Reddit reviews Korean Essential Vocabulary 6000 for Foreigners: Korean-English

The best way to do TTMIK is to just listen to the audio lesson once while reading the PDF. And then after you finish it, run through the matching lesson on this Memrise course: http://www.memrise.com/course/534607/every-ttmik-lesson-levels-1-9/ Don't bother listening to the audio lesson more than once, they use way too much filler that just wastes your study time. Just review by re-reading the PDF and using Memrise.

It's important to realize that the TTMIK audio lessons just give you a structural overview of Korean. You will need to use other sources to explore pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar more in-depth.

Personally, for beginners I recommend:

1. Structural Overview: Do TTMIK levels 1-3. Then buy this book: http://mykoreanstore.com/collections/e-books/products/the-korean-verbs-guide-e-book-15-99
   
2. Pronunciation: Buy Fluent Forever's Korean Pronunciation Trainer: http://fluent-forever.com/pronunciation-trainers/korean/#.Vn_f1_l96Ul
   
3. Vocabulary: Learn 1000 high-frequency words. Personally I recommend making a list from this book: https://www.amazon.com/Korean-Essential-Vocabulary-6000-Foreigners/dp/8955184891/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1486855720&sr=8-1&keywords=6000+korean+words, looking up example sentences on Naver, and making your own flashcards in Anki. Don't use any of the free online word frequency lists, because they all mix up word frequency order.
   
4. Grammar: Complete this book: https://www.amazon.com/Korean-Grammar-Use-Beginning-Intermediate/dp/8959951986/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1486855796&sr=8-1&keywords=korean+grammar+in+use+beginner
   
   That covers everything that you'll need for your first 400-800 hours of Korean study.
   
   You shouldn't expect to be able to make your own sentences until you have a very strong grasp of the grammar. You have to be patient, because conquering the grammar is the biggest hurdle to learning Korean.

Here is a link to the around 6000 most common words in Korean according to some government institute in Korea. They are further divided into 3 frequency levels (A=most common to C=least).

I have made extensive use of this list, although note that a few of the very abbreviated translations are a bit off and there are a few pretty rare words (because the list was made I think about 15 years ago) but you could do much worse than to use this list:

http://www.topikguide.com/download/6000_korean_words.htm


This same (or very close) list is also available in a handy-dandy printed form here: https://www.amazon.com/Korean-Essential-Vocabulary-6000-Foreigners/dp/8955184891


The book form includes a little more information, particularly the Chinese ("Hanja") characters of words derived therefrom, and some other stuff.

I'd suggest this book for a great holistic and logical overview of pretty much the whole language and an excellent reference moving forward..well worth the money and from what I've seen, one of a kind.
https://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Korean-Language-Bruce-McDonough/dp/1514717328

in the appendices of this book is a good recommended book list too. it's a very good place to start, i think.

for vocab, i'd just get this book: https://www.amazon.com/Korean-Essential-Vocabulary-6000-Foreigners/dp/8955184891 and focus on the "A"-level words first, then the "B", then the "C" later. I can tell you that at least 97% of the words in this book are useful and contemporarily used....i have used this as my main vocab list and used many of these words in speaking and writing with no real problems.