"Yonsei Korean Reading" series???

[Gudrun]

There's a new series from Yonsei called Yonsei Korean Reading and there are 5 volumes in the series, each one with a CD. Has anyone used these books, or even seen these books? I could only see the covers on a website but I couldn't "search inside the book" and so I have no idea of the actual contents. If anyone has seen these, could you please let me know what you think? Thanks so much.

[trutherous]

I may have found this review http://www.learnkoreanlanguage.com/yonsei-readings.html

more info http://www.yskli.com/mn_news_list_19.htm

if it's by Yonsei it's bound to be pretty good.

I have Yonsei Korean (연세 한국어) 4, 5, and 6, each set contains two books and two CDs. These cover diverse situations and a good selection of vocabulary. The CDs could do without the hokey lead in/out music and the voices are a bit artificial but the pronunciation is very clear. And of course the CDs do not cover everything in the texts. I also feel a little cheated when language books contain a lot of photos or writing practice -- and these are no exception -- they could do with a little more content and less visual aids and writing practice.

I think I will also order the readers (I guess I'll have to since there don't seem to be anymore advanced level lessons here at KC101)
--I just searched the following link for "Yonsei Korean" and they all came up
http://www.hanbooks.com/

I should have picked them up in Korea in January.. but I brought back 30 volumes of something else

[Gudrun]

I asked a very accomplished Korean learner if she had heard of the series and she reviewed book 6 on her blog: http://hangukdrama.wordpress.com/2011/0 ... reading-6/

George, do you know what the different Yonsei levels would correspon to as far as low intermediate and intermediate? I think I need something "in the middle" so to speak.

[trutherous]

Thanks Gudrun,

Having now seen inside the book I guess I won't purchase them after all. It looks like a pretty standard format, nothing new there, and it seems like this type of book always covers similar things. I can accomplish much more with the same money and have more fun doing it.

My suggestion about levels might sound crazy but don't sell yourself short. We don't know anything before we study it so it may be that 'intermediate' is an illusion... it's all "advanced" until we learn a thing. So, without swinging to extremes, I am now of the mind that we should start with the hard stuff and work backwards; of course providing we already have a foundation of the most essential basics. It may be frustrating and take an enormous amount of time, but I'm sure the final results will be worth the effort.

Anyway the key is variety.

나

[Gudrun]

George, I did find a Korean reader for "intermediate to advanced" learners on Cheng and Tsui.
http://www.cheng-tsui.com/store/product ... her_essays

If you click on "Preview" you can see a pdf sample of one of the assays. There are no CDs though, which is unfortunate b/c I really need to work on my pronunciation. But I was satisfied enough with the table of contents and the sample text that I ordered it. But I fear it may well be too easy for you since to me, anyway, the sample essay looked to be intermediate level. At least the topics look interesting. I've got nothing against folktales, but I'm really tired of how many Korean books for foreign learners rely on folktales for reading material. There's just not a lot of useful vocab. there and after a while I've tired of those green tree frogs and the tigers and the dried persimmons...

As always, thanks for your advice and encouragement. Very much appreciated.

[trutherous]

I've got nothing against folktales, but I'm really tired of how many Korean books for foreign learners rely on folktales for reading material. There's just not a lot of useful vocab. there and after a while I've tired of those green tree frogs and the tigers and the dried persimmons...

Hahahah! --yeah-- haha-- and I think I have discovered the reason politics have been so messed up throughout Korean history -- it seems that many of their great kings were hatched from eggs that dropped from heaven -- so that means they were aliens I guess

The book you found appears to have a very rich table of contents. It looks like worthy material but I think perhaps a little 답답한게 보여요.

I would like to suggest 3-5th grade elementary level book series designed for Korean children, not for foreigners. This I would say equals approximately high intermediate to advanced levels for foreigners. Here are a couple of the series I have found fun to read and or very useful:

어린이 과학형사대 CSI --do a search for this on your fav search engine - fun to read and very useful vocabulary (primary school kids using basic science to solve crimes) not comic book style -- just enough pictures to get the story across - somewhat conversational

신문이 보이고 뉴스가 들리는 30 volumes --hopefully the link works but if not plug that Hangul into Naver search - not really that much fun to read (pain in the @$$ sometimes) but if you really really want to be fluent in Korean this series covers much of the subject matter and vocabulary commonly in the news and topics of daily Korean conversations. I will be reading most of these books 2-3 times

[Gudrun]

Wow, thanks for the links and advice. Actually, I picked the book from Cheng & Tsui because I need to learn that vocab.--by far my weakest area in Korean. Those books you recommend sound interesting too. I found that Aladdinus.com sells that 30 book set as individual books also. Is there a particular volume that you would recommend? I'll definitely check out the books with the kids using science to solve crimes; that should be interesting to me as I'm an analytical chemist. Thanks again!

[trutherous]

ㅋㅋㅋ

vocab.--by far my weakest area in Korean

haha

Vocabulary -- yeah there's that.. how many words indicate wife? When to use which one?

하지만 나중에, 어휘를 아주 많이 아실 때, 지금보다 더 유창하게 대화 하실 수 있을 때, 예절이 제일 큰 문제가 될거에요.

Maybe you have already experienced when having a polite conversation with a Korean coworker/acquaintance and in the same sentence you are talking about him, his wife, his parents... then about his children and his grandmother that has recently been hospitalized -- and in passing conversation the subject of the family dog's unusual behavior while the family keeps vigil by the sick grandmother's side comes up .. gahh! it's a real taste of mixing those subtle levels of etiquette.. bahhh!