[Open Review] Essential Korean

When it comes to using phrasebooks to really study and learn a language, my answer is of course a no no. That being said, it doesn’t negate the potential uses of a phrasebook as a quick guide when you are visiting a foreign country.

I have no experiences going to a country where I totally can’t speak its language (I have only travelled to Korea and Japan in my entire life hahaha), so I won’t be the best person to comment. To be honest, I wonder if I really would buy a phrasebook if I visit a country where I can’t speak a single word of the language. I won’t know, I would let you guys know when the times come 😛

For today’s review, I would leave it open to you guys. Please share your comments and reviews!

For the tourist:

I always wonder if bringing a phrasebook everywhere helps. The romanisation for Korean doesn’t really help you pronounce the words (you will probably be barely comprehensible)  and even though the book does help you to convey what you want, would it help you to decode and decipher what is said to you?

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For the beginner Korean learner:

I never see how such books can be helpful to the beginner learner. I mean, sure, I understand how awesome it would be to be able to start using phrases and sentences immediately. BUT. Do you even understand what you are talking about? Without understanding the grammar etc, all you can do is to say fixed sentences and not able to edit them at all. Is that the point of learning a language?

I’m actually guilty of using such books when I first started learning too! Not because I want to jump immediately into conversation, but I simply thought looking at such phrases would allow me to learn. I mean, the books are there for you to learn right? They are supposed to help right? All it did was to make me more confused and make Korean seemingly harder to understand. :/

For the Korean learner:

If you are not planning to use this as a ‘main textbook’ or somewhere where you learn grammar from, it’s pretty interesting to read through. I guess if you want to know how to say a certain phrase in a certain situation, this book would be helpful as a reminder and refresher course!

I do like the format of the book as it’s divided into several situation types which is helpful!

hahaha. Okay. I can’t really tell if this is a good sentence/phrasebook since in the first place, I’m already very much against such books. I would really like to hear what you guys think!

Please leave a comment! 😀 For those interested, you can get this book on Amazon!