Fire Please

In the Korean language, there is a group of phonetic sounds that are deceivingly similar to the non-native ear. Words that start with the M, B, and P consonants are often misheard when listening to a quick conversation. This mix-up could lead to devastating consequences when one receives a blast of fire when they really asked for a glass of water.



Above: A video on Youtube describing the differences. Additionally, even though his use of English is basic, we're able to understand the challenging concept he is presenting, perhaps even better that if his English were at native fluency. Taking it a step further, this video might never have been made, had the concern for perfect articulation outweighed the necessity of communication.

7 Random Korean Expressions

Talk to me in Korean (one of my favorite language websites) has a series of videos called 7 Random Korean Expressions. In each video, someone introduces a variety of different words in Korean. It's good for building up your vocabulary.



In this episode, she introduces Korean vocabulary in the context of a subway. She teaches the words for things like an ATM, a map, lockers and other useful words to know in Korean.

To watch them all, view the playlist on youtube.

Mahalo Korean Video Lessons

Mahalo has a series of Korean language video lessons available on youtube. Each lesson explains how to say a specific word or phrase. It is a fun way to pick up some basic vocabulary, focusing on speaking proficiency.



There are over 150 different videos, so if you watch them all I'm sure you'll have a good speaking foundation to start from (be sure to review). The videos are available in a convenient playlist. Check them out.

Wired Hangul: Lesson 1

This lesson starts off the Wired Hangul series, geared towards learning how to read hangul. This lesson covers the basic vowels included in the Korean language. Be sure to listen to the audio and repeat the phonetic sounds while memorizing the shape of the character.

1.

Example audio for the character 아:

2.

Example audio for the character 어:

3.

Example audio for the character 이:

4.

Example audio for the character 오:

5.

Example audio for the character 애:

6.

Example audio for the character 에:

7.

Example audio for the character 우:

8.

Example audio for the character 으:

1 - 8.

Listen to all of these characters in a row:


The audio is from the Korean Wiki Project. It's a great resource for learning Korean.

The History of Hangul

I read an article today about the Korean writing system by Martin Majoor, a font designer from the Netherlands. He is the designer of many popular roman typefaces, and although not using Hangul, he gives an excellent recap of it's history, gained during research for his recent lecture in Seoul. Read part of it below:

The year 1443 marks another great achievement of the Koreans: King Sejong the Great in that year created Hangul, a whole new alphabet that nowadays is the national writing system in both South Korea and North Korea.

King Sejong was extremely well-read and showed a great interest in many fields: science, technology, linguistics, medicine, music but also farming and social justice. He strongly believed the common people, like the peasants, were the foundation of the nation:

“The common people are the foundation of any country. It is only when this foundation is strong that a country may be stable and prosperous”.

In 1420, in one of the buildings of the ‘Gyeongbokgung’ palace complex, King Sejong had established the ‘Halls of Worthies’ (Jiphyeonjeon), a sort of think tank in which about 20 of the best Korean scholars did research in many different fields. In 1443 this also became the birth place of Hangul. Three years later, in 1446, the book Hunmin Jeongeum was published in which Hangul was proclaimed (Hunmin Jeongeum means both the first official name of Hangul and the name of the book).

In creating Hangul, King Sejong wanted to provide the illiterate common people with an easy-to-learn alphabet. In 1446 he wrote:

“Because the speech of this country is different from that of China, it does not match the Chinese letters. Therefore, even if the ignorant want to communicate, many of them in the end cannot state their concerns. Saddened by this, I have had 28 letters newly made. It is my wish that every man may easily learn these letters and that they be convenient for daily use.”

Most of Korea’s (male) elite did not accept Hangul as their new writing system. They scrupulously sticked to the Chinese writing system. But in the mean time other groups that officially had been kept away from learning to read and write, profited from the invention of the easy-to-learn Hangul: peasants, lower classes and especially women. Gradually most Korean people started to use Hangul and a growing number of books were published in it. Finally in 1894 Hangul became the official Korean writing system, about 450 years after its introduction.

Continue reading on Martin Majoor's blog.

Learn Hangul by Typing in Korean

As I am learning Hangul, I find that it is best for me is to learn how to type using the Korean keyboard layout.

The Korean language uses a unique keyboard layout that is entirely disassociated with the standard QWERTY layout. On the Korean keyboard, each key has a basic element of a Hangul character. When you type, you press 2 or 3 keys to form a single character. When writing an entire word, you type one key after another, and it automatically builds the proper characters.

For example:

ㄱ + ㅏ = 가

ㄴ + ㅏ = 나

ㄷ + ㅏ = 다

An entire word:

(ㅇ ㅏ ㄴ) + (ㄴ ㅕ ㅇ) + (ㅎ ㅏ) + (ㅅ ㅔ) + (ㅇ ㅛ)

안녕하세요 - Hello

Even though it takes more time to learn the Korean keyboard layout, it will help your mind associate the shape of the character, directly to the sound it makes; rather than a similar sounding roman character. To learn more about how I am learning Hangul, check out this post.

Learn how to type in Korean on a Mac:

Learn how to type in Korean on Windows:

Korean Textbook

The Seoul National University publishes a Korean textbook for learning the language.

Korean Level 1 is available on Scribd to view and download. It's a nice textbook, with many illustrations and a simple design. The content provides a great place to start, but I would suggest learning Hangul first, as it uses no romanization; which is for the best.

For those of you who use Smart.fm, there's also a lesson covering the vocabulary included in the book.