Here's a list of Korean words that have been adopted from English. It may be good practice with alphabet to sound them out and then try to guess what they mean. The answers are below.
1. 마트
2. 센터
3. 테레비존
4. 하우스
5. 피아노
6. 바나나
7. 컴퓨터
8. 소파
9. 기타
10.버스
11.스피커
12.마이크
13.라디오
14.커피
15.포크
16.컵
17.브라드 피트
18.쿠션
19.드럼
20.카페트
21.테이블
22.아파트
23.에어컨
24.스파게티
25.스테이크
26.샐러드
27.토마토
1. Mart (a lot of small convenience stores have names that end in this)
2. Center
3. Television
4. House
5. Piano
6. Banana
7. Computer
8. Sofa
9. Guitar
10.Bus
11.Speaker
12.Mike
13.Radio
14.Coffee
15.Fork
16.Cup
17.Brad Pitt
18.Cushion
19.Drum
20.Carpet
21.Table
22.Apart (short for apartment)
23.Air Con (short for air conditioner)
24.Spaghetti
25.Steak
26.Salad
27.Tomato
Koreans call these kind of words 외래어, which means words from foreign countries. There are a ton of these in Korean, and not only adopted from English. For example, 아바이트 is adapted from the German Arbeit, which means work, and in Korean it refers to the kind of work you'd do as a part-time job, like working in a cafe. And of course there are a huge number of words in Korean that are derived from Chinese, including the number system used to count days and currency, that have become a major part of the language. These are called 'sino-Korean' words. This means that knowing Chinese would be really helpful in understanding Korean, kind of like Latin would be useful in learning English, but it seems more directly.
Anyway, this list should give you a chance to practice sounding out han-gul letters as well as a sense of what sounds are lacking in Korean and how other western words and names are likely to be adapted into Korean. I can continue to add to the list as time goes on.
Showing posts with label Korean Language. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Korean Language. Show all posts
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Names of Korean Letters
In my last post about Korean, I introduced the Korean consonants. Now it seems like a good idea to have a quick post about what those are called so we can talk about them. Most of them are pretty regular so it's easiest to just list them and you can very easily see the pattern. The form of my presentation will be consonant: consonant's name.
ㄴ: 니은 nee-eun
ㄹ: 리을 ree-eul
ㅁ: 미음 mee-eum
ㅂ: 비읍 bee-eup
ㅇ: 이응 ee-eung
ㅈ: 지읒 jee-eut
ㅊ: 치읓 chee-eut
ㅋ: 키읔 khee-euk
ㅌ: 티읕 tee-eut
ㅍ: 피읖 pee-eup
ㅎ: 히읗 hee-eut
That's right, the basic form of the name of a consonant is two syllables: that consonant plus ㅣ and then that consonant ending 으. [I've romanized ㅡ as "eu" for lack of a better way, and that's how they do it on the subway system for stops like 대흥 (Dae-Heung)].
There are a few irregular verb names:
ㄱ: 기역 gee-yuk
ㄷ: 디귿 dee-geut (diggit)
ㅅ: 시옷 shee-oat
The English glosses are more accurate if you say them quickly rather than drawing out each syllable.
Finally, there are the double consonants, and for these, you just add the word 쌍 (meaning 'double') in front of their single counterparts.
ㄲ: 쌍기역 ssang gee-yuk
ㄸ: 쌍디귿 ssang dee-geut
ㅃ: 쌍비읍 ssang bee-eup
ㅆ: 쌍시옷 ssang shee-oat
ㅉ: 쌍지읒 ssang jee-eut
That takes care of the consonants. Be sure to look at the last post on consonants to make sure you're pronouncing them correctly.
The names of the vowels are much easier than the consonants. To name a vowel, you just make its sound, so the name of ㅏ is just "ah", the name of ㅜ is "ooh", and so on.
Now that you know the names of the letters, you can verbally communicate how a word is spelled in Korean. So 강 (river) is spelled "gee-uk, ah, ee-eung". This should be moderately useful if you're learning new Korean words verbally and want to know how they're spelled to help you remember.
This post was so easy that I wrote it while drunk. :)
ㄴ: 니은 nee-eun
ㄹ: 리을 ree-eul
ㅁ: 미음 mee-eum
ㅂ: 비읍 bee-eup
ㅇ: 이응 ee-eung
ㅈ: 지읒 jee-eut
ㅊ: 치읓 chee-eut
ㅋ: 키읔 khee-euk
ㅌ: 티읕 tee-eut
ㅍ: 피읖 pee-eup
ㅎ: 히읗 hee-eut
That's right, the basic form of the name of a consonant is two syllables: that consonant plus ㅣ and then that consonant ending 으. [I've romanized ㅡ as "eu" for lack of a better way, and that's how they do it on the subway system for stops like 대흥 (Dae-Heung)].
There are a few irregular verb names:
ㄱ: 기역 gee-yuk
ㄷ: 디귿 dee-geut (diggit)
ㅅ: 시옷 shee-oat
The English glosses are more accurate if you say them quickly rather than drawing out each syllable.
Finally, there are the double consonants, and for these, you just add the word 쌍 (meaning 'double') in front of their single counterparts.
ㄲ: 쌍기역 ssang gee-yuk
ㄸ: 쌍디귿 ssang dee-geut
ㅃ: 쌍비읍 ssang bee-eup
ㅆ: 쌍시옷 ssang shee-oat
ㅉ: 쌍지읒 ssang jee-eut
That takes care of the consonants. Be sure to look at the last post on consonants to make sure you're pronouncing them correctly.
The names of the vowels are much easier than the consonants. To name a vowel, you just make its sound, so the name of ㅏ is just "ah", the name of ㅜ is "ooh", and so on.
Now that you know the names of the letters, you can verbally communicate how a word is spelled in Korean. So 강 (river) is spelled "gee-uk, ah, ee-eung". This should be moderately useful if you're learning new Korean words verbally and want to know how they're spelled to help you remember.
This post was so easy that I wrote it while drunk. :)
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Korean Consonants
In my first post about Korean I introduced four consonants: ㄱ, ㅇ, ㄴ, and ㅈ. I explained the first two in some length already; the last two are just [n] and [j] sounds, respectively. This post I want to introduce some more consonants and talk about consonant symmetry. Korean consonants are related in such a way that make them easy to remember.
The Korean alphabet was invented by King Sejong the Great, the fourth king of Korea's Joseon Dynasty as a way of transcribing the common speech of the people. At the time, the class of literate elite used Chinese characters. The project was completed in December of 1443 or January of 1444 and published with an explanatory manual in 1446, five years before Christopher Columbus was born, around the time harpsichords were being invented in Europe. Sejong organized the consonants by place of articulation and manner of articulation and tried to model the characters on how the lips, mouth, or tongue looked in making that sound. The manners of articulation included plain, aspirated, and tense, and these are what we'll look at in this post.
Plain consonants:
ㄱ [g], ㄷ [d], ㅂ [b], ㅈ [j], & ㅅ [s].
The first four of these have corresponding aspirated versions: consonants that are articulated in the same place but are said with a puff of air.
Aspirated consonants:
ㅋ [k], ㅌ [t], ㅍ [p], ㅊ [ch]
The English letters in brackets are not exact, just approximates to give you an idea. Sometimes ㄷ is romanized as a [t] rather than a [d] and the ㅂ as a [p] instead of a [b], but this way of romanizing makes the aspiration part more clear. Just remember that the aspirated versions are said with an added puff of air.
Finally, there are 'tense' or double consonants, which are like the plain ones but are said with more muscle tension:
ㄲ ㄸ ㅃ ㅉ ㅆ.
So for our symmetric consonants, we have:
ㄱ ㄷ ㅂ ㅈ ㅅ (plain)
ㅋ ㅌ ㅍ ㅊ -- (aspirated)
ㄲ ㄸ ㅃ ㅉ ㅆ (tense)
The consonants in each column all of the same place of articulation and are based on the same basic character, which is meant to reflect that place of articulation.
ㄱ, ㅋ, & ㄲ are velar, and ㄱ is meant to show the back of the tongue touching the soft palate of a left-facing speaker.
ㄷ, ㅌ, & ㄸ are alveolar, and they are actually based off of the nasal consonant with this place of articulation, ㄴ, which shows the tip of the tongue at the ridge behind teeth of a left-facing speaker. (Both of these examples were in my first Korean post).
ㅂ, ㅍ, & ㅃ are labial, and they are based off of the nasal labial [m] sound, ㅁ, which is an abstract representation of the lips or the outline of the mouth.
The remaining five are all dental, and are based off of the character ㅅ, which is an abstract representation of a tooth.
I've already introduced ㅇ, and since there are only two more consonants after that I might as well finish it out. As a reminder, ㅇ has no value and is kind of a place holder when it appears as an initial consonant. As a bottom, syllable final consonant (or pach'im, as they call it), it has a [ng] sound as in sing. ㅎ is an [h] sound, and I suppose it can be thought of as the aspirated version of the place-holder ㅇ, though that's just out of my own head. Then there is ㄹ, and I'm quite honestly not sure how it fits into this. I'd have to do some research on it. It is written as if it is a combination of ㄱ on top and ㄷ on the bottom, but I'm not sure if that has anything to do with its sounds. Like ㅇ, its sound changes depending on whether it appears as an initial consonant or as a pach'im. As an initial consonant, the sound is somewhere between [l] and [r], most similar to the flapped r of Spanish. I think it's actually misleading to gloss this as an r sound because the tongue actually makes contact with the ridge behind the teeth, so especially when it comes between syllables it sounds to me more like a "d". So for example, in Korean, head is 머리, which sounds more like "muh-dee" to me than "muh-ree". When ㄹ appears as a pach'im, as in 물 (water), it sounds like [ll] as in full. So 물 is pronounced "mool". My only guess as to the relation of how it written and how it sounds is that (ignoring the ㄱ on top), it seems to be based off the ㄴ character, like ㄷ, and it seems to have that same alveolar place of pronunciation. To get the more authentic answer, I suppose you'd do best to research what King Sejong actually said about the character in his explanatory manual well over 500 years ago. Hopefully there's a translation, because I imagine it would have had to have been written using Chinese characters. Incidentally, how about a picture of me with a statue of King Sejong? eh? eh?
Some final notes. You already know how ㅇ and ㄹ sound as pach'im. ㅁ and ㄴ sound exactly the same whether initial or pach'im. As a rule for the rest of the consonants, you don't release the sound when they appear as pach'im. To get what I mean, say "Bob", then say it again but this time keep your lips together at the end. That's how it should sound in Korean. This means that ㅂ & ㅍ sound exactly the same when they come at the end of a syllable, as do ㄱ, ㅋ, & ㄲ (for some reason, the only tense consonants that appear as pach'im seem to be ㄲ and ㅆ; I never see ㅃ, ㅉ, or ㄸ used as pach'im). Finally, ㄷ, ㅌ, ㅅ, ㅆ, ㅈ, ㅊ, and ㅎ all sound the same as pach'im: the sound is stopped but not released at the ridge behind the teeth (it can still make a difference which letter is used, but I'll save that for another post). And lastly: there's no separate character for [sh] in Korean, but sometimes ㅅ sounds like [sh] rather than just [s]. Basically, whenever it is followed by an ㅣ vowel, it takes on some of the palatization of the "ee" sound and sounds more like [sh].
With that, I'll leave you with the list of Korean consonants, along with their English approximates, in their alphabetical order. The tense double consonants don't appear here because they begin few enough words that those words are just added to the end of the section of the plain letters. For instance, you can find ㄲ words at the end of the ㄱ section.
So here you are. The Korean consonants:
ㄱ - "g"/"k"
ㄴ - "n"
ㄷ - "d"/"t"
ㄹ - initial: a flapped "r", pach'im: "ll"
ㅁ - "m"
ㅂ - "b"/"p"
ㅅ - "s"/"sh"
ㅇ - initial: no value, pach'im: "ng"
ㅈ - "j"
ㅊ - "ch"
ㅋ - "k"
ㅌ - "t"
ㅎ - "h"
(You can see all 3 posts about Korean so far by clicking the 'Korean' tag below.)
The Korean alphabet was invented by King Sejong the Great, the fourth king of Korea's Joseon Dynasty as a way of transcribing the common speech of the people. At the time, the class of literate elite used Chinese characters. The project was completed in December of 1443 or January of 1444 and published with an explanatory manual in 1446, five years before Christopher Columbus was born, around the time harpsichords were being invented in Europe. Sejong organized the consonants by place of articulation and manner of articulation and tried to model the characters on how the lips, mouth, or tongue looked in making that sound. The manners of articulation included plain, aspirated, and tense, and these are what we'll look at in this post.
Plain consonants:
ㄱ [g], ㄷ [d], ㅂ [b], ㅈ [j], & ㅅ [s].
The first four of these have corresponding aspirated versions: consonants that are articulated in the same place but are said with a puff of air.
Aspirated consonants:
ㅋ [k], ㅌ [t], ㅍ [p], ㅊ [ch]
The English letters in brackets are not exact, just approximates to give you an idea. Sometimes ㄷ is romanized as a [t] rather than a [d] and the ㅂ as a [p] instead of a [b], but this way of romanizing makes the aspiration part more clear. Just remember that the aspirated versions are said with an added puff of air.
Finally, there are 'tense' or double consonants, which are like the plain ones but are said with more muscle tension:
ㄲ ㄸ ㅃ ㅉ ㅆ.
So for our symmetric consonants, we have:
ㄱ ㄷ ㅂ ㅈ ㅅ (plain)
ㅋ ㅌ ㅍ ㅊ -- (aspirated)
ㄲ ㄸ ㅃ ㅉ ㅆ (tense)
The consonants in each column all of the same place of articulation and are based on the same basic character, which is meant to reflect that place of articulation.
ㄱ, ㅋ, & ㄲ are velar, and ㄱ is meant to show the back of the tongue touching the soft palate of a left-facing speaker.
ㄷ, ㅌ, & ㄸ are alveolar, and they are actually based off of the nasal consonant with this place of articulation, ㄴ, which shows the tip of the tongue at the ridge behind teeth of a left-facing speaker. (Both of these examples were in my first Korean post).
ㅂ, ㅍ, & ㅃ are labial, and they are based off of the nasal labial [m] sound, ㅁ, which is an abstract representation of the lips or the outline of the mouth.
The remaining five are all dental, and are based off of the character ㅅ, which is an abstract representation of a tooth.
I've already introduced ㅇ, and since there are only two more consonants after that I might as well finish it out. As a reminder, ㅇ has no value and is kind of a place holder when it appears as an initial consonant. As a bottom, syllable final consonant (or pach'im, as they call it), it has a [ng] sound as in sing. ㅎ is an [h] sound, and I suppose it can be thought of as the aspirated version of the place-holder ㅇ, though that's just out of my own head. Then there is ㄹ, and I'm quite honestly not sure how it fits into this. I'd have to do some research on it. It is written as if it is a combination of ㄱ on top and ㄷ on the bottom, but I'm not sure if that has anything to do with its sounds. Like ㅇ, its sound changes depending on whether it appears as an initial consonant or as a pach'im. As an initial consonant, the sound is somewhere between [l] and [r], most similar to the flapped r of Spanish. I think it's actually misleading to gloss this as an r sound because the tongue actually makes contact with the ridge behind the teeth, so especially when it comes between syllables it sounds to me more like a "d". So for example, in Korean, head is 머리, which sounds more like "muh-dee" to me than "muh-ree". When ㄹ appears as a pach'im, as in 물 (water), it sounds like [ll] as in full. So 물 is pronounced "mool". My only guess as to the relation of how it written and how it sounds is that (ignoring the ㄱ on top), it seems to be based off the ㄴ character, like ㄷ, and it seems to have that same alveolar place of pronunciation. To get the more authentic answer, I suppose you'd do best to research what King Sejong actually said about the character in his explanatory manual well over 500 years ago. Hopefully there's a translation, because I imagine it would have had to have been written using Chinese characters. Incidentally, how about a picture of me with a statue of King Sejong? eh? eh?
Some final notes. You already know how ㅇ and ㄹ sound as pach'im. ㅁ and ㄴ sound exactly the same whether initial or pach'im. As a rule for the rest of the consonants, you don't release the sound when they appear as pach'im. To get what I mean, say "Bob", then say it again but this time keep your lips together at the end. That's how it should sound in Korean. This means that ㅂ & ㅍ sound exactly the same when they come at the end of a syllable, as do ㄱ, ㅋ, & ㄲ (for some reason, the only tense consonants that appear as pach'im seem to be ㄲ and ㅆ; I never see ㅃ, ㅉ, or ㄸ used as pach'im). Finally, ㄷ, ㅌ, ㅅ, ㅆ, ㅈ, ㅊ, and ㅎ all sound the same as pach'im: the sound is stopped but not released at the ridge behind the teeth (it can still make a difference which letter is used, but I'll save that for another post). And lastly: there's no separate character for [sh] in Korean, but sometimes ㅅ sounds like [sh] rather than just [s]. Basically, whenever it is followed by an ㅣ vowel, it takes on some of the palatization of the "ee" sound and sounds more like [sh].
With that, I'll leave you with the list of Korean consonants, along with their English approximates, in their alphabetical order. The tense double consonants don't appear here because they begin few enough words that those words are just added to the end of the section of the plain letters. For instance, you can find ㄲ words at the end of the ㄱ section.
So here you are. The Korean consonants:
ㄱ - "g"/"k"
ㄴ - "n"
ㄷ - "d"/"t"
ㄹ - initial: a flapped "r", pach'im: "ll"
ㅁ - "m"
ㅂ - "b"/"p"
ㅅ - "s"/"sh"
ㅇ - initial: no value, pach'im: "ng"
ㅈ - "j"
ㅊ - "ch"
ㅋ - "k"
ㅌ - "t"
ㅎ - "h"
(You can see all 3 posts about Korean so far by clicking the 'Korean' tag below.)
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Korean Vowels
There are 21 Korean vowels, but they can be seen as combinations of only 6. Those 6 can be broken down to two dimensions: strong/weak/neutral and horizontal/vertical. All the strokes are straight and are either long or short.
Let's start with neutral horizontal: ㅡ
If you have an expressionless face, open your mouth a little and make a sound, it's basically this. You can think of it as an "oo" sound without rounding the lips, or you can think of it as an "mmm" sound or hum with the lips slightly apart.
Neutral vertical: ㅣ
This is an "ee" sound.
For the strong vowels, add a short stroke out and up:
ㅗ ("oh")
ㅏ ("ah")
(I introduced these vowels last time.)
For the weak vowels, down and in.
ㅜ ("ooh")
ㅓ ("uh")
That's it for the basics as I see them. See if you can remember their sounds:
ㅡ ㅣ neutral
ㅗ ㅏ strong
ㅜ ㅓ weak
Now consider just the verticals and we'll add two more: ㅐ and ㅔ. Visually, you can think of them as ㅏ + ㅣ and ㅓ + ㅣ. So they are strong and weak, respectively. ㅐ is pronounced "ay" as in hay and ㅔ is pronounced "eh" as in bed. ㅐ is more open than ㅔ; if you make the sounds for "ㅣ, ㅔ, ㅐ, ㅏ" in that order you'll know what I mean. Try it.
Now consider the strong and weak vowels:
ㅗ ㅏ ㅐ (strong)
ㅜ ㅓ ㅔ (weak)
Each of these are simple sounds, monothongs, which means that the mouth shape doesn't change while saying them. But they each have a corresponding diphthong that begins with the vertical neutral sound ("ee"). The resulting symbols just add another short stroke.
ㅣ + ㅏ = ㅑ
ㅣ + ㅐ = ㅒ
ㅣ + ㅓ = ㅕ
ㅣ + ㅔ = ㅖ
ㅣ + ㅗ = ㅛ
ㅣ + ㅜ = ㅠ
What do these symbols sound like? Let's take ㅑ. You start with ㅣ ("ee") and end with ㅏ ("ah"). Say it more and more quickly and you get what sounds like "yah". Same goes for the others; the vowels with two short strokes sound like the corresponding one-short-stroke vowels with a "y" added before it. But keep in mind that Koreans don't think of "yah" as a consonant sound plus a vowel sound (y + ah) but as a single vowel sound ㅑ. In the same way, we think of the English sound "I" as a single vowel sound even though it is a diphthong made of ㅏ and ㅣ, "ah-ee" said really quickly (this is more obvious to formal singers who have to hold out syllables more often).
On to combined vowels. The strong horizontal vowel (ㅗ) can be combined with the strong vertical vowels (ㅏ & ㅐ); likewise for the weak horizontal vowel (ㅜ) with the weak vertical vowels (ㅓ & ㅔ). These make diphthongs similar to the ones just above but with a 'w' sound rather than a 'y' sound.
ㅗ + ㅏ = ㅘ
ㅗ + ㅐ = ㅙ
ㅜ + ㅓ = ㅝ
ㅜ + ㅔ = ㅞ
Again, we'll take the one based on ㅏ as our example. To pronounce ㅘ, you start with "oh" and end with "ah". Say it quickly and you get something like "wah." Likewise with ㅙ: you start with "oh" and end with "ay" so you get "way." The next two are similar but because you start with "ooh" rather than "oh" the sound quality of the "w" sound is slightly different. It isn't very crucial to be able to distinguish these two to comprehend Korean speech. As one of my books puts it, the only difference between them is the "degree of clearness of the sound": clear ㅗ vs. dark ㅜ. I don't know how helpful that is, but you if you're determined to pronounce them exactly right, just make sure to make yourself think of each of these sounds not as a "w" plus a vowel sound but as a diphthong made from a particular pair of vowels. So for ㅝ, you start with "ooh" and end with "uh," getting "wuh"; and for ㅞ, start with "ooh" and end with "eh" to get a "weh" sound, but you think of this more in terms of a semi-vowel "ooh" than of a consonant sound "w".
All three of the horizontal vowels can combine with the neutral vertical vowel ㅣ, so there are three more combined vowels:
ㅜ + ㅣ = ㅟ
ㅗ + ㅣ = ㅚ
ㅡ + ㅣ = ㅢ
The first one here, ㅟ, is the most intuitive. You start with "ooh" and end with "ee", getting "wee". It seems like the next one, ㅚ, should sound extremely similar to this but in actual speech instead of ending with an "ee" sound, for some reason it actually sounds basically the same as ㅙ. As for the last vowel, ㅢ is just a combination of the sounds ㅡ and ㅣ. This has no equivalent in English but if you just say the two sounds together quickly, just like in the other diphthongs, you'll get the sound right.
There you go! All 21 vowels derived from the basic six. Here they are in their dictionary order:
ㅏ ㅐ ㅑ ㅒ (strong vertical)
ㅓ ㅔ ㅕ ㅖ (weak vertical)
ㅗ ㅘ ㅙ ㅚ ㅛ (strong horizontal/combined)
ㅜ ㅝ ㅞ ㅟ ㅠ (weak horizontal/combined)
ㅡ ㅣ ㅢ (neutral)
I'll end with a reminder that even though I presented the vowels by themselves in this post, they always appear with an initial consonant (and sometimes an ending consonant on the bottom as well) and never alone. Even when there is no consonant sound, they appear with a placeholder consonant, ㅇ. With the vertical vowels, the initial consonant goes to the left of the vowel; with the horizontal ones, the initial consonant goes above the vowel; with the combined vowels it goes above the horizontal part and to the left of the vertical part. So here are some examples using the familiar consonants ㄱ and ㅇ.
개 (dog)
여기 (here)
우유 (milk)
과거 (the past, days gone by)
귀 (ear)
Now you only need to learn the consonants to have a pretty solid base in written and phonetic Korean.
Let's start with neutral horizontal: ㅡ
If you have an expressionless face, open your mouth a little and make a sound, it's basically this. You can think of it as an "oo" sound without rounding the lips, or you can think of it as an "mmm" sound or hum with the lips slightly apart.
Neutral vertical: ㅣ
This is an "ee" sound.
For the strong vowels, add a short stroke out and up:
ㅗ ("oh")
ㅏ ("ah")
(I introduced these vowels last time.)
For the weak vowels, down and in.
ㅜ ("ooh")
ㅓ ("uh")
That's it for the basics as I see them. See if you can remember their sounds:
ㅡ ㅣ neutral
ㅗ ㅏ strong
ㅜ ㅓ weak
Now consider just the verticals and we'll add two more: ㅐ and ㅔ. Visually, you can think of them as ㅏ + ㅣ and ㅓ + ㅣ. So they are strong and weak, respectively. ㅐ is pronounced "ay" as in hay and ㅔ is pronounced "eh" as in bed. ㅐ is more open than ㅔ; if you make the sounds for "ㅣ, ㅔ, ㅐ, ㅏ" in that order you'll know what I mean. Try it.
Now consider the strong and weak vowels:
ㅗ ㅏ ㅐ (strong)
ㅜ ㅓ ㅔ (weak)
Each of these are simple sounds, monothongs, which means that the mouth shape doesn't change while saying them. But they each have a corresponding diphthong that begins with the vertical neutral sound ("ee"). The resulting symbols just add another short stroke.
ㅣ + ㅏ = ㅑ
ㅣ + ㅐ = ㅒ
ㅣ + ㅓ = ㅕ
ㅣ + ㅔ = ㅖ
ㅣ + ㅗ = ㅛ
ㅣ + ㅜ = ㅠ
What do these symbols sound like? Let's take ㅑ. You start with ㅣ ("ee") and end with ㅏ ("ah"). Say it more and more quickly and you get what sounds like "yah". Same goes for the others; the vowels with two short strokes sound like the corresponding one-short-stroke vowels with a "y" added before it. But keep in mind that Koreans don't think of "yah" as a consonant sound plus a vowel sound (y + ah) but as a single vowel sound ㅑ. In the same way, we think of the English sound "I" as a single vowel sound even though it is a diphthong made of ㅏ and ㅣ, "ah-ee" said really quickly (this is more obvious to formal singers who have to hold out syllables more often).
On to combined vowels. The strong horizontal vowel (ㅗ) can be combined with the strong vertical vowels (ㅏ & ㅐ); likewise for the weak horizontal vowel (ㅜ) with the weak vertical vowels (ㅓ & ㅔ). These make diphthongs similar to the ones just above but with a 'w' sound rather than a 'y' sound.
ㅗ + ㅏ = ㅘ
ㅗ + ㅐ = ㅙ
ㅜ + ㅓ = ㅝ
ㅜ + ㅔ = ㅞ
Again, we'll take the one based on ㅏ as our example. To pronounce ㅘ, you start with "oh" and end with "ah". Say it quickly and you get something like "wah." Likewise with ㅙ: you start with "oh" and end with "ay" so you get "way." The next two are similar but because you start with "ooh" rather than "oh" the sound quality of the "w" sound is slightly different. It isn't very crucial to be able to distinguish these two to comprehend Korean speech. As one of my books puts it, the only difference between them is the "degree of clearness of the sound": clear ㅗ vs. dark ㅜ. I don't know how helpful that is, but you if you're determined to pronounce them exactly right, just make sure to make yourself think of each of these sounds not as a "w" plus a vowel sound but as a diphthong made from a particular pair of vowels. So for ㅝ, you start with "ooh" and end with "uh," getting "wuh"; and for ㅞ, start with "ooh" and end with "eh" to get a "weh" sound, but you think of this more in terms of a semi-vowel "ooh" than of a consonant sound "w".
All three of the horizontal vowels can combine with the neutral vertical vowel ㅣ, so there are three more combined vowels:
ㅜ + ㅣ = ㅟ
ㅗ + ㅣ = ㅚ
ㅡ + ㅣ = ㅢ
The first one here, ㅟ, is the most intuitive. You start with "ooh" and end with "ee", getting "wee". It seems like the next one, ㅚ, should sound extremely similar to this but in actual speech instead of ending with an "ee" sound, for some reason it actually sounds basically the same as ㅙ. As for the last vowel, ㅢ is just a combination of the sounds ㅡ and ㅣ. This has no equivalent in English but if you just say the two sounds together quickly, just like in the other diphthongs, you'll get the sound right.
There you go! All 21 vowels derived from the basic six. Here they are in their dictionary order:
ㅏ ㅐ ㅑ ㅒ (strong vertical)
ㅓ ㅔ ㅕ ㅖ (weak vertical)
ㅗ ㅘ ㅙ ㅚ ㅛ (strong horizontal/combined)
ㅜ ㅝ ㅞ ㅟ ㅠ (weak horizontal/combined)
ㅡ ㅣ ㅢ (neutral)
I'll end with a reminder that even though I presented the vowels by themselves in this post, they always appear with an initial consonant (and sometimes an ending consonant on the bottom as well) and never alone. Even when there is no consonant sound, they appear with a placeholder consonant, ㅇ. With the vertical vowels, the initial consonant goes to the left of the vowel; with the horizontal ones, the initial consonant goes above the vowel; with the combined vowels it goes above the horizontal part and to the left of the vertical part. So here are some examples using the familiar consonants ㄱ and ㅇ.
개 (dog)
여기 (here)
우유 (milk)
과거 (the past, days gone by)
귀 (ear)
Now you only need to learn the consonants to have a pretty solid base in written and phonetic Korean.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Very Simple Korean
A Korean consonant: ㄱ
A Korean vowel: ㅏ
A Korean word: 가
Simple enough? The consonant comes in front of the vowel, so far just like English.
An English consonant: G
An English vowel: o
An English word: Go
가 is the verb stem of the Korean verb that means to go. It can be used alone to mean "Go away." You now know enough Korean to watch this video.
These two examples, "가" & "Go", are both one-syllable words that begin with a consonant and end with a vowel. Now let's add a syllable-final consonant. In English, we just tack it on the end:
Consonant: G
Vowel: o
Consonant: d
Word: God
In Korean, that consonant instead goes beneath, as follows:
Consonant: ㄱ
Vowel: ㅏ
Consonant: ㅇ
Word: 강
The advantage of this is that written Korean is visually split up into syllables: each syllable takes the space of one square. So 가 and 강 are each one syllable and 강남대학교 is five syllables. This is nice because words look their length. (Unlike in English, in which "era" is longer than "droughts".)
On to pronunciation.ㄱ is somewhere between a G and a K, and "ㅏ" is an "ah" sound, so "가" is pronounced like "kah" or "gah". The word 강, which means river, is pronounced gahng. The nice thing is that, unlike in English with Go and God, the the vowel sound doesn't change when we add the syllable final "ng" (ㅇ) sound. As far as I know this is always the case in Korean so it is usually very straightforward to pronounce.
To get nitpicky, though: The place of articulation of ㄱ is actually farther back in the mouth than either G or K (at least how I say them), at the root of the tongue. The character ㄱ is actually designed as a visual representation of this. If you imagine a left-facing speaker, it shows the back of the tongue pulled up to touch the rear part of the roof of the mouth. (Likewise, the character for an [n] sound, ㄴ, shows the tip of the tongue behind the teeth.)
A note about the round character, ㅇ. When it comes at the bottom of a syllable, like in 강, it is pronounced like ng, but when it comes in the initial position it's just a place holder with no sound value. This is because letters can't stand alone in Korean the way they can in English (in the particle "a" or the pronoun "I"). So "ㅇ" takes the initial consonant position in syllables that begin with a vowel sound. For example, while 나 is pronounced "nah", 아 is simply "ah."
I'll teach you two more easy vowel sounds while I'm at it:ㅣand ㅗ. The first is just a vertical line and is pronounced "ee" as in see. The second is pronounced "oh" as in go. Notice that the long stroke of the second vowel is horizontal rather than vertical. With this kind of vowel, the initial consonant goes above it rather than to its left. So you should be able to figure out the following sounds:
1.아이
2.오
3.온기
4.가강
5.공
6.아니오
1. ah-ee (child)
2. oh (five)
3. ohn-gee (warmth)
4. gah-gahng (riverside)
5. gohng (ball)
6. ah-nee-oh (no)
At least some of Korean should be less mysterious to you now. Even though I've only taught you three consonants (ㄱ,ㅇ,ㄴ) and three vowels (ㅏ,ㅣ,ㅗ) you get the basic idea of how it's laid out. Now for the last word:
가자!
This is pronounced Kah-Jah. It is based off of the verb stem 가, includes the consonant ㅈ, and it means "Let's go."
A Korean vowel: ㅏ
A Korean word: 가
Simple enough? The consonant comes in front of the vowel, so far just like English.
An English consonant: G
An English vowel: o
An English word: Go
가 is the verb stem of the Korean verb that means to go. It can be used alone to mean "Go away." You now know enough Korean to watch this video.
These two examples, "가" & "Go", are both one-syllable words that begin with a consonant and end with a vowel. Now let's add a syllable-final consonant. In English, we just tack it on the end:
Consonant: G
Vowel: o
Consonant: d
Word: God
In Korean, that consonant instead goes beneath, as follows:
Consonant: ㄱ
Vowel: ㅏ
Consonant: ㅇ
Word: 강
The advantage of this is that written Korean is visually split up into syllables: each syllable takes the space of one square. So 가 and 강 are each one syllable and 강남대학교 is five syllables. This is nice because words look their length. (Unlike in English, in which "era" is longer than "droughts".)
On to pronunciation.ㄱ is somewhere between a G and a K, and "ㅏ" is an "ah" sound, so "가" is pronounced like "kah" or "gah". The word 강, which means river, is pronounced gahng. The nice thing is that, unlike in English with Go and God, the the vowel sound doesn't change when we add the syllable final "ng" (ㅇ) sound. As far as I know this is always the case in Korean so it is usually very straightforward to pronounce.
To get nitpicky, though: The place of articulation of ㄱ is actually farther back in the mouth than either G or K (at least how I say them), at the root of the tongue. The character ㄱ is actually designed as a visual representation of this. If you imagine a left-facing speaker, it shows the back of the tongue pulled up to touch the rear part of the roof of the mouth. (Likewise, the character for an [n] sound, ㄴ, shows the tip of the tongue behind the teeth.)
A note about the round character, ㅇ. When it comes at the bottom of a syllable, like in 강, it is pronounced like ng, but when it comes in the initial position it's just a place holder with no sound value. This is because letters can't stand alone in Korean the way they can in English (in the particle "a" or the pronoun "I"). So "ㅇ" takes the initial consonant position in syllables that begin with a vowel sound. For example, while 나 is pronounced "nah", 아 is simply "ah."
I'll teach you two more easy vowel sounds while I'm at it:ㅣand ㅗ. The first is just a vertical line and is pronounced "ee" as in see. The second is pronounced "oh" as in go. Notice that the long stroke of the second vowel is horizontal rather than vertical. With this kind of vowel, the initial consonant goes above it rather than to its left. So you should be able to figure out the following sounds:
1.아이
2.오
3.온기
4.가강
5.공
6.아니오
1. ah-ee (child)
2. oh (five)
3. ohn-gee (warmth)
4. gah-gahng (riverside)
5. gohng (ball)
6. ah-nee-oh (no)
At least some of Korean should be less mysterious to you now. Even though I've only taught you three consonants (ㄱ,ㅇ,ㄴ) and three vowels (ㅏ,ㅣ,ㅗ) you get the basic idea of how it's laid out. Now for the last word:
가자!
This is pronounced Kah-Jah. It is based off of the verb stem 가, includes the consonant ㅈ, and it means "Let's go."
Friday, October 10, 2008
Curses!
I have a valid excuse for the complete lack of posts lately: about a week ago, I got an e-mail notifying me that this blog had been identified as a potential spam blog. As a result, it was "locked" so that I couldn't make or edit posts and had to request someone to review the blog to "unlock" it. The good news, though, is that the blog is now again up and running, and, since it had to be reviewed by a staff member of blogger.com, I now know that at least one person has actually looked at it. :)
I suppose the spam filter arrested the blog because of the questionable use of profanity in its title. So I'll explain. The basic idea is that I have intellectually stagnated since college and this gives me a way to digest those and new thoughts into semi-interesting shit. I titled it the way I did so I didn't feel like each post had to be perfect or super-insightful, in which case I might never post anything. I also didn't want it to have a pretentious tone, which was something to consider since I wanted to write about Nietzsche. Those of you who know me, though, hopefully got that the title is mainly a joke on my name. Personally, it also reminds me of being in Korea, since, because of certain linguistics features of Korean, someone who pronounces my name with a thick Korean accent would get something vaguely towards that direction (though nobody here has actually pronounced that poorly so far). And because of how poorly I speak the language, I am kind of an idiot here, unable to understand the majority of conversation and needing help for a lot of basic tasks like figuring out how to get to an upper floor of a building or knowing which bus I should take.
Incidentally, I was shocked to discover that the most popular family name in Korea, which we all know as Lee, is not actually pronounced with the L in front. In fact, the "ㄹ" sound never begins a word in Korean except in adaptations of English words like "radio". The popular name Lee is actually "이" in Korean, which has no initial consonant sound; it's just "Ee". But I guess that just looks so weird in English letters that they decided to add an L. Likewise, names with the no-initial-consonant "Oo" sound (우) tend to have a W added to them when written in English. Since they are both weak consonants, the pronunciation doesn't change all that much when Western speakers mispronounce them as Lee and Woo, but it's still pretty strange.
At any rate, I've figured out how to type Korean characters using my laptop, so a possible post explaining Han-gul, the Korean alphabet, may be coming up for those who are curious.
I suppose the spam filter arrested the blog because of the questionable use of profanity in its title. So I'll explain. The basic idea is that I have intellectually stagnated since college and this gives me a way to digest those and new thoughts into semi-interesting shit. I titled it the way I did so I didn't feel like each post had to be perfect or super-insightful, in which case I might never post anything. I also didn't want it to have a pretentious tone, which was something to consider since I wanted to write about Nietzsche. Those of you who know me, though, hopefully got that the title is mainly a joke on my name. Personally, it also reminds me of being in Korea, since, because of certain linguistics features of Korean, someone who pronounces my name with a thick Korean accent would get something vaguely towards that direction (though nobody here has actually pronounced that poorly so far). And because of how poorly I speak the language, I am kind of an idiot here, unable to understand the majority of conversation and needing help for a lot of basic tasks like figuring out how to get to an upper floor of a building or knowing which bus I should take.
Incidentally, I was shocked to discover that the most popular family name in Korea, which we all know as Lee, is not actually pronounced with the L in front. In fact, the "ㄹ" sound never begins a word in Korean except in adaptations of English words like "radio". The popular name Lee is actually "이" in Korean, which has no initial consonant sound; it's just "Ee". But I guess that just looks so weird in English letters that they decided to add an L. Likewise, names with the no-initial-consonant "Oo" sound (우) tend to have a W added to them when written in English. Since they are both weak consonants, the pronunciation doesn't change all that much when Western speakers mispronounce them as Lee and Woo, but it's still pretty strange.
At any rate, I've figured out how to type Korean characters using my laptop, so a possible post explaining Han-gul, the Korean alphabet, may be coming up for those who are curious.
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