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Rating: 
Summary: Elementary Korean is the best
Review: After studying Korean (on my own using internet sources etc etc) I have decided that this book is definately by far one of the best books you can get for korean. It contains an incredible amount of information. Most courses are quite small for Korean and do not contain a great deal, or are hard to manage. I have looked at the Rosetta Stone series for Korean (costing $300) and this $50 book is by far better than that whole program. It is better than any books I have seen in book stores. I have done the Pimsleur course which is a little strange in my opinion. Pimsleur does help with pronunciation a little bit but some of the language structure is a bit weird and not natural for the Korean Language. I feel that ever since I bought this book a couple weeks ago (I am on lesson 6 out of 15 I believe) I am learning at a much faster pace than I ever was before. 1) The grammer in this is excellent. It contains many many grammer points for every chapter and introduces them in a nice order (meaning you get important stuff first unlike some other courses I have looked at where you have to wait till near the end of the course to really dig into some good grammer).
2) The vocabulary consists of a surplus of words that anyone could ever want to learn as they are starting Korean. I admit, this course is really hard and does contain a lot of information right from the start and might be hard on someone who does not know anything about Korean, but if you have already begun looking into the Korean Language, I highly recommend this. I do not know how good of a job it does teaching hangul as I already knew most hangul when beginning this book, but I do know it covered some points and specific irregulars and pronunciation rules that I had not previously known so it probably is very good at hangul as well. Others have said to do the 2 hangul chapters first, which might be a good idea to someone who does not know it. It should be a pretty good book for teaching hangul but I am not entirely sure if it teaches well and easy to understand for someone who does not know hangul, but it seems to do a good job. The first two chapters on just basic sentences and sayings people should know were alright in my opinion. Chapter 1 is good because it deals with just simple things like yes, no, nice to meet you, thank you, etc...But honestly, the romanization confuses me very very much so I would learn hangul first (it has both romanization and hangul in the chapters 1 and 2 because they do not introduce hangul until chapter 3). The romanization has a chart for how to pronounce all the strange letters they use for romanization and all, and I honestly think hangul would be much easier to learn than learning romanization used in these two chapters. But if you know the hangul (which is covered in the book) then chapter 1 is very good. Chapter 2 covers basic information on what a teacher might say in the classroom or the students, which didnt do much for me as I am learning completely on my own. 3 and 4 is hangul. Chapter 5 is where this book finally really kicks in. Starting with Chapter 5 you have all your lists of vocabulary, your dialogues, and many explanations on grammer. Chapter 5 is where it gets intense. People have mentioned the audio cd is not very good. I disagree. I think it is excellent. Even though it is just one 74 minute cd (seemed like it wouldnt last very long) it has most anything on the cd you would want being pronounced. It does not give you time to repeat after them or does not say words twice, but it fits a lot of words and spoken korean on the one cd. You can listen to it and figure out how the word should be said. The woman speaker speaks at a nice pace, while the male speaker is a little faster but still a nice pace in my opinion. Listening to the male speaker helps build your listening comprehension because when speaking with a real korean it will be just as hard if not harder to understand. The cd is excellent in my opinion. Lastly, I want to mention the exercises. There are exercises at the ends of the chapters (mainly beginning with Chapter 5 when the real lessons begin) which I highly recommend you doing. Luckily I am highly interested in the Korean language and find it very fun to learn so I can make myself do them. Some may seem a bit dull or long or pointless at first but I know thats not the case. When it says figure out what this is in Korean and write out the WHOLE sentence for each one, I highly recommend doing that. It will greatly help, even if it is a lot of work. It has all the answers (or answers that work - for example if it says translate this sentence into Korean, it will give a correct translation, when there are a couple different ways to translate it. That is the only problem I have found so far. Sometimes its hard to check your answers if your working on your own and they only give one possible solution...but, they do cover an answer for every exercise in the book.). Overall, I like everything about this book. It covers everything very well.
Rating:
Summary: There couldn't be a better Korean text in English
Review: Firstly, I have found the accompanying CD excellent from the 1st chapter. If anything, the female could speak more rapidly. If either of the speakers had spoken slower, the phrases wouldn't have sounded natural or fluid.
Secondly, I agree with other reviewers that Hangul should be taught and/or used in chapters one and two. Those who aren't familiar with Hangul basically must wait until the third and forth chapters before learning and exploring it. The first two chapters are to familiarize the learner with sentence structure (SOV patterned) and Korean sounds. The lessons proper begin with lesson five. I recommend starting with lessons 3 and 4 if you are 1. not familiar with Hangul or 2. in need of a refresher on pronunciation guidelines and rules.
I really think this is a best for learning Korean!
For those of you who speak Japanese, I recommend "Shikkari Manabu Kankokugo, Bunpou to Renshuu Mondai," 2003, by Bere Shuppan. It comes with a CD, and the ISBN is 4-939076-27-X C2087. If you are interested, I recommend ordering this from Kinokuniya. The first 15 chapters cover in depth Hangul rules (with ample examples).
Lastly, enjoy your studies and enjoy this book!!
Rating: 
Summary: Alot to take in for a begginer....
Review: I ordered this book after having become semi-fluent in Japanese and being used to the romaji of Japanese (as well as the kana and kanji) . Once I opened the book, I was very overwhelmed with the Korean system of romanization, I found trying to read the romanization more challenging than actually reading the Hangul. The writing system takes very little time to learn. I also agree with what people say about the CD. The male reader does speak WAY to fast, but the female speaker speaks slow enough that even if you are new to the language, you can clearly hear all the sounds. Overall, it was a very good book, but I recommend learning Hangul with its pronunciation and not even looking at the romanization if you have ever studied Japanese.
Rating: 
Summary: Best Korean Text, But Still Difficult to Follow
Review: Korean is admitted a difficult language, esp. in pronunciation. As someone who also knows Japanese and Chinese, my overall impression of this title is that it is very confusing if used as a self-learning text, but is still the best introductory Korean textbook I've seen. Strengths: Thorough introduction to the language; insistent use of the Han'gul (Korean script); good grammar notes. Weaknesses: VERY bad audio CD (way too fast for beginners, and not enough basic sounds); choppy English at times; too much Han'gul at the beginning which makes the first few lessons intimidating; forces you to learn their phonetic system; total lack of Chinese characters (given that most non-Korean students of the language seem to be Chinese or Japanese, it would be nice to include such characters both as a necessity to complete the course and as a study aid). All in all, it's a very difficult course to follow, but if you persevere and study the materials carefully, you'll get a good grasp of the Korean language. [If anyone knows of a Korean text for Chinese or Japanese speakers, please let me know. I'm really having a hard time with this book: I'm re-studying it for the second time and my Korean totally sucks.]
Rating:
Summary: Another comprehensive Korean resource
Review: Want to learn Korean than from what is taught in phrasebooks? Wanting to have a very basic command of the Korean language? Then this book is most likely for you! It's very rare that textbooks on the Korean language are very high quality, this newcomer is of high quality. The section on the sound systems of a language is what I consider the most vital to a language book. This book accomplishes it real well. It uses a form of IPA alongside "layman's terms." If those don't work out, then use the accompanying CD. It also teaches the writing system, Han'geul, and the allophones (varities of a sound). Romanization is used at a minimum and disappears around lesson 5. The Romanization isn't McCune-Reischauer or Yale, but it's a modified form of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). Each lesson contains several brief dialogues followed by short vocabulary notes in Korean and English. After that section, Korean grammar used in the dialogue is thoroughly explained. Charts and sentence examples are used as learning aids. There are also exercises on the different politeness levels of Korean and reviews of previous lessons. The end of the book featuers a two-way Korean and English vocabulary and the answer guide. The authors were certainly correct in saying that this is comprehensive and detailed.
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