Korean Language Series Writing and Reading

WARNING: You should be able to see typed Korean language in order to fully read this post. If you are a Windows user, you can go to Microsoft's website and download the "East Asian Language Support". Ask your local computer nerd. Entice him with a woman and it will be easy. -EDIT 14 June 2007 11:52 a.m.- If you would prefer a more interactive guide, try this link: http://langintro.com/kintro/ Thank you, J. David Eisenberg! Dear Korean, I'm interested in learning Korean although nobody encouraged me to do so! I wonder if you can help me explain Korean pronunciation, I've bought 2 different "teach yourself Korean" books but I can't seem to understand the pronunciation sections. Amna Dear Amna, The Korean must warn everyone that he had never received formal education as to how to teach Korean to non-Korean speakers. Therefore, all the technical terminology that the Korean uses in this post (as well as in other Korean Language Series) are made up by the Korean. Additionally, the Korean will often be wrong about things. But hey, thats the price you pay if you try to learn a foreign language from an amateur off a blog. Korean alphabet, called Hanguel, was created by King Sejong and his scholars in the 15th Century, and it is extremely innovative. The entire alphabet has 40 characters, with 19 consonants and 21 vowels. (Technically it is 14 simple consonants, 5 compound consonants, 10 simple vowels, and 11 compound vowels.) First, lets go over the basics of how a Korean letter is written. It sounds odd that you are learning to write before you can read, but it will make sense in the end.

Characters v. Letters Its important to distinguish between characters and letters. Each character alone cannot stand independently, because each character is either a single consonant or a single vowel. Instead, either two or three characters combine to form a pronounceable block, i.e. a letter. So this is how a letter is formed: it is other consonant + vowel, or consonant + vowel + consonant. (Some of the letters are actually consonant + vowel + consonant + consonant in relatively rare cases. They are dealt in Advanced Stuff section.) It sounds complicated written out like that, but the idea is simple. Think back to Sesame Street and how two shadowy people form a word. H plus a is Ha. H plus a plus t would be Hat. (The As in the two words are pronounced differently in the two words, but

you get the picture anyway. The Korean cant help the fact that English alphabet is a screwed up one.) The table of characters is linked later in the post. But hold your horses, and finish reading the post first.

Okay, how do I write a letter? In order to form a letter out of the characters, pay attention to whether the vowel position is vertical, horizontal, or combined. It is really simple to do actually vertical vowels stand tall, horizontal vowels are flat, and combined are vertical + horizontal vowels. Step 1. Imagine filling up a square block. Write the consonant is the left half if the vowel is vertical; write the consonant on the top half if the vowel is horizontal. Write the consonant in the top left quarter if the vowel is combined. Step 2. Write in the vowel. Step 3. If there is a consonant following the vowel, that consonant goes on the bottom of the consonant + vowel combination that you just formed. Lets take a Korean word like (America). is made up of two letters, each letter making up one syllable. The letter is made up of the consonant and the vowel

. You can see that is vertical, so write in the left half the imaginary box, and put next to it to form . The next one is trickier it involves a second consonant. Since the vowel is , you can see that its shaped flat and therefore has a horizontal position. So write the consonant on top, put the vowel on the bottom. Then put the last consonant
underneath the vowel. And there you have it, your first Korean word God bless America!! As an aside, notice that in Korean, there is never a free-standing consonant without a vowel attached to it. Thats why Korean people have such a hard time pronouncing such words like school. s in school does not have a vowel attached to it school is one syllable in English. But Korean person trying to pronounce that word cannot process a consonant that does not have a vowel. So usually the best the Korean person can do is to pronounce it like seu-kool, in two syllables.

Now I can write some exotic stuff I cant read. Thanks, genius. Alright, we are finally ready to read. The chart of characters has pronunciation attached to it, but read this first. We are going to try reading . First letter first: consonant sounds

like m. Vowel sounds like ee as in seek. Therefore, is pronounced like mee. Then the next letter: consonant sounds like g as in gate. Vowel sounds like oo as in zoo. So the pronunciation is: g + oo + g = goog. So America in Korean is meegoog. Simple, right? One more caveat what the Korean just wrote above is not the standard Romanization of Korean characters. The chart below includes how each character is Romanized as well. For example, the correct Romanization of is miguk. From this point on, all Korean words will be in standard Romanization format. Okay, you can take a look the chart now. The Korean will be waiting right here. (If your browser automatically re-sizes the image, save the image on your computer and read along.) -EDIT- Here is the link for a pdf form of the chart. The earlier link is in a jpeg format in order to make sure that people without East Asian Language support can read it, but it does not print properly. If you wish to print the chart out, use the pdf link to print. Thank you Bonnie B. for pointing this out. . . . Welcome back. Your head spinning yet? Print the chart out and keep it next to you as we read on. Lets do one more example, the Ask A Korean! favorite how to read . Consonant is silent before the vowel, and sounds like ng after the vowel. The vowel is a compound vowel, combining (o) and (a), so it sounds like oa, or wa. Consonant sounds like j, and sounds like a. Put them all together: wa + ng / j + a = wangja, i.e. Prince Fielders neck tattoo.

Parting Words The Korean would like to finish up with two points. First, notice how fucked up English alphabet is. The Romanization of Korean is so complicated only because English alphabet is so messed up, and the Korean scholars who came up with it were trying to make Korean language to readable to English-speaking people somehow. English consonants and vowels often change sound randomly, although the letters

 representation of the sound never change. Thus we have the famous example of spelling fish as ghoti gh from tough, o from women, and ti from nation. Take a common Korean last name like . Under proper Romanization, it would be written as gim, and pronounced as such. But English speakers would pronounce it like gym, so Koreans had to adapt and bastardize the sound to the next closest sound, which is kim. The last name is even worse. It would be properly Romanized as bak, but English speakers would read it like back. So Korean people added an r, turning it into bark. Then the connotation of the word became negative, so they switched it to next closest sound, which is park. So in reality, there are no Kims and Parks in Korea only Gims and Baks. Second, appreciate how beautifully designed Hangeul is in contrast. It is the only alphabet system in the world that has been designated as UNESCO World Heritage. The Korean can write 50 pages about the genius of Hangeul, but he will just give one example here: the amazing adaptability of the compound vowels. Although currently only 11 compound vowels are used in Korean language, technically any of the 5 horizontal vowels can combine with any of the 5 vertical vowels to form a new sound 25 new sounds created in a snap, plus 4 exceptions where a vertical vowel combines with another vertical vowel. So out of 40 possible vowel sounds that Hangeul can represent (10 simple vowels + 30 compound vowels), nearly half of them (19) are not even in the Korean language! In other words, Hangeul vowel characters can cover almost any vowel sound made in the world. (A big exception is vowel tones in tonal languages, for example Chinese.) No other alphabet in the world has a system that enables it to record a sound that does not exist in the language it represents. If aliens landed on Earth tomorrow, Hangeul would be the only reliable alphabet in the world that can consistently represent the vowel sounds that they make.

Advanced Stuff: Read Only If You Are Hardcore Here are some more tips as to correctly pronouncing Korean characters and letters. The Korean is certain that he missed a lot of stuff, and wrong about some of the things here. Please email or comment if you notice anything.

Extremely useful tip for English speakers whenever you read a Korean letter,
pretend there is an h behind the vowel to get the consonant sound right. For example, if an English speaker read sa, she would pronounce the s like the s in sin, which is incorrect. (s in sin is Romanized as ss.) But if she tried to read sah, she would pronounce the s like the s in snake, which is the correct way. This rule applies across the board, no matter what the letters are.

Additional Romanization rule 1 Under standard Romanization, one word in Korean is written as one word Romanized. So a sentence like (the
weather is good) is Romanized as: nalssiga jotseupnida. However, if writing as one word is likely to produce a wrong pronunciation, hyphen can be added to separate the Korean

letters. So the word (seed) is Romanized as ssi-at, since writing it as ssiat is likely to be pronounced wrong. Another example is the word (jug), which is Romanized as hang-ari, since hangari would be pronounced like han-ga-ri.

Additional Romanization rule 2 If the pronunciation is different from the way a

word is spelled (following one of the Advanced pronunciation rules below), the word is Romanized as it is pronounced, not as it is written.

Romanization exceptions The current standard Romanization rule was introduced in

2000; prior to that, Korea used something called McCune-Reischauer Romanization System, which involved a lot of complicated additional notations on top of regular English alphabets to faithfully represent the Korean pronunciation. But outside of governmental and scholarly papers, McCune-Reischauer system was never popular in Korea because it was so complicated. Regular Korean people and Korean businesses Romanized their names more or less arbitrarily. Therefore, peoples names, if Romanized before 2000, stayed the same. Also, people may Romanize their name in any way they please. For example, former president/dictator would be written as Bak Jeonghui under the current Romanization system. But since he was born long before 2000, the Romanization of his name is Park Chung-hee. This rule also applies to well-established names of locations, like (which should be Seo-ul to prevent it from being pronounced like soul, but written as Seoul, merrily carrying on the mispronunciation.)

How to pronounce difficult sounds lets go over them one by one. deceptively hard, because its neither L or R. Try pronouncing Lola very carefully.
You will notice that you are actually sounding out lol-la, adding an extra consonant. Remember that is Romanized with r in the first position and its easier to pronounce.

and you have to realize that English s makes two different sounds. is like s in snake. is like s in soon. , , , , and if you know how to pronounce Spanish correctly, these should come pretty easily. As you can tell from their shapes, they are related to , , , , and respectively. Lets try with first. Try sounding (da) very carefully. Say it like dada-da-da and notice your tongue is touching the roof of your mouth. Now, stiffen your tongue a little harder when it touches the roof, and hold it for half a second longer, and burst the sound out. It should be . and can be sounded out in a similar way. is different because the sound only involves your lips, but same mechanism. Say ba-ba-baba and stiffen your lips a little harder as they come together, hold it a bit longer, then burst out the sound.

 this vowel sound is most easily made by the following way: clench your teeth and make
a guttural noise. Its not the right sound, but its pretty close. Alternatively, pull your lips out as if you are smiling, and make the sound thats least difficult to make.

Advanced pronunciation rule 1 The Korean said some Korean letters are consonant + vowel + consonant + consonant. Here is an example: . How do you read
this? The rule is: Ignore the last consonant, and only pronounce the first bottom consonant (called batchim in Korean, meaning bottom piece). So the letter , standing alone, would be pronounced like , i.e. b + ue + l = buel. But letters of this kind rarely stand alone, and the second batchim usually affects the sound of the next following consonant. Read below.

Advanced pronunciation rule 1.1 Take the word (broad). Now we know the first letter is read as n + eo + l = neol, ignoring the last consonant . But the last
consonant doesnt stand pat. Instead, it changes the sound of the next following consonant into the stronger sound, if possible. changes into ; into ; into ; into

, and; into . All other consonants sounds stay the same. So the word is pronounced like , i.e., n + eo + l / dd + a = neoldda. Make sure you follow this rule, because the same word without this rule would sound like , which is a different word
whose meaning is to hang clothes to dry. Conceptually, this rule is similar to the batchim slide-over rule described in Rule 2. Read on.

Advanced pronunciation rule 1.2 There is one exception to this rule, and its when the last consonant is . Instead of getting a stronger sound, the following consonant becomes harsher if possible. turns into ; into ; into , and ; into . So the word (many, much) is pronounced like , which is m + a + n / t + a =
manta.

Advanced pronunciation rule 2 Remember consonant was silent in the first position? So take a look at this word: (game or play). Based on what you learned
so far, it would be pronounced: n + o + l / i = nol-i. But that is incorrect. What happens is the batchim of the first letter slides over to the second letter, and takes over the empty space created by . So the actual pronunciation of the word is exactly the same as that of the word , i.e. n + o / r + i = nori. The rule: If the first character of a word has a second consonant after the vowel (batchim), and if the first character of the second letter in a word is , the batchim slides over to the second letter and pronounced as if it is attached to the vowel of the second letter.

Advanced pronunciation rule 2.1 Take a look at the chart, and you will realize
that some of the consonants have different sounds depending on the position. For example,

 is ch in the first position and t in the second position. So what happens if the soundchanging type of consonant slides over? Answer: That consonant recovers its first position sound. Example: Take the word (stir fry). The batchim is pronounced identical to as a batchim. But when it slides over, the word is pronounced like , i.e. b + o / kk + eu +m = bokkeum. This is important because the word , pronounced like , i.e. b + o / g + eu + m = bogeum, means gospel. Try not to order the gospel of chicken at a Korean restaurant.

Advanced pronunciation rule 2.2 What about those pesky double batchim letters? Answer: only the last batchim slides over to the next word. So the word (breadth or width) is pronounced like , n + eo + l / b + i = neolbi. Advanced pronunciation rule 3 if a batchim is followed by , the batchim is pronounced harsher. turns into ; and into , and ; into . (Technically, the harsher sound for is , but it turns into in this situation only.) So the word (closed) is not pronounced like dathin, but like dachin, as if reading . Advanced pronunciation rule 4 This rule is super-advanced, and Koreans
themselves often get it wrong. The rule is: If two words combine to form a single new word, the first consonant of the second original word is pronounced stronger if possible (in order to signal that it is a compound word.) So again, changes into ; into ; into

; into , and; into .

Example: the word (Korean seaweed roll, variation of Japanese sushi roll) is made up of two words, (laver, a type of seaweed) and (steamed rice). But the word is not pronounced as gim-bap. Since it is a compound word made up of two words, it is properly pronounced gim-bbap. (Although many Koreans, including the Korean Father, pronounces is as gim-bap, forgetting the compound word rule.) Another example is the word

(water bottle). It is not pronounced as mul-byeong; since the word is made up of the words (water) and (bottle), it is pronounced mul-bbyeong.
What if the stronger sound is not available for the following consonant? Then the following consonant is pronounced the same way. Thus, (water jug), although it is made up of the words and , is pronounced as mul-hang-ari.