Korean textbook with a more serious tone

Question

I'm new to language learning, and was wondering whether anyone has recommendations for a textbook for beginner-ish level Korean that is more substantive. Something that isn't just disjointed conversations and half-explained grammar rules. I'd be interested in something that integrates non-trivial discussions of grammar into the teaching of vocabulary and conversational practice.

The closest I've gotten to finding such a thing (at least in terms of feel, not exactly in terms of content) is [1], [2], or [3] but they don't quite fit the bill.

Anyways, thanks very much for any input!

[1] Amen IV, H.J. and Park, K., 2010. Korean for Beginners: Mastering Conversational Korean (Downloadable Material Included). Tuttle Publishing.

[2] Choo, M. and O'Grady, W.D., 2003. The sounds of Korean: A pronunciation guide (Vol. 1). University of Hawaii Press.

[3] Sin, C.Y., Shin, J., Kiaer, J. and Cha, J., 2012. The sounds of Korean. Cambridge University Press.

Answer 1

This one may be more useful as reference book for Korean grammar. It has all the grammar you need for TOPIK 1 & 2. I find it really well explained, containing example sentences for in everyday language rather than weird sounding specially constructed sentences. For each grammar principle, they also list references to other ones that learners might be confusing this for, which I find really handy. It also comes with a CD and MP3 download.

For advanced study, there is also a second version of the book for TOPIK 3 & 4 and a third version for TOPIK 5 & 6.

This is the link to the website of the publisher but it seems to be very slow, so here is an Amazon US link for reference.

Title: Korean Grammar in Use: Beginning to Early Intermediate (English ver.)
Author: Ahn Jean-myung, Lee Kyung-ah, Han Hoo-youn
ISBN: 978-89-5995-198-7
Price: 21000 KRW

Other than the book, I can also recommend to have a look at howToStudyKorean.com, which is a free online resource that I mainly use to study Korean.

Hopefully this is useful to you in any way.

Answer 2

I don't know if this fits the bill, but below are some recommendations that I use to learn Korean:

1. Cho, Young-me Yu, et al. Integrated Korean: Beginning 2. 2nd Edition. University of Hawaii Press, n.d.

   The companion workbook: Park, Mee-Jeong, et al. Integrated Korean Workbook: Beginning 1. 2nd Edition. University of Hawaii Press, n.d.

2. Cho, Young-mee Yu, et al. Integrated Korean: Beginning 1. 2nd Edition. University of Hawaii Press, n.d.

   The companion workbook: Park, Mee-Jeong, et al. Integrated Korean Workbook: Beginning 2. 2nd Edition. University of Hawaii Press, n.d.

Here is also a site to download Korean textbooks, you may find something there that you like: [https://www.koreantopik.com/search/label/eBook?&max-results=7][1]

Answer 3

I can not recommend enough Basic Korean and Intermediate Korean by Andrew Sangpil Byon.

I've been studying Korean for 2 years, already working through TOPIK 2 and his series of books available by Routledge has been instrumental in my reading and writing development.

Outside of this, I've never bought any other Korean books besides those which focus on groups of related vocabulary in order to expand my Korean. After reading his series, you'll find that other books present subjects in a fractured an incomplete manner and that a more fundamental idea can be presented which covers all cases.