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

I can’t praise this book enough. I had tried Talk to Me in Korean Level 1, but progress felt really slow. Switched to this book and, just in the first 5 chapters, I felt like I was making way more progress - building vocab, grammar, and actual reading/writing skills. What makes this series stand out is how much Korean text you actually work with and how much vocab you’re introduced to. Other books sometimes feel like an English book about Korean, but this feels like a Korean book for learners. You’re exposed to full Korean passages and lots of text right away, but the way it’s broken down makes it click by the end. That little bit of immersion makes a huge difference. The workbook is a must too! Lots of fill-in-the-blanks, sentence building, dictation exercises - so you’re actually using the language. If you’re a beginner self learner and want the best introduction to really reading, writing, and understanding Korean, this is it!

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!

Let me start out by saying that I'm basically very new to Korean. I had a little knowledge before this book, mostly just some vocabulary knowledge. If you're already experienced with Korean, you might need the sequel to this book. But this book is great! I'm hardly half way through it so far, but it's taught me in just a couple of weeks what other books have failed to teach me so far in months. After getting this book, I've dropped the others to spend my time focusing on this one. I think after I finish this one (and it's sequel), I'll be ready to pick up and attempt the other books that I originally had. Here's why: Each chapter has a bunch of vocabulary that you have to memorize, but with any new language, that's to be expected. You have to learn words to make sentences and this book seems to teach you a lot of very commonly used words. I love it! Most other books I've looked at are more concerned with teaching you grammar right away, but what use is that if you don't know any words to begin with? Each chapter of this book starts out with a conversation, breaks the conversation down, and explains the words and the grammar that you see in the conversation. The writing is very simple and easy to follow. Everything is explained very thoroughly, so you're left with no questions about what's being explained. There's so much vocabulary that you learn that you could make a multitude of sentences within just a few chapters. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who really wants to learn Korean!

I have been following Talk to Me in Korean (TTMIK) and Go Billy Korean for a while. Korean Made Simple is organized like many language books: pronunciation at beginning, greetings then present tense, etc etc. The lessons themselves also organized like many textbooks with a dialogue, break down of the new concepts in the dialogue, some practice activities and a vocab list at the end. I'm only part way through the book (because of my time management) but what I've gone through has been well explained for a beginner. My main complaint about this version (I do believe he announced earlier this year/2021 that he is working on revisions of this series but I don't know what type of revisions he will be making) is mainly in how he introduces vocabulary. Some of his vocab lists are not cohesive and seem more like a smattering of unrelated but most common words. Sometimes he will introduce groups of words that make sense together and help connect with the grammatical concept taught but then add a word to this group in the next chapter where the lone word now feels out of place/out of context. It makes more sense to give a bunch of locations all in the section about a location-related concept (like the "(going) to" particle) or keep all the food items grouped together (rather than a bunch of fruits in chapter 4 then a lone "cheese" in the next chapter). There was also a point in the book where I saw the new concept could be integrated with the previous chapter but the practice exercises didn't include said integration of concepts. I think I found the discussion of said integration later on but, like with the spread out vocab lists, it felt out of context in a way because newer concepts were being talked about. However this was not as hindering to my learning as the scattered vocabulary. Compared to TTMIK's more modular curriculum, I love how each lesson has the vocab lessons available without needing to reference a separate source/book but, as mentioned above, the vocab needs better organization. Go Billy Korean explains the concepts clearly for beginning language learners and includes some cultural notes throughout (I watched many years of Kdrama before committing to learning the language so these were sometimes a nuisance because I personally don't need these cultural notes but others new to Korean culture will benefit). I haven't checked out all his supplementary videos but I hope they do help others. This is overall a great entry-level Korean curriculum for self-learners.

I have been eying this book for about a year and I wasn't even looking to learn Korean! I was doing Japanese and felt that Korean was out of my league (I still feel a bit that way!) and no sense in trying to learn it, I wouldn't be able to do it but still I watched Billy Go's videos and kept going on my Japanese. Well, I started watching a lot of Korean dramas and seeing how many other youtubers were learning and could speak Korean and I thought, why not? Why not me? This book is my first Korean language learning book and I like it a lot. He really explains in detail the grammar and the format is a kind of fun read. I do however I wish he had more exercises but some people tend to hate them, I don't know why. To me the more exercises a book has, the better to cement in the lesson learned. I am also using TTMIK as well as his book and they fall into line beautifully together and the fact that Billy and Hyunwoo know each other, makes it that much better, because sometimes they do videos together. If you are a fan of TTMIK and have their beginning books, I highly recommend also getting this one and the other two as well, to complete your beginner's library. You can't go wrong! I know there are complaints that he uses very polite honorifics in the book and some don't agree with it or like it but if you read the introduction (which most people skip in books, for some reason) he explains why he decided to go with that instead of casual or conversational speech. As Korean is a highly honorific society and you would have to learn them anyways, to be able to speak to people who you do not know or in a position (if you desire to work in Korea), it can be useful to know it, even if you won't use it much--especially if you do not have immediate plans to visit Korea. Still worth learning and the book is still worth using!

Well-written and easy to understand. Definitely also get the workbook. It really helps reinforce what you learned. I recommend making flash cards for the vocabulary also. It is also well-organized. This is the first language textbook I have ever been able to stick with. I believe this is a great place to start and I recommend going through all three books over time.

Sometimes, when the stars are aligned and my chocolate is at the right consistency, I feel the need to learn a new language. No particular reasons; I just can. But Korean hit me out of the blue. My friend is a massive koreaboo and after going through chemo and making a full recovery, she expressed the desire to go to South Korea some day. Me being her supportive nerd friend, decided to learn proper Korean while we gathered enough money to make that happen. This book breaks it down very nicely, and I picked up the Korean letters fairly quickly. It's well organized, humorous, and I like the idea of having minimal romanization. Everybody writes it/pronounces it differently, and that would only serve to confuse me. I'm only a few chapters in, but I'm enjoying myself very much and I look forward to every new lesson. Granted, one cannot simply learn a new language from books, so I recommend also pairing your self-education with listening and immersion exercises. GO BILLY! also has a website. I check it out once in a while, but I prefer the book, and I also have outside sources I utilize. Overall, it's a good book to get introduced to Korean basics. I was honestly surprised that I was able to understand and vocalize a wildly different alphabet in a few hours. I've never even dared touch any of the asian/ South asian languages in my life, but this book's approach made it a little less intimidating, and the writing cracks me up (don't know why, but I find it hilarious that they stack their letters on top of each other. I had giggle fits during writing practice. I don't know what's wrong with me) I really enjoy learning new languages, and I'm really glad to get back to what I love. So yeah, good book.

이 책을 좋아합니다 I like this book. The way the content is presented really works well for me. Do not expect to become fluent or even conversational from this book. But it’s a great start to the learning journey and teaches enough for you to go from absolutely zero to being able to communicate basic ideas. I tried George Tromboley’s “Korean from zero” and found it to be a bit overwhelming compared to this book. I really think Billy’s decision to use the 다 form was the way to go. Drastically simplifies conjugations for beginners. Thank you Billy!

Den zahlreichen positiven Rezensionen kann ich mich uneingeschränkt anschließen. Von diesem Lehrbuch bin ich ganz und gar begeistert. Mich überzeugen der klare Aufbau und die wertvollen Lerntipps. Der Lernstoff wird sehr übersichtlich präsentiert, durch Illustrationen aufgelockert und landeskundliche Info ergänzt. Das Buch enthält viele Übungen und - was mir besonders gefällt, da ich selbst Fremdsprachen unterrichte - der Grammatik wird große Bedeutung beigemessen. Der Autor stellt sehr richtig fest 'Grammar is more important than vocabulary'. Zusätzlich zum Lehrbuch unterhält der Autor einen Youtube Channel mit sehenswerten Beiträgen. Fazit: So macht Lernen Spaß!

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