Practical Korean

Book excerpt: A handy introduction to the Korean language that is concise, simple, and useful. Much more than Korean phrasebook, Practical Korean has been written to fill a specific need: that of the hundreds of thousands of people now visiting Korea for business or holidays or even living there for a year or two, who wish to learn something of the spoken Korean language around them. The grammatical structure of Korean is particularly complicated, and difficulties plague foreign students learning Korean. Samuel E. Martin, renowned Asian language expert and professor emeritus at Yale University has simplified some of the common problems to acquaint the reader with the most useful way to say a lot of everyday things, without having to memorize long lists of grammatical rules. The compact size makes it ideal for traveling to Korea or reading on a plane, train or bus. The sentences are almost all given in the polite (yo) style, which is both the simplest and the most widely used. From this manner, another common style--the Intimate style--is easily derived by merely dropping the final particle. From a practical point of view, this is the quickest and simplest way to put a foreigner into direct communication with Koreans, including the use of a Korean phrasebook. The student will quickly make progress learning to comprehend and speak Korean. The material is presented using the romanization method of written Korean that is officially authorized by the Korean government as well as the native Korean script (Hangeul). Practical Korean is grouped into 47 lessons that cover all the common topics of conversation, grammar and vocabulary.