Heisoon Yang

The first advanced Korean reading text for non-native speakers, Selected Readings in Korean consists of eighteen lessons on diverse, stimulating topics such as Korean traditions, culture, and society. It is designed for use by students who have completed the fourth-year level in Korean (approximately five hundred class hours) or the equivalent. Each lesson consists of six sections: pre-reading group activities, which not only serve as a schema for efficient comprehension of the reading text to follow, but also help students broaden their relevant knowledge; an authentic main reading text on an informative and interesting topic; explanations in Korean and English of words that may be unfamiliar to students, including words indicating abstract or culture-specific concepts; explanations of idiomatic expressions; extensive exercises intended to help students master the contents of the text, new vocabulary, and grammar while improving their composition and oral presentation skills; and post-reading activities designed to further thinking and group discussion on subjects related to the main topic of the lesson. Appended are translations of the main reading texts of all eighteen lessons and a Korean-English glossary. Overall, special effort has been made to render the volume learner-centered and learner-friendly.

Korean Reader for Chinese Characters will help students of Korean master basic Chinese characters that are frequently encountered in everyday situations. More than five hundred characters are targeted in exercises that aid in the efficient study of the forms, meanings, and sounds of individual characters and their compounds. Although the primary goal of the Reader is recognition of basic Chinese characters, students are encouraged to learn to write them properly by inclusion of a section on stroke order. The Reader is also designed to reinforce skills in reading and writing in Korean while studying Chinese characters. Forty lessons are preceded by an introductory chapter on the principles of Chinese character formation and reading and writing characters and followed by appendices on stroke order, English translations of the main reading text of each lesson, and an index of characters. The lessons are organized into seven parts: new characters, reading text, glossary, notes, new words in characters, more words in characters, and exercises. After every fifth lesson, there is a section reviewing all the characters introduced in the preceding five lessons.