How to master Korean Vocab

[John]

For my B-day yesterday my wife got me "How to master Korean Vocabulary"

isbn 978-1-4116-6963-5

anyone else have this? any reviews, complaints, kudos?

[matthew254]

this one? yeah I got it.

Slightly disappointing. The title should have read "A Former Hagwon Teacher's Hanja List" as really that is all the book is. Having said that, it is a nice introduction to hanja. I have learned only the higher frequency hanja words in there so it isn't worthless by any means. However, I say "learned" really it just reinforced what I have read from other texts - but again - still a decent book for less than 10 bucks.

It does a decent job of listing hanja base forms as well as using a clever mnemonic device for remembering the definitions - but I would have preferred to see more of a written style and less of a list. Remember the introduction? The author gives a detailed look at hanja and how it influences Korean. He then goes in depth at the first example. I would have preferred more of this for at least the top 10 hanja-based korean words/characters.

BTW, happy belated birthday!

[John]

Thx, for the review and the b-day wishes.