Hello there,
I'm currently majoring at university in Korean language and history. Our courses use the books published by Korea University. However I feel that the only goal of these books is to make the students pass the TOPIK test.
Hence, I feel that the vocabulary given in these books is so useless. This is why I can talk to Koreans only about folding paper airplanes while receiving an award for daily attendance. That's why these books make me quite angry. I want to learn something I can actually use in conversations with friends.
I was looking for books on the internet but didn't really find a satisfying answer.
What i find important is:
- actually used vocabulary (f.e. teachers tell us that 외출하다 sounds perfectly fine while my friends tell me I sound like a Korean grandma usind such words in daily conversations and I should rather just say 나가다)
--> this vocabulary should be explained by example sentences and it should be told if that vocabulary is for formal situations, if it's and old or a very rude word. How should I know how a word is used if I'm only given a translation that could be used in 1000 ways in English)
- and maybe it should feature a bit longer, more fun reading texts.
Would be great if someone had some tips.
If you want to read on a daily basis, I would definitely recommend Talk to Me in Korean. Their website is very rich in resources.
I've tried a couple textbooks that were pretty decent. You've probably heard of Integrated Korean, which is what I'm currently studying from. Each chapter has two reading passages. I only have the first book, so they're not the most interesting thing in the world, but it's not like I would be able to understand interesting topics at my level.
If you want free textbooks that are pretty good, Monash University offers their textbooks My Korean 1 & 2 along with their respective audio files for free. I've skimmed through them and they seem fairly interesting.You can find them here: http://artsonline.monash.edu.au/korean/my-korean-1/
Korean from Zero is another decent one. The only complaint I have is that I felt like they were over-complicating conjugation. Integrated Korean definitely has the better explanation for how to conjugate verbs and adjectives. The author has made the first book (and its audio files) available for free if you'd like to try it out, but I feel like your level may be too advanced for the first book. Here's the link: http://www.koreanfromzero.com/
Good luck~!
