Product Description
Roadmap to Korean is the most complete and thorough introduction to the Korean language of its kind. A sweeping journey through thousands of years of history, the book is an essential study guide for students of the language, from novices just beginning their studies to the most advanced learner. Roadmap to Korean is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the country and its people on a more intimate level. By revealing fascinating insights through easy-… More >>
I realize this is not supposed to be a listserv forum and that these are reviews. But, I am wondering whether anyone has come across any books or software that offer clearer explanations of the differences between and uses of the old and new Romanization systems. Has anyone used the EuroTalk Interactive software that is available on the Mac X and Microsoft Windows XP operating systems?
Rating: 3 / 5
First, I want to say that for me personaly, Korean is a hard language to learn. I am the type of person that needs to know the WHYs and not just the HOWs of learning something. This can very, very hard with languages sometimes…Think about it, as a native english speaker, do you know everything about the english language? Can you recite every rule of the english language, spell every word correctly, etc? NO. Neither can I, but I can speak english fluently…SO, when I ask my Korean friends for help, it is the same with them. They don’t always understand WHY something is the way it is, they just know it has to be that way. The author of this book did the research for us and provided answers to many questions that I personally had.
This is where “ROADMAP to Korean” comes in. This book will not TEACH you Korean. What it will do is add the extra SPICE and answer many WHYs that you might be searching for. It will explain things that my Korean friends don’t fully understand and it is all done from the perspective of a native english speaker who struggled to learn the language.
My close Korean friend is studying to be a teacher and she was really impressed with this book…If you are looking for a TEXT book, go somewhere else…if you are looking for a companion to your text book, BUY THIS BOOK!!!
Rating: 4 / 5
This book has a lot of good information that will probably be helpful in learning Korean, but if you are looking for in depth explanations of grammar systematically, this is not the book for you. I suggest you find a book used in a classroom. The author gives lots of insight into the culture and history of the language and points out a few of the barriers that he had to overcome, but all in all, this book did not help me actually work with the language. He explains the problems that you will have, but he does not actually introduce the grammatical conundrums that bring about those problems. If you have a grammar book to go along this one, that might be a winning couple, but I do want people to know the limitations of this book. It is not a systematic and comprehensive Korean Grammar. You’ll have to find that somewhere else.
Rating: 2 / 5
As a beginner in Korean, I was looking for something more than a dictionary, but with the understanding of an English
speaking person who has learned Korean. This is it! Richard Harris explains the joys and pitfalls of learning
Korean in an entertaining way. It’s just shy of having a conversation with the author. Very enjoyable learning
experience!
Rating: 5 / 5
This book gives tons of great advice on how to learn Korean. If it were up to me, it would be standard issue for students studying Korean at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, CA.
Rating: 5 / 5