Hangul (한글) Chart
Posted by Maureen on February 14, 2008
For our podcasters, here is your grammar lesson: http://www.5stardreams.com/hangul-chart/
Hangul (한글) is the official script of the Korean language, and it is a combination of the words great (한) and script(글). Unlike English, 한글 is not used when referring to the language, that is 한국말 or Hangul-mal, and the Korean people are referred to as 한국 사람 or Hanguk-saram.
However, like English, Korean is devised of letters and it has an alphabet, some learning to read 한글 is actually not that difficult; it just takes practice. Each letter corresponds to an English letter.
You didn’t think you’d get away with it that easy, would you? Korean also has complex consonant combinations, but for now, we won’t learn those because, well, they are complex. We’ll cover those more in-depth later on.
At the risk of sounding redundant, there are tons of MP3 files available for the basic letters in Korean script. I’m going to refer you over to zKorean, my favorite dictionary, on the letters, and their sounds. You can also check out my friend Geeone’s podcast, Sparkling Korean. You can head over there to listen to his MP3’s.
The point is, it’s really quite easy to figure out how to pronounce things in Korean. (Like I’ve said, there are exception with the complex consonants, but we’ll cover that later.) I’ve printed out zKorean’s alphabet chart to phonetically sound out words.
Let’s try it out! No MP3 file today! But, let’s sound it out, and make up a vocabulary card.
The words are:
보이프렌드 (boyfriend)
Boh-Ee-Puh-Reh-Duh
여자 친구 (girlfriend)
Yuh-Ja-Chan-Koo
(I am using the Romanization from zKorean, although it is NOT the standardized form - more on that later!)
And yes, I chose these especially for Valentine’s Day.
