Korean For Dummies

Fans of Korean Soap Operas, that is to say, obsessive viewers of same, will love this book. Korean in phonic English which is fun and helpful. But in addition some very, very interesting facts: Do you know why Asians take off their shoes at the entrance to houses?Bet you don't. This book tells the story. And many others.

Gave as gift to granddaughter

There is a reason that the series is called "---- For Dummies". It is no different from Schaum's Outline Series for various subjects. Neither is used for in-depth study of the specific studies. Some like to show off their 'intelligence' by comparing the "Dummies" series against the backdrop of a complete language study for serious-minded students of a specific subject. This book is ideal for those who want to learn survival speaking and listening in Korean. Clearly, if one wants to learn Korean phonetically using the Korean character set, then this is not the book for that and it was never intended to be such. I found it quite useful for my application. If I want to continue on, I would sign up for any number of other home-study courses; e.g., Rosetta Stone; or attend formal classroom instruction sessions.

I have a friend that was going to travel to Korea and he was trying to learn some Korean, so I got him this book. It was supposed to be a funny gift, but he ended up loving it!

This book is a must have for beginners excited to learn to speak Korean...I am a huge fan of the historical dramas, and this book helps me not to rely on the subtitles...you have to try it...thank you!

Just trying to get through three pages of chapter one was confusing. This isn't because it was a book on a language foriegn to me but because with the vowels the writers give three vouls that supposedly sound like the word "wet" but are spelled differently (oe, wae and we are the Korean vowels in question). These three vowels, just by quickly skimming through the rest of the book, are very imoprtant in learning how to pronounce. Another problem is that the "oe" which is initially explained to sound like wet is later described to sound like the "o" in "hope." Wet and hope have two totally different sounds and, thus, confusion insues. I find this short guide to the Korean language for beginners to be inconsistant from the start.I do find that the book has alot of references that are very helpful to gaining an understanding of the pace of both language and culture. The book allows the reader to gain vocabulary as the book is read in a very relaxed manner. If only the explinations gave me more confidence that I was learning to pronounce properly I would continue reading the book for more than the habits of the language but, instead, I am on Amazon to find another facilitator to my learning Korean (properly).

I wanted a Korean language book just to learn how to speak and not learn the writing. Later, I will learn some of the writing but this is what I was looking for.

I've started studying Korean, have enjoyed many other for Dummies books, so I bought this one. One of my worse decisions of all the books I've ever bought. There is not one word in the entire book that was in hangul(Korean characters), not one. The entire book is only Romanized spelling. Every word that should be in hangul is like that. Gave it 2 stars as I'm trying to get Holiday Spirit. My next gift, today, will be giving a brand new book to our library, and I'll be more careful in my next choice of Korean books.