago 281 posts - 332 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean, French | Message 7 of 37 27 January 2010 at 10:52pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
That's the conclusion I've come to as well. If you try to say M's and N's without breathing through your nose, it comes out muffled and sounding kind of like B and D. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| IronFist Senior Member United States Joined 6436 days ago 663 posts - 941 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 8 of 37 28 January 2010 at 12:37am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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*pinches nose and says "muh", "nuh"*
Hey, you're kind of right! Now how do I do that *without* pinching my nose? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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