Ewha

[Keith]

What's a CC? is it equivalent to 학원?

[javiskefka]

Sogang's books are really well designed. I recently bought level 3A workbook and student book, and feel that I could use it entirely on my own. There are some activities in the student book that are designed to do with a classmate, so maybe you can do them with some friends, but the student book also includes a CD with LOTS of great dialogs in it

I definitely recommend textbooks that include audio cds. I have found those to be very helpful, but then again, it was before I discovered this website. Still, it can be useful if the cd has the exercises read aloud as they were for the GANADA books that I have.

[umi1978]

What's a CC? is it equivalent to 학원?

Hi Keith,

CC stands for Community Centre.
This is how we talk in Singapore. Haha.

[shanshanchua]

Thanks for the advice austinfd. Will check out whether my local Borders has it, if not I'll looking into getting it online.

Don't bother with the Singapore Borders or Kinokuniya. I've looked at the Borders section on languages a couple of times, but have never found any "serious" Korean textbooks except Elementary Korean (costs over $100). The rest are pretty standard - mainly phrasebooks for travelling. I've seen Rosetta Stone and a few other book + CD sets before, but I'm not sure how good they are. As for Kinokuniya, I've asked their premium sourcing service if they could bring in the Sogang books, but they said they couldn't. So I think the best bet if you want either the Sogang or Yonsei books would be to order from either Seoul Selections or Hanbooks. For Seoul Selections, I tried adding the Sogang text + work books from 1A to 3B (6 books) to the shopping cart and the total shipping cost came up to about US$36 (whole order would be > US$100) , which is much better than Hanbooks. But I haven't decided whether to order yet...

[umi1978]

Hi Shanshanchua,

Have you tried under the Chinese Section in Kinokuniya?
There are a few good books on Korean Language but are translate in Chinese.
The other place you can try is the ‘SOL Mart’ at Cineleisure Orchard (Basement)
I remembered they do sell some Korean textbooks.
You can go down and take a look if you want. Good luck!

[meibao]

Hi Shanshanchua

I'm going to go with the Sogang series and it looks like I'll end up getting it from Seoul Selections and they do seem the cheapest.

Hi Umi

I go to Nee Soon East CC for my Korean classes. I'm enjoying them as the teacher goes through dialogs and also on grammar rules in an easy to understand manner. Are dialogs come with English translation but no romanization so we have to really learn the alphabets.

Unfortunately I don't read Chinese so can't check out those you recommended to Shanshan...this other place you mentioned though - SOL Mart - are the books in English?

[umi1978]

hi meibao,

the books are mostly in Korean, they only have a few translate in english.

[shanshanchua]

Hi meibao,

I'm also fairly keen on the Sogang series. But if you do go down to SOL Mart and find the books there, please let me know!! Then we won't have to order online. Thanks!

And a word on learning Hangul - it's really the best way to learn Korean. Hangul itself is really easy to learn, though it takes practice before you can read words and sentences fluently.

[matthew254]

wow, so to kind of bring it back to topic (i had no idea the topic was actually still about 이대

I attended a three week short term program in July 2008. I had no idea what to expect but all in all, I am incredibly happy with how my classes went. I also was more than a leg up (moreso outside of the classroom) thanks to the good folks at KC101. We had a nice balance of input and output as well as decent (and relatively cheap) textbooks. I should point out to any perspective student that all classes regardless of level are delivered in 95% Korean. On KC101, we get spoiled with quite a lot of English - a more Western approach, if you will. I didn't expect this, but personally, I did enjoy the change of pace if for only a while. I should also point out the the class operated in all 존댓말 and it is generally requested that all questions and statements use the -입니다/습니다 endings (although the 요 form was accepted too)

I was placed in level 1.2 which is pretty low but there's no complaints - I was in the right class. I learned a great deal about some basics that I just never got around to learning - such as directions, mail, phone numbers, room furniture, and all the pertinent vocab that goes along with those subjects.

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed the experiences and friendships made during my stay in lovely Seoul. I think that if anyone has the time and money that they should give Korea a try - and not just for the traveling (which I did quite a deal of after the course)

I wrote up a travel blog found at http://bug254.livejournal.com that describes a whole lot of my trip and a little about my experiences at Ewha.