This book is for any level of Korean language learner who can read and pronounce Hangul.
This is not a textbook in the usual sense. It is really more of a practice and example book. There are no "lessons" lain out for you.
These are practice conversations for you to get exposure to the way normal, comfortable conversations occur, and while there are of course a number of ways to translate or say the same thing in any language, the examples chosen are done so in a way to narrow down those choices.
Each conversation is intended to be both practical and interesting to help you to more easily remember the vocabulary. You will also see several short phrases that are repeated throughout various conversations. This will also help you through repetition to learn those phrases more easily by seeing them in context.
Each conversation is between two people who presumably know each other fairly well. This is important to keep in mind for context and for the levels of politeness either used or implied.
You will not find a lot of notes or explanations for several reasons. The main reasons being that by looking at the conversations and the translations you should be able to figure out on your own which parts go together, and the more of this connecting and figuring out you do on your own the easier it will be for you both to acquire the language and to remember it.
This also allows you to work at this at many different levels and at the levels that suit or interest you. For example, you might see some parts as simply being useful vocabulary or expressions, while someone else might notice that the sentence structure can be used for other instances by doing simple replacing of either the noun or the verb stem. You might also find that going over the conversations and memorizing them is great for you when you are a beginner, but as you progress, revisiting the conversations and digging deeper into the sentence structures can help you to expand your ability to communicate even more.
Allen Williams was born and raised in the United States. He graduated from Murray State University with a Bachelors in Broadcast and a Masters in American Literature. He then earned a PhD while living and working in South Korea. He is the author of several textbooks for English language learning as well as for learning Korean. After spending 6 years in Korea, he moved to Japan where he lives with his wife and two sons and teaches at university.
Sulseob Jo was born and raised in South Korea. She graduated from university in South Korea with an undergraduate degree in Chinese characters. She then moved to Japan to study at Nagoya University where she earned a Masters and a PhD in Chinese literature. She is a professor teaching a wide range of subjects from Korean language to Chinese literature as well as Asian culture. She is the author of several books on learning Korean language. She and her husband live in Japan with their two sons.
