Practical Korean: Your Guide to Speaking Korean Quickly and Effortlessly in a Few Hours

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0804843449 ISBN 13: 9780804843447

Publisher: Tuttle Publishing, 2013

A handy introduction to the Korean language that is concise, simple, and useful.

Much more than Korean phrasebook, Practical Korean has been written to fill a specific need: that of the hundreds of thousands of people now visiting Korea for business or holidays or even living there for a year or two, who wish to learn something of the spoken Korean language around them. The grammatical structure of Korean is particularly complicated, and difficulties plague foreign students learning Korean. Samuel E. Martin, renowned Asian language expert and professor emeritus at Yale University has simplified some of the common problems to acquaint the reader with the most useful way to say a lot of everyday things, without having to memorize long lists of grammatical rules. The compact size makes it ideal for traveling to Korea or reading on a plane, train or bus.

The sentences are almost all given in the polite (yo) style, which is both the simplest and the most widely used. From this manner, another common style—the Intimate style—is easily derived by merely dropping the final particle. From a practical point of view, this is the quickest and simplest way to put a foreigner into direct communication with Koreans, including the use of a Korean phrasebook. The student will quickly make progress learning to comprehend and speak Korean. The material is presented using the romanization method of written Korean that is officially authorized by the Korean government as well as the native Korean script (Hangeul). Practical Korean is grouped into 47 lessons that cover all the common topics of conversation, grammar and vocabulary.

About the Author:

Samuel E. Martin received his undergraduate degree and master's degree in Oriental languages from the University of California, Berkeley, and his Ph.D. in linguistics from Yale University. He is the author of numerous books and papers on Japanese and Korean, including the definitive A Reference Grammar of Japanese and A Reference Grammar of Korean.

Review:

"I have been studying this book for the last few weeks, and while I am not, by any means, fluent in Korean, I feel as if I have gained more understanding. Will you be speaking Korean quickly and effortlessly in a few hours? It depends on how well you can speak Korean before picking this gem up. If you have never uttered a word outside of 'Annyeonghaseyo', then probably not. Don't let that discourage you though! Pick up this book and see how far you can go with it." —Beyond Hallyu blog