첫 한국어 교과서

I first thought of learning Korean seriously after my tour to Korea in 2002. But due to procastination, I only started looking for Korean language book a year later. I started my search at Borders bookstore and discovered this "Colloquial Korean" book by In-Seok Kim. It was selling at over S$50. I couldn't bring myself to buy it at that price. So I went over to Borders's friendly competitor, Kinokuniya bookstore, and saw the same book selling at half the price. Without hesitation, I bought the book and started my self-study of the Korean language.

Frankly, for two years I didn't make much progress in my Korean language. Even with a textbook, I still felt like I was moving in darkness. I could not master even 10% of what was written in the textbook. It was not until late 2005 that I started my first formal Korean language lesson at NUS Extension. Now, almost two years after I started formal learning, I was finally able to understand the whole textbook. To a certain extent, I find my first Korean language textbook kinda of simple.

I would not recommend this textbook for beginners. Firstly, I think that its explanation of the Korean grammars is too simplistic. Furthermore, I feel that the jump in standard between the chapters can be quite steep for beginners. I hit a new wall every time I started a new chapter. Though the "Colloquial Korean" textbook may not be a very good book to start with, it is still a book that I will treasure as it marks the beginning of my Korean language learning journey.