Korean Made Simple: A beginner's guide to learning the Korean language

I can’t praise this book enough. I had tried Talk to Me in Korean Level 1, but progress felt really slow. Switched to this book and, just in the first 5 chapters, I felt like I was making way more progress - building vocab, grammar, and actual reading/writing skills. What makes this series stand out is how much Korean text you actually work with and how much vocab you’re introduced to. Other books sometimes feel like an English book about Korean, but this feels like a Korean book for learners. You’re exposed to full Korean passages and lots of text right away, but the way it’s broken down makes it click by the end. That little bit of immersion makes a huge difference. The workbook is a must too! Lots of fill-in-the-blanks, sentence building, dictation exercises - so you’re actually using the language. If you’re a beginner self learner and want the best introduction to really reading, writing, and understanding Korean, this is it!

I'm about half way through the book so far, and I feel like I've used it enough to leave a thoughtful and (hopefully) helpful review. The first thing that you should know is that this probably isn't the best "stand alone" book. It's not a textbook, so it's not going to have everything that you need to learn the language. It IS, however, very helpful for a beginner to gain a lot of basic understanding to the language and how grammar fits Korean sentences together. The information is pretty clearly laid out and is to-the-point. Not a lot of unnecessary confusing topics right off the bat, and then it goes a bit deeper into complex rules later on. It's set up in a format that is really easy for me to follow. I really like this book and will definitely move on to the others as I continue learning the language. That being said, there are a few things that I would have liked to see, especially in a beginner's book. Some of these are entirely preferential, so if you're okay with these things missing, then that's okay. Use of a "handwriting" font is extremely confusing. It took about 8 chapters before I felt comfortable reading the Hangul font, and I was often copying down the WRONG spelling due to my complete inability to read that font. I would have liked to see the first chapter or two have both the typical font and the handwriting font for all the words in order to better familiarize the differences between the two fonts. Only occasionally in later chapters are new concepts introduced with the cleaner font, but most new words are in the handwriting font. Though there are audio files available on the site (which are very useful), they are only of the conversations. This is good for listening practice, but there are a lot of new words introduced in each chapter and (especially as a beginner), you kind of have to guess at what they sound like. There's an in-depth Appendix on pronunciation rules, but very few people will read and retain all the rules, and you often find yourself learning a mispronunciation and can't identify the word if you hear it elsewhere. It'd be nice if on vocab words that have special pronunciation, if there was a bit of a reminder "hey, this looks like this, but is pronounced like this!" Not enough repetition. Again, totally preferential, but I find myself diligently taking notes through out a chapter, do the 6-10 lines of practice at the end, and then moving on to the next chapter without realizing I'm not ready due to a lack of real structure in the chapter's end. There are lists and lists and lists of vocab words, most of which were not used in the chapter. It'd just be nice to see a bit more repetition, a bit more "work" in order to drive home concepts that were taught during a chapter. Even with these minor flaws, I still find this to be a helpful book, and I recommend it to anyone learning Korean. It's a valuable source of information and the narration style is comfortable, easy to read (not like a dry textbook). Edit after finishing the book: Of all the resources that I've been using for learning the language, this one is definitely my favorite. It explains things pretty well and gives you a bit of cultural insight. Right now I'm just going through again to review each chapter. There are a few things that I'd already forgotten, but the rest of it is really sticking with me. I already purchased the second book, and I'll definitely get the third later on. I'm updating my review from 4 stars to 5 stars. Thanks!

Well-written and easy to understand. Definitely also get the workbook. It really helps reinforce what you learned. I recommend making flash cards for the vocabulary also. It is also well-organized. This is the first language textbook I have ever been able to stick with. I believe this is a great place to start and I recommend going through all three books over time.

Let me start out by saying that I'm basically very new to Korean. I had a little knowledge before this book, mostly just some vocabulary knowledge. If you're already experienced with Korean, you might need the sequel to this book. But this book is great! I'm hardly half way through it so far, but it's taught me in just a couple of weeks what other books have failed to teach me so far in months. After getting this book, I've dropped the others to spend my time focusing on this one. I think after I finish this one (and it's sequel), I'll be ready to pick up and attempt the other books that I originally had. Here's why: Each chapter has a bunch of vocabulary that you have to memorize, but with any new language, that's to be expected. You have to learn words to make sentences and this book seems to teach you a lot of very commonly used words. I love it! Most other books I've looked at are more concerned with teaching you grammar right away, but what use is that if you don't know any words to begin with? Each chapter of this book starts out with a conversation, breaks the conversation down, and explains the words and the grammar that you see in the conversation. The writing is very simple and easy to follow. Everything is explained very thoroughly, so you're left with no questions about what's being explained. There's so much vocabulary that you learn that you could make a multitude of sentences within just a few chapters. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who really wants to learn Korean!

I have been following Talk to Me in Korean (TTMIK) and Go Billy Korean for a while. Korean Made Simple is organized like many language books: pronunciation at beginning, greetings then present tense, etc etc. The lessons themselves also organized like many textbooks with a dialogue, break down of the new concepts in the dialogue, some practice activities and a vocab list at the end. I'm only part way through the book (because of my time management) but what I've gone through has been well explained for a beginner. My main complaint about this version (I do believe he announced earlier this year/2021 that he is working on revisions of this series but I don't know what type of revisions he will be making) is mainly in how he introduces vocabulary. Some of his vocab lists are not cohesive and seem more like a smattering of unrelated but most common words. Sometimes he will introduce groups of words that make sense together and help connect with the grammatical concept taught but then add a word to this group in the next chapter where the lone word now feels out of place/out of context. It makes more sense to give a bunch of locations all in the section about a location-related concept (like the "(going) to" particle) or keep all the food items grouped together (rather than a bunch of fruits in chapter 4 then a lone "cheese" in the next chapter). There was also a point in the book where I saw the new concept could be integrated with the previous chapter but the practice exercises didn't include said integration of concepts. I think I found the discussion of said integration later on but, like with the spread out vocab lists, it felt out of context in a way because newer concepts were being talked about. However this was not as hindering to my learning as the scattered vocabulary. Compared to TTMIK's more modular curriculum, I love how each lesson has the vocab lessons available without needing to reference a separate source/book but, as mentioned above, the vocab needs better organization. Go Billy Korean explains the concepts clearly for beginning language learners and includes some cultural notes throughout (I watched many years of Kdrama before committing to learning the language so these were sometimes a nuisance because I personally don't need these cultural notes but others new to Korean culture will benefit). I haven't checked out all his supplementary videos but I hope they do help others. This is overall a great entry-level Korean curriculum for self-learners.

It is excellent when it comes to grammar explanations; they are really easy to understand, and the format of the book makes it enjoyable to read without feeling visually overwhelmed. The examples are great as well, and I highly recommend getting the workbook too

이 책을 좋아합니다 I like this book. The way the content is presented really works well for me. Do not expect to become fluent or even conversational from this book. But it’s a great start to the learning journey and teaches enough for you to go from absolutely zero to being able to communicate basic ideas. I tried George Tromboley’s “Korean from zero” and found it to be a bit overwhelming compared to this book. I really think Billy’s decision to use the 다 form was the way to go. Drastically simplifies conjugations for beginners. Thank you Billy!

I started watching Learn Korean with Go! Billy on YouTube and really loved how he teaches Korean. I was hesitant on getting this book and the Korean Made Simple Workbook, thinking I was getting enough from the videos. I cannot recommend these books enough! There is so much more to study and practice and it has helped me greatly to really start understanding the language. The information is laid out well in each section and explained in detail. If you're thinking about the Korean Made Simple books and not sure, JUST GET THEM!!! They are absolutely worth the investment. Plus there are audio files that can be downloaded to go along with the books.