Books for Learning Korean

An untold number of books have and continue to be published to help us learn the Korean language. Following are just a few of them.

1. Lonely Planet Korean Phrasebook
Not as useful for learning Korean, perhaps, as for using it, this book will get you in, around, and out of more situations than you can imagine.

2. Survival Korean by Stephen Revere
Before he started 10 Magazine, Stephen Revere produced nifty books like this one, chalk full of wry cultural observations and clever explanations that make Korean a lot easier to tackle.

3. 2000 Essential Korean Words for Beginners published by Darakwon
Once you’ve got this book, you can stop making those darn vocabulary lists.

4. Pimsleur Korean
The Pimsleur approach to language learning is speaking confidence through recorded dialogues. Warning: no text, just tapes.

5. Speaking Korean by Francis Park
Park’s textbook is a standard in Korean language departments across the US.

6. Sogang Korean by the Korean Language Education Center at Sogang University
This task-based textbook series is a popular and pragmatic guide to communicating in Korean.

7. Ganada Korean for Foreigners published by Ganada Korean Language Institute
This series will take you from the basics to a very advanced level of Korean, and the audio files are great for sticking on your mp3 player.

8. Korean Grammar for International Learners published by Yonsei University
Enough terms, theory, and example sentences for the grammar mavens, but written in a readable tone with clear explanations for the rest of us.

9. Using Korean: A Guide to Contemporary Usage by Miho Choo
Released in 2008, this has been touted as the definitive work for intermediate students looking to take their Korean to the next level.

10. Learn Hanja the Fun Way by Lee Yeong-hee
This entertaining, accessible book is the perfect way for intermediate students of Korean to get a taste of Hanja, the Korean characters that help so much with vocabulary building.


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Korea4Expats wishes to thank 10Magazine for sharing the results of their research with us.