Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Rosetta Stone seems like a good concept. But for Korean, it is awful. Do not waste your money on this. I bought the online version of this when I first started learning Korean. I assumed (wrongly) that Rosetta stone was the gold standard of language learning software. I bought some books along with it but I figured I would be relying most heavily on the Rosetta Stone. It was the complete opposite. This is how Rosetta is setup. It shows you a picture of a cat, while saying the word cat in Korean, and sometimes spelling it in Korean as well. Makes sense. Then, not very far into the program, it will show you a picture of a cat next to a table lying on a bed with the ceiling fan on and a door in the background... then says a sentence, in Korean, with NO English translation. So, sure, I can repeat the sentence into the microphone, get it correct, and move on. But- I have NO IDEA what I said! I found myself many times having to pause it, Google translate the Korean sentence, and figure out what I'm actually saying. Which was usually totally different from what I thought. In addition, it does not teach you to read Hangul. It teaches you a LITTLE bit as you're moving along, but not in a way that you will remember and not quickly enough at ALL. And since there are no romanizations (a breakdown of pronunciation using English letters that you know) there are STILL words that I thought I knew from Rosetta that it turns out I've been pronouncing wrong all along. You can learn Hangul in two days maybe three by downloading any free app. I've been learning Korean for half a year and I can tell you absolutely learn Hangul first, no matter what method you decide to learn Korean. Bottom line: It's confusing, doesn't teach Hangul, and I feel like it actually hindered my leaning of Korean. It truly set me back a couple months. Plus it is very expensive. I feel robbed. It was a complete waste of money to me. Somethings that have worked for me: TenguGo Hangul is an app for learning Hangul. It was extremely useful in learning proper pronunciation of Korean letters and is very thorough. Hangul Test is an app that sounds like exactly what it is-it tests you on the letters at a quick pace. When used in conjunction with the TenguGo app above, there is no reason you won't know Hangul very well within a week. By far the best book/CD set out there is Living Language. Study the book then use the online resources to hear the pronunciation and quiz yourself. I use the CD's in my car to brush up. It is also VERY reasonably priced considering it is a COMPLETE course. I was extremely happy to find this. Talk to Me in Korean is the best way to study Korean online. The website, PDF's and podcasts are all free, and entertaining. Made by Koreans in Korea so the information is accurate and helps you to sound like a native Korean speaker-not a talking textbook. They also have books and Ebooks for purchase and I have bought a few which I find incredibly useful. There are also many Memrise courses at Memrise.com for this website to help you practice the information on the lessons. This website is an absolute GEM. http://www.talktomeinkorean.com/about/ http://www.memrise.com/courses/english/?q=ttmik Best wishes to everyone learning Korean. And let me reiterate, buying Rosetta stone will not help at all.