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Rating: 
Summary: An incredibly helpful resource
Review: I don't make recommendations/endorsements very often and I don't take them lightly. For this text, though, I can't say enough. I can't really say much more than has already been written beyond saying that I, too, would highly recommend this text for someone who is beyond basic/early intermediate Korean. It's really quite a worthwhile investment.
Rating:
Summary: For somebody who wants to really learn
Review: This book can't be used like a dictionary or a textbook in the traditional sense. The secret to learning Korean is learning how to think in Korean. This book gives some really good common vocabulary by their Chinese (and some pure Korean) roots. It's great for learning Chinese roots as well as associated words. I've never seen a book like this and highly recommend it. It's a great vocabulary builder. But it is for people who are serious about learning Korean and won't do a casual studier any good. Also, unless you already have a solid grasp on grammar and the language, this book needs to be used in conjunction with other resources.
Rating:
Summary: For somebody who wants to really learn
Review: This book can't be used like a dictionary or a textbook in the traditional sense. The secret to learning Korean is learning how to think in Korean. This book gives some really good common vocabulary by their Chinese (and some pure Korean) roots. It's great for learning Chinese roots as well as associated words. I've never seen a book like this and highly recommend it. It's a great vocabulary builder. But it is for people who are serious about learning Korean and won't do a casual studier any good. Also, unless you already have a solid grasp on grammar and the language, this book needs to be used in conjunction with other resources.
Rating: 
Summary: comprehensive and useful resource
Review: This book is comprehensive; it is comprised of both native Korean roots and lists of Sino-Korean words organized by character and alphabetized according to Korean pronunciation. Sino-Korean word lists for each character include both words in which the character appears first and words in which the character appears last. For example, the entry under "dae" meaning "big," includes "daehakyo" (university) and "hwakdae" (enlarge). The long vocabulary lists would overwhelm the beginning learner; the text is more appropriate for intermediate and advanced learners who wish to build vocabulary through studying word roots. If you want to learn how to write the Chinese characters provided for the listed compounds, you'll need a magnifying glass as the print is so small.
Rating:
Summary: comprehensive and useful resource
Review: This book is comprehensive; it is comprised of both native Korean roots and lists of Sino-Korean words organized by character and alphabetized according to Korean pronunciation. Sino-Korean word lists for each character include both words in which the character appears first and words in which the character appears last. For example, the entry under "dae" meaning "big," includes "daehakyo" (university) and "hwakdae" (enlarge). The long vocabulary lists would overwhelm the beginning learner; the text is more appropriate for intermediate and advanced learners who wish to build vocabulary through studying word roots. If you want to learn how to write the Chinese characters provided for the listed compounds, you'll need a magnifying glass as the print is so small.
Rating:
Summary: very interesting and a well done job
Review: this book is different from most other books so dont expect it to meet all of your demands if you are not deeply dedicated to learn such a remarkable and different language.
Rating: 
Summary: glorified korean-english dictionary
Review: This is simply the most useful resource book I have come across in learning Korean. It's especially useful if you don't know the hancha (Chinese characters) as it groups Korean words according to their Hancha origins, so you can see how different words connect without having to learn the characters. It really helps to provide a structure and logic to the language, which otherwise seems very confusing to the Western student.
I would recommend this book to anyone who already has a good understanding of basic Korean grammar and vocabulary. It will help consolidate what you already know and will really speed up the expansion of your vocabulary and your understanding of Korean generally.
Rating:
Summary: One of the few good books for learning Korean
Review: What else can be said of this book? It is well organized, easy to read and use, chocked full of words so that you can not only learn everyday stuff, but so that you can get a grasp of some of the nuances of the language and characters. "The Handbook" has two parts: Chinese based vocabulary and native Korean vocabulary. Both are organized according to phonemes and grouped by ideograph. Also, there are no stupid romanizations to get in the way. My only gripe about "The Handbook" is that sometimes the font seems a little small. I wish that the han-mun were printed larger to make the number of strokes (and the strokes themselves) more distinct. This book will take you where you left off with Bruce Grant's 'Guide to Korean Characters.' Where in Grant's book, you have the basic 1,800, in "The Handbook" you have many many many many many more. The styles of the books are completely different though. This book definitely presupposes a good working knowledge of Korean. (Otherwise, what's the sense of looking up all of these words for their chinese roots?) Anyway, terrific book for those who are not yet Korean scholars to help them become Korean scholars.
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