Rating: 
Summary: Good for Beginners too
Review: I recently moved to S. Korea knowing little more than hello and goodbye. This dictionary was extremely helpful in that the English section shows word usage and some phrases in both roman characters and Hangul. In the same way the Korean section is written alphabetically based on the English ALphabet and is listed by Romanization. This is really helpful when people are speaking to you. Also the dictionary has a great Proununciation chart for the Hangul letters, which helps when translating signs, and helped me learn to read Hangul.
Rating: 
Summary: Please be realistic...
Review: Frankly, a romanized Korean dictionary is hardly of any use. I am living in Korea right now, and I have learned the language to a functional degree of fluency and I can tell you this: you _must_ learn the Hangul alphabet first. Everything is written in Hangul here and it has sounds that romanization cannot convey. Take for example the double consonants or the combination vowels, or the breaks between syllables. The Korean alphabet is extremely easy to learn how to read and write -- it was expressly designed for that purpose by a humanistic king in the 15th Century A.D. who was upset by the fact that most people in his kingdom could not read or write due to the difficulty of learning tens of thousands of Chinese characters. The Korean alphabet, by way of contrast, has only 24 letters. It only takes a few weeks to become familiar with them if you write them out a few times a day. In fact, there are many free websites that can teach you how if you don't have a study book. I can sympathize somewhat with the idea of having a romanized Japanese or Chinese dictionary due to the fact that learning he characters may take years, but learning to read Korean letters only takes a very brief time. I wish proper Korean-English and English-Korean dictionaries were more available in North-America so I wouldn't have to wait until my next trip over here to buy them.
Rating: 
Summary: Any Good? Depends on what you need!
Review: Here's how the book's organized:
The Korean section is listed alphabetically by English phonetic spelling of the Korean word. It lists single or multiple meanings and includes ways to use the word within a phrase. It also list the han-gul (Korean symbology).The English section is alphabetized by English (of course). It also lists the phonetic pronunciation, the han-gul, and offers phrases and different usages. Here's how it works.
The book's pretty good if you're bolstering your *English to Korean* vocabulary. Start in English, find the phonetic and han-gul spelling. If you want to, you can flip to the Korean, look it up by phonetic spelling and find related words. Cool. It's not so hot if you want to look up a Korean word because you have to know it's English phonetic spelling. This is no easy task because different speakers have different pronounciations. Does the word start with a pa or ba, se or te, sha or cha? I had a heck of a time finding even the most common words. It's really lousy if you know, are learning, or translating han-gul. It's not organized by Korean symbols, except for as much as they follow the phonetic spelling of the words. If you're given the han-gul, you first have to pronounce it, figure out the phonetic spelling and then hope you're pronouncing it the way the book expects you to. Yuck. Also, if you're on the verge of bifocals be prepared for eyestrain. The English text is pretty clear, but the han-gul is tough. It's in bold-face, I suppose to make it stand out, but all it does for me is make the symbols harder to read. That being said, my young son has no trouble with it at all (the punk). All and all, the book is a reasonable secondary source as long as you keep the limitations in mind. One last thing. I got this dictionary with the "Elementary Korean" textbook. The combo is a *complete* waste. The textbook is in han-gul which you can't look it up in the dictionary! Don't take the combo unless you're looking for two completely different sources. Hope this helps....
Rating:
Summary: Any Good? Depends on what you need!
Review: Here's how the book's organized:
The Korean section is listed alphabetically by English phonetic spelling of the Korean word. It lists single or multiple meanings and includes ways to use the word within a phrase. It also list the han-gul (Korean symbology). The English section is alphabetized by English (of course). It also lists the phonetic pronunciation, the han-gul, and offers phrases and different usages. Here's how it works.
The book's pretty good if you're bolstering your *English to Korean* vocabulary. Start in English, find the phonetic and han-gul spelling. If you want to, you can flip to the Korean, look it up by phonetic spelling and find related words. Cool. It's not so hot if you want to look up a Korean word because you have to know it's English phonetic spelling. This is no easy task because different speakers have different pronounciations. Does the word start with a pa or ba, se or te, sha or cha? I had a heck of a time finding even the most common words. It's really lousy if you know, are learning, or translating han-gul. It's not organized by Korean symbols, except for as much as they follow the phonetic spelling of the words. If you're given the han-gul, you first have to pronounce it, figure out the phonetic spelling and then hope you're pronouncing it the way the book expects you to. Yuck. Also, if you're on the verge of bifocals be prepared for eyestrain. The English text is pretty clear, but the han-gul is tough. It's in bold-face, I suppose to make it stand out, but all it does for me is make the symbols harder to read. That being said, my young son has no trouble with it at all (the punk). All and all, the book is a reasonable secondary source as long as you keep the limitations in mind. One last thing. I got this dictionary with the "Elementary Korean" textbook. The combo is a *complete* waste. The textbook is in han-gul which you can't look it up in the dictionary! Don't take the combo unless you're looking for two completely different sources. Hope this helps....
Rating:
Summary: Compact & Useful Everyday Dictionary
Review: I am a student of Korean and this pocket dictionary was the first Korean dictionary I bought to aid me in my studies. The compact size of this dictionary makes it very easy and convenient to carry around, and it’s perfect for people on the go. (That is, no more suffering under the weight of a full dictionary!) ^^
The English-Korean, Korean-English dictionary format makes it handy to look up and translate words both ways. And the dictionary also comes with a pronunciation guide, which is also handy for beginners. I find the pronunciation guide extremely useful and convenient. In Korean, the way a word is pronounced depends on whether a particular consonant is in the front, middle or end of the word, the pronunciation guide somewhat answers this by telling you how placement of a consonant can affect the pronunciation. For example, “T” is “T” when at the start and end of the word and “D” in the middle of vowels.
Also, this dictionary is arranged according to romanization, making it easy for beginners to lookup a word by “pronunciation”. The inclusion of Hangul is another major plus since you can check how to write a particular word in Korean. The vocabulary here are written in dictionary form rather than spoken form, so if you’re trying to use certain words to SAY something, you’ll need to convert it to the spoken form. For example, in this dictionary, “to watch” in the dictionary form is “poda”, so to say “I’m watching…” you’ll need to change it to “…pwayo”. Unfortunately, the dictionary doesn't address this but then again, it's a dictionary, not a textbook. ^^ I guess this is the same with most Korean dictionaries, so you’ll need to have some knowledge of the Korean language to be able to use this dictionary to your advantage.
It’s also easy to look for phrasal verbs and vocabulary with the same “words” you’re looking for. For example, you can find under “watch” the noun and verb form (and explanation), as well as “watch for”, “watch out”, “watch out for” and so forth. This is extremely useful and convenient especially when looking out for common, everyday words. The only drawback I had with this dictionary is that certain Korean words can be really hard to find, especially in the “Korean-English” section if you don’t know the exact romanization letters.
Although I wouldn’t say this is a perfect dictionary for fluent Korean speakers as it doesn’t provide as much words and extensive information as a complete dictionary do, it is, nevertheless, an excellent dictionary and guide for everyday use and people on the move as it covers useful and commonly used words. If you're tired of browsing through “thick” dictionaries just to find that simple, everyday word you want, give this a try. :)
Rating:
Summary: Great for those with no knowledge of Hangul BUT...
Review: I bought this at a time when I had no knowledge of Hangul at all (about 2 months ago). My oh my how much things can change within 2 months (a testament to the ease of learning the Korean alphabet). This dictionary is now only used to double check pronounciation and to look for phrases in English to Korean that I can't work out or find in my preferred Korean<->English dictionary, "Minjung's Pocket English-Korean, Korean-English Dictionary". PRO'S: Romanization makes it easy for beginners with pronounciation of Korean. Font and typeface are very well presented. English to Korean section provides well thought out translations and variants into Korean. Compact size. CON'S: Korean section is by romanization first, bad if you are looking for a Korean word in Hangul on the quick. Doesn't cover phrase endings (-nida, -yo, etc, etc...found this the most frustrating when using this dictionary for translation work). Overall, this is a good dictionary, don't get me wrong about that. You'll just need to supplement it with a more robust dictionary from one of the Korean publishers (Minjung or Dong-ah) to get the most out of your Korean studies. P.S. As other's have mentioned, if you get this with the "Elementary Korean" text, they are MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE. Invest in a Korean-published dictionary if you get that text first before you get this Langenscheidt one.
Rating:
Summary: ho-hum
Review: I found this dictionary to be so disappointing considering that other Langenscheidt dictionaries are usually pretty good. I find it almost impossible to find words I need, as do all of my Korean friends (who refer to this dictionary as "trash"). When there are multiple translations of an English word, it does a poor job of explaining which is the correct one to use. Also, This dictionary is definitely not for beginners, since you can't look up any basic words.
Rating:
Summary: Very useful
Review: I have Minjung's pocket Korean-English/English-Korean dictionary (like most decent East Asian dictionaries, you will probably need to go to an ethnic bookstore to find it) however I find this Langenscheidt to be very useful for beginners who need reinforcement on how pronunciation changes when certain letters are adjacent to each other. The romanization reflects pronounciation instead of mindless transcription of Hangul letters to roman letters. It is quite easy to understand actually and the Hangul is provided next to the romanization. The fonts used are crisp, pleasing and easy on the eyes (unlike the NTC Dictionary which looks like the authors used a typewriter and then had the pages photocopied at a grocery store). But remember this really is a pocket-sized dictionary.
Rating: 
Summary: Great reference
Review: This is a great reference if you have some knowledge of the Korean language. The layout of the text is helpful and easy to understand.
Rating:
Summary: ONE OF THE BEST
Review: This is one of the best I've seen for beginner-intermediate levels for several reasons:
The dictionary offers both hangul and romanization for everything, and this is one of the better romanization schemes I've seen because it works in the morphophonological changes to match real pronunciation. I'm good at hangul and familiar with several romanizations such as Yale like what is used in linguistic publications. The romanization used in this dictionary is very good, and I recommend it for beginners. The Korean-English section is listed in alphabetical order by romanization. Unless you're mentally challenged, it's very easy to use and words are easy to find. For example, only the unvoiced letters are found at the beginning of words: ch, k, p, t; So there aren't j, g, b, d entries. The English-Korean section has some of the best coverage of English vocabulary found lacking in many foreign language dictionaries, such as phrasal verbs and more colloquial usage including various uses of vulgar language. For example, almost every way we can use "take" or "get" in English is described and phrasal verbs get their own entries, such as "take out (from bag, pocket) kko(naeda; stain chiuda; appendix, tooth ppopptta; word from text ppaenaeda; money from bank inch'urhada; (to dinner etc) terigo nagada; insurance policy ...e tu(lda; take it out on s.o. nuguege hwap'urihada". All the other phrasal verbs starting with "take" have similarly detailed entries. If you want to say "crash" you'll have to know that a thunder crash (chi'da), a market crash (punggoehada), a computer crash (kojangnada), and to crash when you want to sleep (chada) all have different ways to say in Korean (but you'll still have to come up with your objects to those verbs--it does effectively translate crash). This dictionary details it all out. The vocabulary is up-to-date including words and phrases like "surf the Net". For people who study or have studied Japanese, the Langenscheidt Japanese one has the same English entries for easy comparison between the two languages. I use both in addition to other dictionaries by Minjung Seorim. These dictionaries have been well-planned, it is too bad that many students of Korean get tunnel-vision with their dictionaries. (The Japanese version which has been planned in the same way has 5-stars). If you can learn to read Hangul, then you can read this romanization too, and both are included in the dictionary. That makes it all the better. I hope Langenscheidt comes out with a larger, more advanced version up to par with their European language dictionaries.
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