Korean Study Group / 한국어 스터딩

[Chung]

A Korean family has opened a cozy little cafe a few minutes from my apartment. They speak some English and good Mandarin but I would like to learn a couple of polite phrases in Korean to order food, pay, and thank them. It's clear that if I could speak Korean, we would use Korean - they're far more comfortable in Korean than other languages.

I can't realistically get any kind of Pimsleur or Teach Yourself shipped to me here in China. This week I'll have the chance to go to a bookstore and check out some courses from a Chinese base.

At this point, I'm only concerned with this one very specific aspect of the language, though of course I know it would serve me well to have a basic foundation. What are some free online audio-based resources that can help me with polite "transactional" Korean? And, taking into account what you folks know about Korean, should I start by memorizing cafe phrases or start with general beginner materials?

Try DLI Headstart Korean

It's a good example of a typical survival course for military personnel (and their families) when they need to deal with locals. Audio is of decent quality overall, and if you put in the work you can build a small but useable repertoire of vocabulary fairly quickly.

A couple of notes are that it's all romanized (*eeeewwww*) and the register is pretty damned formal, in addition to being polite even though I think that these Koreans would be happy to hear any foreigner put in a good effort to speak Korean even if it's pretty formal. Among Koreans (especially in Seoul) it's quite common to encounter something less formal but still polite even in situations where you might think that the more formal register is appropriate.

For something more substantial, and if you don't mind learning online, then try out Korean From Zero (all three volumes are available to use for free online but only the 1st volume is available as a complete free download. If you want the other two volumes, only their audio is a free download; the books aren't free.)

There is some good discussion here about beginners' material for Korean.

[eido]

What are some free online audio-based resources that can help me with polite "transactional" Korean? And, taking into account what you folks know about Korean, should I start by memorizing cafe phrases or start with general beginner materials?

I don't know necessarily about audio-based resources...

TTMIK is based on podcasts, but they talk a lot and take a long time to get to the point. When they do, it can be cursorily done. The PDFs are the most helpful. They have both romanization and Hangul the last time I looked. They have both free and paid content.
I liked Coursera's courses when I first started out. If Coursera is available in China, it might be a good resource to use. I understand since you asked for audio-based courses you may not want to learn to read Hangul, but it can be pretty easy. If this family lists their menu items in Hangul, it might impress them if you showed them your Hangul reading fluency -- even if it was just reading '카페라떼'. Coursera's courses cover Hangul and very basic shopping situations, like using numbers, a bit of bargaining, eating at a restaurant, and looking at clothes. Both courses are structured differently, and the 'second' (though really still basic and not any more advanced) assumes knowledge of Hangul. You can go through these courses at your own pace and I believe they're still free. They're both video-based, with quizzes interspersed throughout.
If Udemy is available in your country, there's a course another LLORG learner recommended upon a time called "Core Korean". If they're having one of their many sales, you can purchase all four courses in the series for $40-$50. The instructor is a native Korean and his English leaves something to be desired (as some of the translations of Korean sentences in the course seem to lack nuance), but the format of the course is very cool. This course is like an updated FSI/DLI that uses more relaxed drilling and less formal language. You don't have to know Hangul to use it, but it would be helpful. Since it's Udemy, the course is composed of a series of videos. The first course doesn't require you to really watch the screen while you work with it since the instructor goes through the concepts very deliberately in English and Korean, repeating often the important points. The teacher is very active on Udemy and answers any questions you may have. Though, of course, you might ask here and get an answer

That's all I can think of for now.

[eido]

In this thread, Prof A suggests using that Francis Park series so, I'd say you made a wise purchase.

I bought the first three books, and they seem very well made. They're in good condition and I enjoy looking through them. The first book, at least, has a guide on how to write Hangul, which I've never learned. I can recognize the letters and read okay, but I don't know how to write them -- that is, proper stroke order and everything. It has a very serious linguistic take on pronunciation. I looked briefly through my Hanja book, the third book in the series, and it seems good, but with all the shiny apps and shortcuts made for learning the Chinese characters these days it makes me waver. It's surely interesting and a good reference.