Korean Made Simple: A beginner's guide to learning the Korean language 1st Edition, Kindle Edition

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!

이 책을 좋아합니다I 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!

It is excellent when it comes to grammar explanations; they are really easy to understand, and the format of the book makes it enjoyable to read without feeling visually overwhelmed. The examples are great as well, and I highly recommend getting the workbook too

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!