Billy Go, of YouTube fame, is very well known for providing Korean learners with grammar content and insights into the Korean language through is his various videos.. After using the Korean Made Simple grammar series, 2 years ago, I was interested to see what content he would create next. As I had a already passed Korean Made Simple 3 which covers up to most common grammar there was little need for a 4th book and google and dictionaries would suffice.
While my level continued to improve I found the power of reading. Reading is simply the best way to learn new words and experiences many different contexts very quickly. The hardest thing people find is being able to deal with the ambiguity of not understanding every single thing or the nuance of every single sentence. Sadly this is a part of language learning and it causes a lot of people to stick in the beginner stage re-reading grammar books for the 10th time to "nail down the grammar."
I was a little intrigued when Billy announced a reading book, as I had been reading for many months at the time it was announced but due to having so much content to read I had completely forgotten about it. To state before the review, I received this PDF copy from Billy himself, however the review will be as honest to the content as it is to the value.
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| Korean Reading Made Simple PDF Front Cover |
Korean reading made simple?
The book starts off by explaining a very important aspect of the language, that is, diary form or as Talk to Me in Korean like to call it. Plain Form. Known in Korean as 서술체 meaning narrative form, it is generally used as a way of writing ones thoughts and even expressing one's thoughts which is why you will often hear it when people exclaim.
The content consists of 21 different stories with 7 different style of writing varying from a comic style to email's and folk tales. Due to the varying nature of these types of media the book gets to span a fair amount of grammar and vocabulary that you may not have seen up until this point. Even with a year plus of reading, I still came across just a couple words I didn't know.
From the outset I was quite disappointed with the content, not so much with the reading content itself but the layout is quite jarring and the initial comic is very amateurish and I think cheapens the look right from the first chapter. The disappointment mainly stems from the quality of the Korean Made Simple series and how well it was laid out.
It feel I got from the book was that it couldn't decide whether it wanted to be a reading book or a grammar book. It tries to strike this balance of content and explanation but the explanations are quite lengthy, that it felt like it didn't take into account that you would know certain things. I think this might have been remedied if some intermediate learners proofread it and explained which parts they needed explaining.
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| Perhaps there is charm in the comic to some |
As we continue through the book past the comic section it becomes much better for actual content, with the journal entries being the second longest piece of material in the book. However with the length of the content comes even lengthier explanations. The vast majority of explanations I was skipping, missing out 3-4 pages at a time while trying to find the reading content made it feel like too much padding.
The news articles are of a good length, very reminiscent of TOPIK texts in their layout. Once again followed by 5 pages of explanations. The poems and social media posts were some of the most disappointing parts mainly due to the length of them.They are then followed by the folk tales which are the longest content in the book by far but are presented as a huge blocks of text which are hard to look at and easy to lose your spot.
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| Giraffe |
The Verdict
Overall I think the book could have contained a lot more Korean content and much less explanations. The book may actually be worth it to you, if you gain value in having everything explained to you or you feel you need to understand everything. However this is more of a clash of language learning philosophy than it is in a problem with the content.
The book is definitely in the intermediate range in terms of vocabulary and grammar I would definitely recommend finishing at least up to Korean made simple 2 or even 3 before using this book.
As it stands there is nothing wrong or strange about the Korean content itself, it's just that it is lacking in Korean for the price. Billy is a hard worker, we can see this in the effort he puts in to making new videos weekly and spending time to stream lessons. Not to say the book is lazy or a cash grab but I think the book is not up to the same standards that he has set and provided with his other content. It is the black sheep of the Billy Go brand for sure.
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| Excerpt of one of the folk tales |
I can see what he was trying to do but Billy does not have a strong background in reading content, so it was pretty ambitious. The content for me feels rushed more than anything. At the end of the day you get 109 pages worth of content for $9.99 pdf or $20 physical. In comparison to the 217 pages of more condensed pure Korean content for $14.99 physical that Olly Richard's Korean short stories provides or even the 248 pages of slightly padded content that LingoMastery's Korean short stories provides for $3.99 PDF and $14.99 physical.
In the future I think I would like to see the second book be vetted a bit more. There are plenty of intermediate level learners out there that would be willing to help narrow down some of the things that need explaining so that there can be more content to read in Korean and less content to skim over because you already knew that 깜짝 놀랐어 meant, to be startled. If you would like to purchase a copy of the book it is available on Amazon in kindle and paperback versions.
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| Billy's credentials and contact info |
A thank you goes out to Billy who allowed me to try the book. I will be willing to do more reviews in the future and I will remain honest about my opinion towards the content in hopes that we can get the best content to learners.
For related posts please check out these pages:
- How to Start Reading in a Foreign Language
- Anki Decks for Korean Learners
- 5 Korean Movies Based on Real Life Events
- Nintendo Switch Games to play in Korean
- The Monolingual Transition and How to Approach it
- How to Use Ridibooks(Korean Ebook Store)
- Olly Richards' Short Stories in Korean for Intermediate Learners Review
- Lingo Mastery's Korean Short Stories for Beginners Review
- I read 61 Korean books in 2020
- 7 Reading Tips to Accelerate Your Korean Learning
- 7 Fantasy Webtoons You Should Read in 2021
- Tuttle's Korean Stories for Language Learners Review
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