Teach Yourself Korean - can anyone check the spelling?

My Korean skills are very basic and I had hard timing typing this in. I find it awkward to type Hangul on a Western PC.

Lesson 1

1. 안녕하세요!

장민: 재민씨! 안녕하세요!

재민: 네. 안녕하세요! 잘 지냈어요?

장민: 네, 네. 어디 가요?

재민: 지금 시내에가요.

장민: 뭐 하러 시내에 가요?

재민: 빵 사러 가요.

장민: 나도 빵 사러 시내에 가요.

재민: 그럼 같이 가요.

장민: 네. 같이 가요.

2. 건배!

상민: 아저씨, 소주 있어오?

아저씨: 네, 네. 있어요. 소주, 맥주, 양주 다 있어요.

상민: 그럼, 맥주 하나하고 소주 하나 주세요.

아저씨: 네. 알겠어요.

상민: 그리고 안주도주세요. 뭐 있어요?

아저씨: 과일하고 오징어하고 마른안주하고 파전하고… 다 있어요.

상민: 그럼 과일하고 오징어 주세요.

…

아저씨: 여기 있어요. 맛있게 드세요.

상민: 감사합니다.

…

상민: 건배!

hehe seems you have the same book as me...

Only typo I've seen is grammatical, I think it should be 장민: 네, 네. 어디 가요?

A question mark rather than an exclamation mark.

Let me guess. The first one is about greetings. The second one is about ordering baijiu and drinking up. I can read some of them out loud but not knowing what they mean (the pronunciations are familiar as I have heard many of them in K drama). I think 있어오 means "is there ..", 아저씨 means 大叔, 감사합니가 means thank you, 건배 means cheers/drink up, 소주/맥주/양주 are various types of spirit.

아저씨 is waiter (what does 大叔 mean exactly? I take it obviously not big uncle)

맥주 is beer

양주 is defined as western liquor/spirits

Thanks for your posts.

아저씨 Ajeossi - is "waiter" in this case, as form of address but it can be used for any adult male, like 叔叔.

Will correct the symbol.

--

Corrected 조세요 to 주세요

양주, judging from the pronunciation, is 洋酒, right?

btw, where is bhchao?

The first conversation is about two persons greet each other and then go together into town to buy bread.

The second conversation is about two big eaters/drinkers order beer/baiju/western wine and squid and pancake.....in the restaurant.

양주, judging from the pronunciation, is 洋酒, right?

You're exactly right. Unfortunately, it is not so easy to get the Hanja (Korean for Hanzi) version of the words, not enough tools, compared to Chinese or Japanese. Korean has even more Chinese words (very often through Japanese - shillye-shitsurei 실례 - 失礼, shunmun-shinbun 신문 - 新聞) than Japanese (90% by some estimates?) but they are now written mainly in Hangul - Korean alphabet. You can often tell by pronunciation. Anyone knows an online/offline Korean dictionary that includes Hanja. Something like NJStar or Wakan with a dictionary?

아줌마 would be used if you are addressing a waitress at a Korean restaurant. Based on my experiences at Korean restaurants in LA, 아줌마 is used about 95% of the time.

있어요 can be used to ask if a certain item is available. If you want to ask if there is kimchi, you would say 김치있어요? But of course almost all Korean restaurants have kimchi.

있어요 can also be used to specify "exists here" or "where at?" If the subject or person that you are referring to is obvious to both yourself and the listener, and you want to ask "Where is it?" or "Where are you?", you can say 어디 있어요?

In a more casual environment, you can ask the question by using the shorter 어디에요? (odi e yo)

If the person responds "It's over here.", he or she can use 요기있어요 or 요기에요.

Could anyone tell me what the difference is between the pronunciation of -

씨 and 시

애 and 에

빠 and 바

And what happens when the final is ㅆ not followed by a vowel?

씨 and 시

애 and 에

빠 and 바

sshi (plus she) - shi (the first is double)

ae - e (e in pen) (the first is more open like a in back but less than English)

ppa - ba (or pa unaspirated) (the first is also unaspirated but double in pronunciation, like in "top part")

And what happens when the final is ㅆ not followed by a vowel?

If in the position in front of a vowel, then it is as expected - "ss", at the end - I think it's like final -t (all finals in Korean are like in Cantonese, unreleased).

I have an Optimec KD-800 handheld K/E dictionary with hanja (한자사 전 / 汉字词典) ... You can see more details here:

http://www.besta.com/kd800/kd800.htm

Got it a while back and added the Chinese/Korean and Japanese/Korean dictionaries through a mem card ... It's a bit pricey ...

Thanks, Tianjinpete. It looks pretty expensive and I need something that works on Windows and preferably with an English interface.

Guys, has anyone used Declan's Korean Dictionary? I get a lot of google hits. They have trialware but when it's expired you can't use it any more.

They sell lots of software for East-Asian and other languages.

when is ㄷ a "d" and when is it a "t"?

when is ㄱ a "g" and when is it a "k"?

when is ㅂ a "b" and when is it a "p"?

and on top of that there is also aspirated and tensed.. ie for for ㄱ (g/k) there is also 'aspirated' ㅋ(k') and 'tensed' ㄲ (kk)... seems like too much differentiation for the same sound (or at least is going to sound like the same sound in fast native speech, or unnatural speech like yelling, etc..)

Anyone knows an online/offline Korean dictionary that includes Hanja

http://hanja_dic.zonmal.com/

It's been in my favourites bar for a while, and I don't know where I got it from...

It's pretty useful, not that I can understand that much... I tend to copy and paste in hangul to see what hanja comes up and vice versa.

when is ㄷ a "d" and when is it a "t"?

when is ㄱ a "g" and when is it a "k"?

when is ㅂ a "b" and when is it a "p"?

if you treat them like Chinese consonants d, g, b, you should be fine. They are never aspirated and if they are voiced, they are not as strong as coresponding English consonants. In my opinion, they should always be transliterated as such but if you follow the rules that at the initial position, they are always voiceless (but unaspirated), you don't get confused. Korean consonants may change their pronunciation depending on the position. It is easier to visualise and understand if they are romanised consistently, the current Korean romanisation systems confused the hell out of because of their incosistency , until I understood, that they wrong

The matching aspirated letters are always voiceless.

The tense letters (e.g. ㄲ) are doubled (kk - "take care"), unaspirated (originally "gg") and voiceless (they lost strength).

Good online dictionary:

http://kr.dic.yahoo.com/search/eng/

Korean consonants may change their pronunciation depending on the position.

This is probably true since 갈비 is pronounced "kalbi" instead of "galbi". On the other hand, 불고기 is pronounced "bul-go-gi".

I am going to ask my Korean co-worker why this is the case.

I find http://cndic.daum.net/ is a very good site, it also has English/Korean dictionary

I'm really glad that Korean has so many words that sounds similiar to Chinese...makes memorising the vocabulary so much easier

I made a mistake. Just asked my co-worker, and she said ㄱ in most cases (about 70% of the time) is pronounced with a "g".

So the correct pronunciation of 갈비 is "galbi", not "kalbi". 불고기 is pronounced "bul-go-gi".

And the correct pronunciation of the surname 김 in Korean is "Gim".

I used to call those young waitresses as well as flight attendants in KAL flights as "Agassi". But my Korean friend told me that the term has another notorious connotation -- barmaid. Now I stop using that term.