Like every government everywhere, the Korean government has a long and storied tradition of getting things exactly wrong, of creating policies by fiat and without consultation that worsen the problem they were intended to address, and result in unintended consequences down the line. The newest proposed change to regulations for the single largest group of foreign temporary residents -- holders of 1-year E2 English teacher visas -- neatly fits the bill.

There are, to put it bluntly, a lot of ESL textbooks for adult learners that are, to varying degrees, crap. There are many and varied reasons why these books are awful. Many of them are weighed down under more than one layer of language guano. You're waist-deep before you even get started, digging through the stink to find something useful.

This is Part Two in a multipart series of articles covering the basics of reading and writing in Korean. By the end, you should be merrily sounding out anything you run across (and doing it with better pronunciation than most foreigners I've met who've been here for years).

This is Part One in a multipart series of articles covering the basics of reading and writing in Korean. By the end, you should be merrily sounding out anything you run across (and doing it with better pronunciation than most foreigners I've met who've been here for years).