Me and wanting to learn Korean

On June 09 2008 07:47 Elric_ wrote:
Hey guys, I'm learning Korean too, been at it for ~4 months (check my blog! /plugplug)

I'd really advise against Rosetta Stone (definitely do NOT buy it). It's completely overrated and useless imo if you're a complete beginner.

Instead, I'd suggest buying one of the many Korean course books published by universities. Let me explain.., quite a few big universities in Korea teach Korean to foreigners and have developed their own set of course books for this purpose (e.g. Beginner IA, IB, Intermediate 2A, 2B etc. etc.). These materials are meant to be used in a class room environment. However, they are still fully usuable for self-teaching as they all (the good ones anyway) come with an INVALUABLE audio CD.

I am currently using the Sogang University set which I recommend heartily though I haven't tried any others. As Snowbird mentioned in a blog reply, alternative university sets are sogang, korea university, kyunghee and yonsei. Your biggest problem however is which you can actually get hold of. The easiest and cheapest way, naturally, is to get your Korean friend to buy them when he goes back. Otherwise, you are looking to pay at least £25/$50 per bookset.

If you don't have any nice Koreans handy, google your nearest local language bookshop and start hunting. I've also found oriental language schools to stock these as they use them in own Korean language courses. As a last resort, shop around on the Internet for them, but I've found this method to be the most expensive as the shipping charges (books are quite heavy) are steep. Final thing, when you are buying the books, consider buying several sets at once for a possible discount (e,g, the whole beginner collection).

Hope some of this info helps. Korean-learners 화이팅!!!

On June 09 2008 08:09 Elric_ wrote:


Compared to Western languages yes. (I've studied French up to an ok standard and learning Korean has been a significantly harder process.) Compared to other Asian languages no.

Good points first:
- Korean is not a tonal language. There are no inflections in syllables which is fucking amazing for an Asian language. If you don't know what the hell I'm talking about just take it for granted that this is a Very Good Thing.
- Korean grammar is really logical. Grammar rules are pretty damn strict. When you come across "irregulars", you soon realise that they aren't really irregulars in that they are total anomalies that fit nowhere. In fact, they just follow a slightly different set of rules, making them more of a separate category.
- Pronunciation of words again is 99% regular. Its not like English where words like "although", "through", "bought" all have different sounds for the "-ough" letters. In Korean, its exactly what it says on the tin. You can therefore learn the pronunciation rules of Korean characters and then be able to pronounce every single Korean word, ever... (except you won't know its meaning of course..)
- Americanized words! Rejoice! There are actually quite a few English words that have been phonetically translated into Korean so they sound roughly the same as English! = less words to learn :D. E.g.s .. ice cream, date, sports centre, interview etc.
-Chineseesezzsed words! If you know Mandarin (or even just a little Cantonese in my case), the same thing as above applies. You will be laughing your way through some of the vocab!

Bad points:
- Sentence structure. ARGH. This is the biggest challenge. Western languages and most major Asian languages follow the order Subject-Verb-Object. However, Korean (and Japanese afaik) follow Subject-Object-Verb. Additionally, words in a sentence describing location and time must also always come at the front. No biggie you might think, just swap 'em around! However, the strict structure + medium-long sentences means that sometimes I feel like I'm trying to fit together 3 jigsaws together at the same time in my head.
- TBC.... (thats the big -ve anyway)