If you are just learning Korean and are romanization dependent this probably won’t work for you in Korea or anywhere else. I mean carrying around this book with you and trying to utter the romanization just isn’t going to work. In Korea people aren’t going to take time to figure out what you’re saying. They have a “hurry hurry” (Bali bali) culture.

BUT, if you can read an intermediate amount of Korean and you’d like to read and learn new phrases, then this book is great! I really enjoyed it. And unlike that white book out there (don’t buy that one!) it’s more than here’s how to get F$*()($* and drunk and all that teen-age angst and 20 something desperado – stuff.

Wish I’d skipped the white book —- go for the first one of these and this one. Too bad it’s called “making out”, I understand the double meaning, but the sexual connotation wasn’t really necessary or 100% accurate for this book.

Enjoy it if you buy it. I have Korean friends (native) who say it’s about 90% accurate. (as far as translation goes). Even I correct it here and there. ^^

so basically you have a book that teaches you some cool things…except the only part that matters (the korean part) is hard to read.

Lonely Planet Korean Phrasebook
College Korean
Sounds of Korean: A Pronunciation Guide
Berlitz Korean Dictionary: Korean-English / English-Korean (Berlitz Concise Dictionaries S.) (Korean Edition)
Looking for a Mr. Kim in Seoul: A Guide to Korean Expressions (English and Korean Edition)

As a language book, you won’t be learning the Korean language with this single volume. As a supplementary guide to have in your Korean language resources, it is not a bad phrase book. The book does include the hangul (Korean native alphabet) under the Romanization of the Korean words, which is a big plus. I do like that they included the hangul.

The book starts out by saying you deserve to know how to say the dirty words in the language if you want to, and then provides a quick blurb on pronouncing Korean. Again, you are not going to learn the language from this text, but you will pick up some words not found in most Korean language guides.

Before you think the book is only full of vulgarities, it is not. It has much slang that is not offensive at all. You’ll learn the shorter slang version of “good morning” as well as the shorter slang for “evenin’” and “sorry.” There are also a lot of short paragraphs on Korean culture and etiquette. These are not only educational, but also entertaining at times. The book is a pretty fun read if you are interested in Korea and the spoken language of that country.

The book is divided into chapters titled Howdy, Friendly, Party, Body, Horny, Angry, Poppy, Sporty, and Hungry. Many words are pretty common, but there is enough slang, insults, explicit terms, and swear words to make the person looking for those get their money’s worth from this inexpensive little book. I actually learned a lot of the swear words when living in Korea the first time with the military, and they came in handy when living and teaching English there as a civilian. I knew what the kids were saying, and when they found out I understood, the use of that language stopped in the classroom when I was there. So there is a legitimate reason to learn the slang. Besides, it can also be fun, so add this book to your Korean language references if you want a fun, easy to read slang oriented language book. You’ll be speaking Dirty Korean in no time.

Reviewed by Alain Burrese, J.D., author of Hard-Won Wisdom From the School of Hard Knocks.

Cultural differences aside- this book still has problems.

Not because it is “culturally insensitive” (its TRYING to be funny) but because its just not that well written.

I bought this book shortly before I went to visit my Korean girlfriend and thought it might be something funny to read on nights we could get bored. Having studied a small amount of Korean, I thought it could help me express myself a bit better in common situations. Unfortunately, when I tried out a few different lines from the book on my girlfriend, she simply looked puzzled and asked me what I was talking about.

Finding the book to show her she opted to flip through it. Perplexed, she constantly pointed at the pages and said “that’s not right” or “I don’t get it” or even so far as “people don’t say that”. After looking at almost every page she laughed and tossed the book back to me saying I should just throw it out. As we were bombing around Hongdae and she was no old maid (we had *plenty* of fun without the book) I was inclined to believe her opinion.

But more then that- when I first glossed over the book I felt that the author simply didn’t know what he was talking about. Many stereotypes made of Korean people I felt were simply inaccurate. Moreover, I found a curiously large amount of references to *Japanese* culture that, if I didn’t know about Japanese culture, I wouldn’t have understood (ie: “pound the moochi”). As a side note- the Hangul font used is almost unreadable (for a non native Korean speaker) as well as the romanization of said Hangul is very literal and incorrect if read/spoken as written.

It is almost as if they had someone read “Dirty Japanese” and then loosely asked a Korean (living in America) for similar phrases and just published whatever he said.

At best- its good for a laugh. At worst- its a waste of a few bucks. Not going to help anyone’s Korean studies (or lingo) but worth a passing glance.

Years ago, I studied Korean for about 2 years but never really completed all of the learning but still immerse myself in their music, tv, food and culture. This book has actually revealed a lot of insight to me that I didn’t know before since I never actually visited South Korea yet. Good swear words and slang I’ve heard but never spelled out when watching Korean movies. The only gripe I have is the the Korean (Hangul) font he chose to spell the words take some getting used to since they are a bit cursive in writing.

Overall a great addition to my learning and very glad I found this on Amazon.

It’s okay. Koreans don’t always say any one thing any one way – so it comes close
to what most say (and they will understand you.)

The book however, comes with one fatal flaw that works in my favor.
The Korean hangul itself isn’t typed, it’s hand written. This is
going to be very very bad for anyone IN Korea or learning Korean who
needs to see the typed hangul (because the written is harder to read –
if not impossible in this book in places).

BUT FOR ME, it’s good! Great practice in reading hand written Korean.
Sloppy as it is written, it is like something you might scrawl across a
post-it in English…and so, this is what you might see if a Korean left
you a post-it note.

Since I don’t have much chance (here in the USA to actually see written
Korean hangul, this book will hopefully train my eye to the written form
of the language (visually).

But, again, to the visitor, tourist or true beginner – the book isn’t
ideal exactly because of this MAJOR flaw. Best of both worlds the
author should have included both — and is probably kicking herself
now after all the scathing reviews complaining about this aspect.

It’ll be fun for me. And all those culture thumpers out there worried
about impressions of Korea and Koreans? Forget about it. Korea is a
county as different and as the same as any other. Every country has
it’s dark side and it’s bragging points.

Whatever you really need to learn about the people of Korea, you’ll learn
when you go there… and this book doesn’t pretend to teach you THAT.
It just gives you some fun phrases that some Koreans say (depending on
the city/socioeconomic level and age.)

Enjoy.