Title: Elementary Korean Author: Ross King, Yeon Jae-hoon Level: Basic

Buy it here! (UK)

This is where Korean all started for me. Elementary Korean is a thorough book that really goes into detail about grammar points. These are backed up by dialogues, vocabulary sections and an audio CD.

Sometimes the grammar explanations can be difficult to understand but that is also down to Korean being a very difficult langauge to explain. I found the CD of limited support but it's useful when you are just starting to learn how to pronounce words.

The best thing about this book is the huge number of exercises to work through. Each grammar point has at least one exercise to help you really get to grips with it.

A good starting point for anyone thinking of learning Korean with no prior knowledge of the langauge or those just deciding to start learning it seriously.