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Teach Yourself Korean - can anyone check the spelling?


atitarev

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Here's some value to Chinese speakers:

안녕 (安寧) annyeong (as in "annyeong haseyo!")

맥주(麥酒) maegju

양주(洋酒) yangju

소주(燒酒) soju

안주 (按酒) anju

건배 (乾杯) geonbae

Some common ways of saying no:

아니 (ani) - informal, blunt

아니오 (aniyo) - formal

아니에요 (anieyo) - formal

없어 (opso) - does not exist, or is missing

안 돼 - is not

계산 주세요 - "Please give me the bill"

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look at all the pronounciation correlations between chinese and korean!

Everytime I ask my Korean friend how to say something in Korean I can always find the corresponding Chinese word, especially since I know Cantonese, I have two Chinese versions to compare against. I think more words correlate than not (Korean and Chinese share 80-90% vocab? There are probably more differences between some of the Chinese dialects). I told him one time that if they still used Chinese characters to write I could probably understand Korean with minimal or no training, and he said then Korean would be Chinese...

Japanese too, before WW1, what like 90+% Japanese texts were in characters? but unlike Korean, since Japanese has fewer sounds, once they do away with characters, etymological traces can be lost quite easily. Sooner or later people won't be able to trace Konnichi to 今日, and Konban to 今晚 etc.

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I find Korean much closer to Japanese than to Chinese grammatically, though. They have the same (or rather can be mapped to the same) particles, word order. Most scholar words are of Chinese origin (like in Japanese) and both in Korean and Japanese you can't make a single meaningful sentence without the core vocabulary nd the words that link them together. The words I've seen so far in Korean, which can be mapped to Chinese are nouns or derived from nouns.

Unlike Japanese all words written in Chinese characters (if Hanja is used!) normally have just one reading (with a few exception like in Chinese) - Japanese have a lot of native words that are written in Chinese characters but have native readings, so the majority of characters in Japanese have at least two readings. So, a Japanese text would be easier to understand for a Chinese, even if a lot of native words were used (but the pronunciation of those words would have nothing to do with Chinese). A Korean text would make only sense to a Korean if a lot of borrowed words were used because native words are/were never written in Chinese characters and if a word could be written in Hanja, it would always have a Sino-Korean reading, even if the word borrowed from Japan and that word had a native Japanese reading (kun-yomi), eg. 建物 is pronounced "geon-mul" in Korean and is borrowed from Japanese "tatemono" - building.

A very simple example: I go to school

(in Mandarin 我去学校。 or 我到学校去。

Wǒ qù xuéxiào. or Wǒ dào xuéxiào qù.):

Korean: (저는) 學校 (학교) 에 가요. ((jeo-neun) haggyo-e gayo.)

Japanese (私は) 学校へ 行きます。 ((watashi-wa) gakkō-e ikimas)

(The grammatical pattern is identical for Korean and Japanese:

(optional: I-topic marker) school - direction marker go - polite ending.

In Korean only the noun, which is borrowed from Chinese is written in characters (now it's not required) but the Japanese text also has also 2 native Japanese words ("watashi" and "iku"->"ikimas" written in Chinese characters.

--------

TYK, Lesson 2

1. 오래간만이에요!

박선생: 김선생님, 안녕하세요?

김선생: 아! 박선생님! 안녕하세요?

박선생: 오래간만이에요!

김선생: 네. 그래요. 진짜 오래간만이에요!

박선생: 잘 지넸어요?

김선생: 네. 잘 지넸어요. 요즘 사업은 어떄요?

박선생: 그저 그래요.

… 우리 집사람이에요.

김선생: 아! 그래요? 반갑습니다. 말씀 많이 들었어요.

박선생 부인: 반갑습니다. 저는 장윤희에요.

김선생: 저는 김진양이에요. 만나서반갑습니다.

1. o-lae-gan-man-i-e-yo-!

bag-seon-saeng-: gim-seon-saeng-nim-, an-nyeong-ha-se-yo-?

gim-seon-saeng-: a-! bag-seon-saeng-nim-! an-nyeong-ha-se-yo-?

bag-seon-saeng-: o-lae-gan-man-i-e-yo-!

gim-seon-saeng-: ne-. geu-lae-yo-. jin-jja- o-lae-gan-man-i-e-yo-!

bag-seon-saeng-: jal- ji-ness-eo-yo-?

gim-seon-saeng-: ne-. jal- ji-ness-eo-yo-. yo-jeum- sa-eob-eun- eo-ddyae-yo-?

bag-seon-saeng-: geu-jeo- geu-lae-yo-.

… u-li- jib-sa-lam-i-e-yo-.

gim-seon-saeng-: a-! geu-lae-yo-? ban-gab-seub-ni-da-. mal-sseum- manh-i- deul-eoss-eo-yo-.

bag-seon-saeng- bu-in-: ban-gab-seub-ni-da-. jeo-neun- jang-yun-heui-e-yo-.

gim-seon-saeng-: jeo-neun- gim-jin-yang-i-e-yo-. man-na-seo-ban-gab-seub-ni-da-.

2. 저는 아니에요!

오선생: 실례합니다.

이선생: 네?

오선생: 한극말 선생님이세요?

이선생: 아니요. 저는 한극말 선생님이 아니에요. 저는 일본말 선생님이에요.

오선생: 아, 죄송 합니다. 여기가 한극학과 사무실이 아니에요?

이선생: 네. 한극학과가 아니에요. 여기는 일본학과에요.

오선생: 그럼 한국학과 사무실이 어디에요?

이선생: 저기 있어요.

오선생: 실례지만, 여기가 한극학과 사무실이에요?

김선생: 네. 무슨 일이세요?

오선생: 한극말 선생님 만나러 왔어요.

2. jeo-neun- a-ni-e-yo-!

o-seon-saeng-: sil-lye-hab-ni-da-.

i-seon-saeng-: ne-?

o-seon-saeng-: han-geug-mal- seon-saeng-nim-i-se-yo-?

i-seon-saeng-: a-ni-yo-. jeo-neun- han-geug-mal- seon-saeng-nim-i- a-ni-e-yo-. jeo-neun- il-bon-mal- seon-saeng-nim-i-e-yo-.

o-seon-saeng-: a-, joi-song- hab-ni-da-. yeo-gi-ga- han-geug-hag-goa- sa-mu-sil-i- a-ni-e-yo-?

i-seon-saeng-: ne-. han-geug-hag-goa-ga- a-ni-e-yo-. yeo-gi-neun- il-bon-hag-goa-e-yo-.

o-seon-saeng-: geu-leom- han-gug-hag-goa- sa-mu-sil-i- eo-di-e-yo-?

i-seon-saeng-: jeo-gi- iss-eo-yo-.

o-seon-saeng-: sil-lye-ji-man-, yeo-gi-ga- han-geug-hag-goa- sa-mu-sil-i-e-yo-?

gim-seon-saeng-: ne-. mu-seun- il-i-se-yo-?

o-seon-saeng-: han-geug-mal- seon-saeng-nim- man-na-leo- oass-eo-yo-.

한국 (韓國) (Used in Sth Korea only) han-gug-

조선 (朝鮮) (Used in Nth Korea only) jo-seon-

일본 (日本) il-bon-

중국 (中國) jung-gug-

학과 (學科) hag-goa-

선생 (先生) seon-saeng-

사무실 (事務室) sa-mu-sil- (borrowed through Japanese - "jimushitsu" - office)

I should of course mention Korean last names

the following 3are used by 19% of Koreans:

김 金 Gim (Kim)

이 (Sth) 리 (Nth) 李, 伊, 異 I (Sth) Ri/Li (Nth)

박 朴 Bak (Pak)

These two are important to know:

오吳, 伍 O (used in the text)

Sth 노 Nth: 로 盧, 魯, 路 Sth: No Nth: Ro

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Thanks bhchao!

One more thing about Korean,

I find it really difficult understanding words with many meanings

especially if they are not similiar, but are very different meanings

For example:

전부 can mean 全部 , 前夫 or 前部 :|

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  • 6 months later...
I find it really difficult understanding words with many meanings especially if they are not similiar, but are very different meanings

For example:

전부 can mean 全部 , 前夫 or 前部 :|

When the word is in a sentence within a proper context, I think it'll be clear which word is intended. It's just a case of homophony (3 different words merged into one pronunciation).

What I think could be more difficult for learners are the sound change & modification in Korean speech. For example, are there simple rules for working out that words like 독립문 (Dogribmun) and 식량 (sigryang) are going to be pronounced as 동님문 (Dongnimmun) and 싱냥 (singnyang), respectively ?

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What is a glottalised letter? Can Koreans understand if you get these wrong?

The sound is accentuated with the glottalised letter (or double consonant). You accentuate the sound by tensing your throat at the same time you pronounce the double consonants, like in the word 아저씨.

atitarev may have a better explanation.

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A better example of how to pronounce a glottalized letter in Korean is to pronounce it this way:

Pronunciation of 아저씨 as "a-ju-she" (the 씨 part sounding similar to the English pronoun "she").

Pronouncing 아저씨 as "a-ju-see" (the 씨 part sounding like the English word "see") is incorrect.

This is not the best example to illustrate the pronunciation. Hard to explain without you having to actually hear the pronunciation.

Athough it is not officially a tonal language like Mandarin, Korean is a little bit of a tonal language in itself. For example, if we were to give the word 먹다 ('let's eat') tonal marks in the Mandarin four tones approach, it would be pronounced as mok3da4. Pronouncing it in some other way like mok1da4 would confuse a native Korean speaker.

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This is an important pronunciation rule:

If a syllable in a word ends in ㄱ, like in the syllable 먹, the ㄱ is inaudible when you pronounce it. The listener is not supposed to hear a "k" or "g" sound at the end of a syllable that ends in ㄱ. The ending of the syllable is pronounced in an abrupt manner, like you are holding your breath back.

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