This is Book 2 of Korean Conversations
This book is for any level of Korean language learner who can read and pronounce Hangul.
This is not a textbook in the usual sense. It is really more of a practice and example book. There are no "lessons" lain out for you.
These are practice conversations for you to get exposure to the way normal, comfortable conversations occur, and while there are of course a number of ways to translate or say the same thing in any language, the examples chosen are done so in a way to narrow down those choices.
Each conversation is intended to be both practical and interesting to help you to more easily remember the vocabulary. You will also see several short phrases that are repeated throughout various conversations. This will also help you through repetition to learn those phrases more easily by seeing them in context.
Each conversation is between two people who presumably know each other fairly well. This is important to keep in mind for context and for the levels of politeness either used or implied.
You will not find a lot of notes or explanations for several reasons. The main reasons being that by looking at the conversations and the translations you should be able to figure out on your own which parts go together, and the more of this connecting and figuring out you do on your own the easier it will be for you both to acquire the language and to remember it.
This also allows you to work at this at many different levels and at the levels that suit or interest you. For example, you might see some parts as simply being useful vocabulary or expressions, while someone else might notice that the sentence structure can be used for other instances by doing simple replacing of either the noun or the verb stem. You might also find that going over the conversations and memorizing them is great for you when you are a beginner, but as you progress, revisiting the conversations and digging deeper into the sentence structures can help you to expand your ability to communicate even more.
From the Author
This book is the followup from a much earlier book on learning hangul. We felt there are not enough resources for students of Korean language to supplement their course materials or to just add vocabulary and phrases without digging them out of large, difficult, and cumbersome textbooks.
What do you need to get started with this book?
You need to understand basic grammar and word order for Korean and have the ability to read the Korean alphabet. That's it. If you can read hangul, it shouldn't take you long to figure out the rest.
This book is a practice alone or with a partner resource for learning Korean conversation in a fun, fast manner.
It isn't lessons, and it isn't grammar.
It is a collection of conversations written in a style that facilitates being translated as directly as possible so the student can more easily discern what parts of the English sentences are the corresponding words and phrases in the Korean sentences.
That isn't to say it's the only way any of these sentences might be translated. It is just that the presented conversations represent as closely as possible the literal meanings and translations or the best "what would a Korean speaker use here" phrases.
Figuring these things out on your own will help you to grasp the vocabulary much, much quicker than if the explanations are there in front of you and giving you the false sense that you understand and have it down.
Allen Williams is a professional educator, writer, and speaker, and has been helping thousands of people through his site PowerMeUp.com since 1999. His father was a liar. Well, his father did tell him he couldn't stay in school for the rest of his life. Williams is a self-described "greedy" student who finds himself interested in a wide variety of things. Some of these things may not seem connected, but for him they are all paths to an ultimate goal. The common thread the greater part of those interests share is a path to becoming better and helping others to do the same - that might be in a wide variety of areas as well. He has spent years living, working, and studying abroad and is currently living in Japan with his wife and two sons.
Sulseob Jo was born and raised in South Korea. She graduated from university in South Korea with an undergraduate degree in Chinese characters. She then moved to Japan to study at Nagoya University where she earned a Masters and a PhD in Chinese literature. She is a professor teaching a wide range of subjects from Korean language to Chinese literature as well as Asian culture. She is the author of several books on learning Korean language. She and her husband live in Japan with their two sons.
