Integrated Korean: Beginning 2 (Klear Textbooks in Korean Language)

This book might work well in a classroom, but it doesn't work at all for someone trying to learn the language on their own. It moves very fast, and the workbook exercises (particularly the listening comprehension exercises) quickly become so difficult as to be impossible for someone who isn't already used to the sound of the language. Some grammatical concepts are used without being explained, and the grammar index includes references to sections in which the relevant grammar is not explained at all, merely used. All of this is very dejecting, and it surely needn't be that way. The problem, of course, is that there are very few other textbooks around -- in particular, there are very few textbooks that avoid romanization, as this one does. But being the best of a bad lot doesn't make it useful.

if you can find the audio tracks from web and listen to them, and only read the book when you have listened enough but still cannot understand, it seems work well.

What you learn in this book is no-nonsense useful stuff. That's the main point. Right from book 1 there is no romanization, a big bonus. Romanization keeps you from ever learning Hangul.

[Audio files should have been provided in mp3 format. Converters are available, but the resulting audio quality is bearable, not more.]* The vocabulary is too limited to university student life. Try to find 'job', for instance. It's not there, only 'arbeit', something you do while studying. Many words appear once and never again. A few words are not listed in any of the book's dictionaries. The impression is the editors don't have a firm grip on vocabulary matters.

*[Later addition] Now the publisher lets you download mp3 files. It takes forever, but the difference in sound quality is dramatic. This is really great news!

My wife has been using this book and been very satisfied. I thought the topics for the chapter were very useful, as were the associated grammar patterns and vocab. We're living in Korea and mingle with a lot of Koreans so we're experiencing how Koreans really talk. There's a very helpful link through the University of Indiana Korean language department that correlates with these textbooks. I don't have time to write an extensive review, but this book has been helpful for us as we strive to learn "real Korean" in Korea.

This book is not very well organized and it comes WITHOUT any audio whatsoever. You can download the audio from the Hawaii website BUT - it's only in real audio format which you can only play on your computer with the real audio program. You can't burn the audio to a cd and then listen to it in your car, for example. Or...you can buy the cd for $195!!

No integrated audio is the first deadly sin for a language book. Worse, the audio situation with this book is an UNETHICAL attempt to rip you off. The University of Hawaii should be ashamed.