10 Best Books for Learning Korean in the Philippines 2024

This set consists of a grammar textbook and workbook that are must-haves for every Korean self-learner. The textbook focuses on core Korean lessons such as basic greetings, counting numbers, and basic sentence formulations that you can use to hold simple conversations in Korean.

Meanwhile, the workbook includes review exercises, including vocabulary, writing, listening, reading, and translating, to reinforce the lessons you've picked up from the textbook. It also comes with supplementary audio to help improve your listening and reading comprehension skills. What reviewers love the most about this is its straightforward approach, which makes it easy to understand.

This book is the perfect choice for busy bees who already know how to read Hangeul and can only spare a little portion of their day for study sessions. It gives you ten Korean words to study daily over 50 days. It also teaches you how to use them in context by providing definitions, usages, and antonyms.

Aside from that, it teaches you the proper use of words in banmal (casual) and jondaemal (formal) forms. The book also comes with review exercises such as crossword, word match, and fill-in-the-blanks to refresh you about what you have just learned. Plus, it includes accompanying audio files that you can obtain from their site to aid you with pronunciation and speaking.

Do you ever wonder what your oppa's caption on Instagram says? If yes, it's time to pick this book up and master Hangeul or the Korean alphabet. It provides extensive coverage of everything you need to know to learn Hangeul. It has Hangeul writing exercises to help you learn how to write in Korean efficiently, and it also tackles proper pronunciations and syllabications of Korean characters.

On top of that, it comes with downloadable audio files to help you achieve better Korean reading skills. There are also "time-out" sections throughout the book that serves as short study breaks. These sections provide tidbits and facts about Korean culture and language that learners may find helpful for future travels.

If you're looking for a book highlighting Korean grammar, this one is for you. It teaches systematic grammar organization that is specially arranged by experienced Korean professors who have taught foreigners. It aims to help beginners easily comprehend even tricky grammar points.

The book provides several sentence examples and concise explanations of their meanings and usages. It also consists of short dialogues and fill-in-the-blank review exercises to test the learner's understanding after every lesson point. Some reviewers even mentioned that this book delves into tricky topics, like the proper usage of Korean particles.

This book provides a holistic approach to learning the Korean language. It tackles the Korean writing system and teaches Korean sentence structure along with over 1000 vocabulary words and phrases that you can pick up through 20 in-depth lessons. It also includes Korean culture and historical insights that can help cultivate cultural awareness in the learners.

Moreover, it offers practice sections with answer keys built into every chapter to serve as review exercises after every lesson. Although curated for beginners, it can be a refresher for advanced learners because it features additional advanced-level notes distributed throughout each chapter. There are also audio files included to assist the learners with listening practice.

This book offers balanced learning of all communication methods, from speaking, listening, reading, and writing. It is copyrighted by the National Institute of Korean Language, which is supported by the Korean government. Hence, it is also used by some organizations that teach Korean as their reference material.

It teaches useful Korean phrases that you can use in daily scenarios, such as ordering items, describing the weather, or asking for locations. Each chapter presents a new theme that is broken down into lessons about grammar and vocabulary. It also has visually-stimulating colors and images, making it ideal for visual learners.

This book is suited for you if you have already learned the basics and want to level up your Korean speaking skills. It features 40 real-life dialogues to help you practice and eventually carry out a conversation in Korean with ease. There are warm-up dialogues that tend to be short and long dialogues for in-depth learning.

Each unit in the book also provides a list of the essential words used in the sample dialogues, so you can be familiar with them. Apart from that, it includes pronunciation exercises that you can practice with the accompanying audio tracks to help you speak like a native Korean.

Have you ever encountered Korean words that don't seem to be in the dictionary? Those are slang expressions commonly used in daily conversations, and this book will let you master all these terms so you can be an 인싸 (inssa) or a cool kid within your circle. It delves into colloquial slang terms, which are usually wordplays of existing words, teaching what they mean and how to use them.

An example you can get in the book is 얼짱 (eoljjang), a mix of the two words 얼굴 (eolgul) or face and 짱 (jjang), which means best. Young Koreans use this to praise someone who has a pretty face. But keep in mind that terms like this are informal; you can't mindlessly use them when talking to older people or someone you're supposed to be polite to, or it can be deemed rude.