(Part 3) Top products from r/Korean

I was at a bit more advanced level when I first used this reader, but I can highly recommend it when you feel up for it. I suggest you look at the preview and decide what you think of the first story (the difficulty ramps up a bit on the later sections of the book).

At this point, I've gone through that text countless times now, with a focus on improving my reading speed and comprehension, and it's really helped build up my confidence to tackle native materials.

I've moved on to trying to read webnovels and webtoons on kakao and I try to use a routine I worked out from going through that book:

1. first pass I just do my best to read through the text without any dictionary
   
2. transcribe the text into a word document
   
3. go through everything with the help of google and naver dict and try to leave nothing unknown
   
4. re-read it again a few times and aim to get faster
   
5. schedule myself to come back to re-read the text on another day
   
6. repeat step 3 on anything I forgot. I might do some more re-reads if I'm still not comfortable
   
   I guess TLDR: re-read a lot. That's just what's worked out best for me so far. Your experience may vary.
   
   That same company seems to have a more beginner level reader text but I've never used it so I can't give an opinion on it. It looks like it also has a preview of the first story.

Well 정보은씨?, you are in luck.
One possible solution for you is to grab a copy of the Remembering Traditional Hanzi series by Heisig and study the "meanings" of the characters. I would also recommend using something like Anki or Skritter that make use of Spaced Repetition Schedule for better retention rate.
I recommend learning the traditional characters because both some Chinese speaking world and Korea use the traditional set of characters. The mainland China uses the simplified characters and if you want to make the transition to the simplified characters, I heard it's not that hard.
As you are learning the characters, you can manually input the Korean way of reading the characters or rely on the Korean readings that Skritter provides.

If you work consistently, I think the above step should be done in a matter of months. Then, you have given yourself a strong foundation in characters.

I would also suggest perfecting your Mandarin pronunciation as you are learning the characters.

> How do you tell if a word is sino-korean?

With what degree of certainty do you want? If you only want to find the corresponding character, simply look up the word in the dictionary. There are some words which have deviated from their roots and so no longer "have" their characters. So you never know for certain whether a word is (or was) based on hanja. '김치' is an example of this.

it is worth mentioning, if you didn't know already, a fair amount of Korean vocab came from Japanese. Japan "opened up" with the West before China did, so the Japanese needed to create "characters" for a plethora of new, modern concepts. Since Korea adopted many of these new words during the colonial period, there is a lack of recognition for their true origin.

> How would I find the etymology of any word?

The meaning of individual characters is what's important. I normally use Wikitionary or look it up in Martin. Martin is probably better for studying Korean because the character in Chinese can have a different meaning (though this can help you memorise).

These are really the only three academic books in English covering the Korean language and Korean linguistics that I know of. I've read all three and actually had Prof. Ramsey as an instructor/adviser/mentor. Some of the information in the last two is a little dated (language changes constantly after all), but all are definitely worth reading.

http://www.amazon.com/History-Korean-Language-Ki-Moon-Lee/dp/0521661897/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1376282744&sr=8-1&keywords=A+History+of+the+Korean+Language

http://www.amazon.com/The-Korean-Language-Cambridge-Surveys/dp/0521369436/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1376282775&sr=8-1&keywords=The+Korean+Language

http://www.amazon.com/Korean-Language-Suny-Series-Studies/dp/0791448320/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1376282775&sr=8-2&keywords=The+Korean+Language

EDIT: I should add that these books do cover the creation of Hangul and changes in Korean orthography.

I found [Elementary Korean] (https://www.amazon.ca/Elementary-Korean-Second-Audio-Included/dp/0804844984/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=) pretty good when I took Korean at my school. Grammar was useful, explained well, and there's a workbook that you can buy with it!

Though I wouldn't vouch for the (sequel) book after that which is [Continuing Korean] (https://www.amazon.ca/Continuing-Korean-Second-Audio-CD/dp/0804845158/ref=pd_sim_14_2?ie=UTF8&dpID=510IY%2Br6tDL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR120%2C160_&psc=1&refRID=M4W04FDG76DX6702F100) due to the grammar that was explained so poorly and grammar points that seemed really useless when talking to other Koreans. (Even my Korean friend who helped me with it said that some of the grammar points that were in the textbook were useless and most Koreans barely use them)

You should look up a cool little phrasebook called "Making out in Korean"

It's an introduction-level book, but it has a lot of the terms you seem to be looking for, from first meeting, setting up a date, "your place or mine"-ing and then bedroom talk from "oh yeah that's good" to "no, don't put anything in there."

Amazon Link for Making Out in Korean

Amazon Link for More Making Out in Korean

It's a very interesting time in German history, that's for sure. I'd recommend Frederick Taylor's The Berlin Wall: A World Divided, 1961-1989 if you want to know more about the history of the GDR.

www.amazon.com/Korean-Comprehensive-Grammar-Grammars/dp/0415603854

This one is really pricy but I've found it to be a great reference.

the books i've used are the Berkeley ones

College Korean

https://www.amazon.co.uk/College-Korean-Michael-C-Rogers/dp/0520069943/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1538142588&sr=8-1&keywords=college+korean

and Intermediate College Korean

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Intermediate-College-Korean-Han-Gugaeo-Chunggaeup/dp/0520222954/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1538142628&sr=8-3&keywords=intermediate+college+korean

I've got a ton of book i bought in Korea that i never use including the government's official work book ha ha - it's pretty dry sadly

I was also looking for such resource. I believe KLEAR made one nice book, organised with ready expressions.


https://www.amazon.com/Korean-Composition-KLEAR-Textbooks-Language/dp/0824824776

For intermediate 1 there are 2 other stores selling it on the amazon marketplace: Here

They appear to have the workbook available here and there are cheaper ones available under the More Buying Choices here.

Routledge Intermediate Korean Reader

Advanced Korean

KLEAR Korean Reader for Chinese Characters is also a graded reader but it's based on progressively harder hanja, not Korean grammar

The book "Using Korean" has a short section on dialects
http://www.amazon.com/Using-Korean-Guide-Contemporary-Usage/dp/0521667887/

Is there an answer key? Not the same, but they do have this

Don't have a recommendation, but there are university web sites that use the book so you can follow along their lesson plans. Indiana's is more compressive.

http://qcpages.qc.cuny.edu/~sko/kor101.html#week01
http://www.indiana.edu/~korean/K101.html

어? 아닙니다. ㅋㅋ 제가 만든 표현은 아니고, 사실 "hands"가 바나나 전문 용어일 거예요.

Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World 보시면:

> [...] A typical flowering Cavendish produces about a dozen hands, each with as many as twenty individual fingers (fruits). [...]