Korean Made Simple: A beginner's guide to learning the Korean language: 1

Having recently decided to learn Korean myself and checking out a number of online resources, none of which seemed to give me what I was looking for, I came across the Go Billy Korean YouTube series and began watching them - obviously taking Billy's advice and first concentrating on learning Hangul. I have to say, the way it was explained and taught made the experience a pleasure rather than a challenge. I decided to buy this book since it does accompany the video series and I have always preferred to learn from a text book - which is extremely difficult when it comes to languages. Having the short videos online and the book made it so much easier - and Billy's own website contains free audio files for each of his books that can be downloaded so that readers of the book will always be able to hear the correct pronunciation. At first, Hangul (the Korean writing system) looks really complicated, almost like trying to transcribe some script from the side of an alien space ship! But following the early part of this book slowly, practicing every character many times, ensuring each character is written with the correct stroke order, it all actually makes a lot of sense. I have to admit that I was amazed. Okay, learning any language takes time, patience and a huge amount of effort, and having to first learn a totally new writing system adds to that, but Billy really does take his readers by the hand and guides them one small step at a time. Although I had expected to try and learn Korean, having to learn Hangul first did come as a big surprise but I am thoroughly enjoying it and, thanks to Billy's guidance, I know that without learning Hangul any later progress on actually learning the language and vocabulary would be greatly hindered. Although I have only been working for a few weeks (both book and online video content), and although Hangul can seem confusing, I am persevering because each day I realise I have remembered more from earlier study sessions - all a bit like building a house, it has to be done one brick at a time. This is a large format book, beautifully printed, plenty of white space on each page so there is no mass of text to plough through. Okay, the Hangul is often printed quite small on a line when it has to be matched up with English but, on the whole, there is no problem. Korean Made Simple is a funny title because nothing new is ever simple to learn, but this book is so interesting, so well-written, that it is a pleasure to pick up and work through, even if often I can only manage 2 pages (a lot of time at the moment I spend writing out the characters and syllables, but that is essential no matter what language you try to learn). This is the first in a series of three, designed for the complete beginner - hence the large portion on learning Hangul right from the start. Don't let that put you off, it is explained perfectly and only takes practice and repetition to get the different writing style into your head. I shall certainly (hopefully) continue with this book and the online videos. The author has made the whole experience highly enjoyable, not like learning at all provided you are happy to keep practicing and writing out the characters and syllables (which is actually quite easy once you get going). There is a Workbook associated with this volume which I will likely get as a good revision aid once I proceed further. There are also 2 other books (along with their workbooks) in the series which should, if a learner has given good study time, should be sufficient to bring someone up to intermediate level Korean. Perhaps not the cheapest of language books to buy but it is definitely worth every penny and I can fully recommend this series to anyone with an interest in Korea, the language, Korean culture and history.

I’m usually too lazy to write reviews but I felt compelled to for this one. I love this book. Korean is not an easy language to learn but Billy has a rare gift as a teacher to be able to make it reasonably straightforward and easy to follow. I’ve been leaning Korean for about 9 months with TTMIK and I’m about halfway through level 3, using both the grammar books and the workbooks. These also are very good, but I find it a bit dry sometimes and just don’t feel motivated to work through a chapter. It also has weird difficulty spikes where the exercises for one lesson are way too hard. With this book I’ve gone back to the beginning) though I already knew how to write) and it’s so well explained and the practice exercises are so appropriate for my level that my motivation has come back. I love how much vocabulary is introduced and then summarised and there is a lot of subsidiary information in the appendices that is very useful. Just brilliant. 10/10 would recommend.

I’ve been learning Korean for about four months now, using various free and paid apps, online resources, K-Dramas, BTS songs, you name it! But what interested me more was knowing the grammar and WHY things are done a certain way as a lot of these free apps don’t go into explanation as to why you would use 는 instead of 은 and how important honorifics are. I needed to know more and having some sort of textbook like the ones you used to learn languages in school was something I really wanted for my study. I did a bit of research and came across this book which I like for various reasons. 1. It explains why you are doing something. 2. It explains formality levels and when to use them. 3. Has information about Korea itself and its culture. 4. It has an answer key! You wouldn’t believe how many reviews for other books complained about it with other textbooks. What is the point in learning if you have no idea if you’re doing it correctly! 5. Lastly, it gets me away from using romanisation as a crutch. Native Koreans don’t use it so we probably shouldn't either and it can be a bit confusing as the words don’t sound out phonetically in english. All in all, I’m very happy with this book so far. I feel it’s good for all difficulty levels, even if you have an intermediate knowledge of korean, it’s good to brush up and there’s some good tips in there too.

I LOVE this book and it has been extremely helpful for me learning Korean, but it has one small problem - at the end of every chapter is an extensive list of relevant vocabulary, which is of course extremely useful, HOWEVER there are no accompanying audio files for us beginners to learn the accurate pronunciation of these words! Korean pronunciation is vastly different from English and there are often sound changes within words whose rules I frequently fail to remember properly! This makes audio files a real necessity for us beginners! If these were included on the accompanying CD, this would without doubt be a 5 star review. Still a very good book, my credits to the author!

Let me tell you something, I suck at Korean. I studied in Korea for six months and dreaded going to class because I didn't know anything. I couldn't understand one concept from the next. Ended up passing, but barely. Anyway, I decided to try learning Korean again this past year as I do enjoy the language. Enter this book. Bruh, if only I had read this book before or even during my time there. So many concepts that I was foggy on make absolute sense now. This book is absolutely great! Easy breakdown of ideas, great conversations, plenty of relevant vocab, and ease of book navigation. Also, I didn't know this until just recently, but the back of the book has a glossary that holds the answer key to all questions that the chapters ask. 10/10 great learning tool! I will purchase the rest of the series asap.

Only on my first day of studying with this book. My wife is Korean and I already have background knowledge of Korean. The author does an exceptional job of introducing the alphabet and not overwhelming the learner at the beginning, which many others do. Top job.

Although there are some small mistakes in this book (a couple of the questions/answers), I'm still really pleased with it, especially for the price. Learning Korean from someone who has also studied the language as opposed to a native speaker makes the explanations particularly helpful. I like that the book starts out with very formal Korean and then later moves into less formal forms. It begins with an in-depth review of the Korean alphabet and after that romanisation is no longer used, which is great, as you get used to reading hangul. Each chapter is kept short and there are one or two sample conversations in each chapter, with each new subject or phrase discussed in detail using examples.Although there is not a CD, the audio can be downloaded from the 'GO! Billy' website.

This book is absolutely amazing, judging from price I thought it was going to be a very average book. But I was SO wrong. I learnt Hangul (Korean Alphabet) from this book in 2 hours of studying, which I surprised myself as I thought it would take me weeks! The book is very well written and explained, clearly set out and I love the fact that is has random cultural fact about Korea so you learn Korean and a little bit about the country too. This book has been my only source to learn Korean and I can already hold basic conversation with native Koreans, honestly all credit to this book and the author! Thank You Billy Go!

Really good book! Helped me learn the basics as well as improve and have a simple conversation. Obviously it's not all about the book but how interested YOU are in learning, it's not like the book will teach itself, you need to be interested, if you are this is a wonderful easy going book :)

Not so helpful

Really good product for beginners it has clear explanations and instructions explains particles really well. Would definitely recommend for beginners who are learning Korean.

Amatörmässig bok

I'm about half way through the book so far, and I feel like I've used it enough to leave a thoughtful and (hopefully) helpful review. The first thing that you should know is that this probably isn't the best "stand alone" book. It's not a textbook, so it's not going to have everything that you need to learn the language. It IS, however, very helpful for a beginner to gain a lot of basic understanding to the language and how grammar fits Korean sentences together. The information is pretty clearly laid out and is to-the-point. Not a lot of unnecessary confusing topics right off the bat, and then it goes a bit deeper into complex rules later on. It's set up in a format that is really easy for me to follow. I really like this book and will definitely move on to the others as I continue learning the language. That being said, there are a few things that I would have liked to see, especially in a beginner's book. Some of these are entirely preferential, so if you're okay with these things missing, then that's okay. Use of a "handwriting" font is extremely confusing. It took about 8 chapters before I felt comfortable reading the Hangul font, and I was often copying down the WRONG spelling due to my complete inability to read that font. I would have liked to see the first chapter or two have both the typical font and the handwriting font for all the words in order to better familiarize the differences between the two fonts. Only occasionally in later chapters are new concepts introduced with the cleaner font, but most new words are in the handwriting font. Though there are audio files available on the site (which are very useful), they are only of the conversations. This is good for listening practice, but there are a lot of new words introduced in each chapter and (especially as a beginner), you kind of have to guess at what they sound like. There's an in-depth Appendix on pronunciation rules, but very few people will read and retain all the rules, and you often find yourself learning a mispronunciation and can't identify the word if you hear it elsewhere. It'd be nice if on vocab words that have special pronunciation, if there was a bit of a reminder "hey, this looks like this, but is pronounced like this!" Not enough repetition. Again, totally preferential, but I find myself diligently taking notes through out a chapter, do the 6-10 lines of practice at the end, and then moving on to the next chapter without realizing I'm not ready due to a lack of real structure in the chapter's end. There are lists and lists and lists of vocab words, most of which were not used in the chapter. It'd just be nice to see a bit more repetition, a bit more "work" in order to drive home concepts that were taught during a chapter. Even with these minor flaws, I still find this to be a helpful book, and I recommend it to anyone learning Korean. It's a valuable source of information and the narration style is comfortable, easy to read (not like a dry textbook). Edit after finishing the book: Of all the resources that I've been using for learning the language, this one is definitely my favorite. It explains things pretty well and gives you a bit of cultural insight. Right now I'm just going through again to review each chapter. There are a few things that I'd already forgotten, but the rest of it is really sticking with me. I already purchased the second book, and I'll definitely get the third later on. I'm updating my review from 4 stars to 5 stars. Thanks!