운명 | (un-myeong) | Fate / Destiny In the myth of the 'red string of fate', the gods tie an invisible red string around the little finger of those that are destined to cross paths.

Some reading and listening resources for you, my Korean studying friends :) Please also recommend me any resources you use, especially apps, I’m hungry for Korean resources! 

세바시 | 세상을 바꾸는 시간 15분) (youtube, app, website) 

Korean version of TED talks. For years I’ve been jealous of my English-learning friends using TED talks to study, but no longer.

연애의 과학 | Science of Love (website, app) 

“Relationship tips and psychology tests.” Articles introducing research studies on relationships, sex, breakups etc. in very easy-to-read language and with cute illustrations. 

브런치 | Brunch (website, app)

Blog site with the feel of a magazine. Brunch is very publicised and has a high quality of content. 

Daum blogs / Naver blogs

Just… blogs… I don’t actually use these personally but recommend me some blogs if you find anything interesting there. Learning Korean with Humans of Seoul (facebook)

Language posts about any interesting grammar points/expressions/words that pop up in Humans of Seoul interviews. The Humans of Seoul page itself is also really good for reading practice. 

Natural Disaster Vocabulary Pt. 2

30. Thunderstorm 뇌우

31. Sprinkling/Drizzling Rain 비가 부슬부슬 내리다/ 보슬보슬 내리다

32. Downpour 폭우/ 호우/ 억수같은 비

33. Thunder 천둥/ 우레

34. Lightning 번개/ 번갯불

35. High Winds 강풍/ 큰센바람/ 대풍

36. Severe/heavy winds 거센 바람

37. Severe Weather (Conditions) 험한 날씨 / 심각한 기상 조건

38. Brace for (severe weather) ~에 대비하다

39. Evacuate 대피/ 소개하다

40. Fly through the air 공중을 날아가다

41. Forest Fire 산불

42. Arid 매우 건조한

43. Friction 마찰

44. High Temperatures 고온/ 기온(이 높았다)

45. Record High Temperatures 최고 기록의 기온

44. Smoke Inhalation (연기) 흡입

45. Lungs 폐/ 허파

46. Gas Mask 방독면/ 가스 마스크

47. Rescuers 구조자/ 구출자

48. Rescue Team (Worker) 구조대(원)

 49. Rescue Operations/ Relief Work 구출 작업

50. First Respondents 최초 대처자/ 긴급 구조원

49. Fire Fighter 소방수/ 소방관

50. Police 경찰

51. Aid Relief 구호품

52. NGO 엔지오, 비정부 기구(non-governmental organization)

53. Victim(s) 피해자/ 이재민/ 희생자

54. (Issue a) Warning 경보

55. Advisory 주의보

56. Severe Weather Alert 특보

57. Flee/ Escape 달려가다/

58. Natural Disaster 자연 재해/ 천재

59. Epicenter/ Eye of the Storm 진원지/ 진앙

Vocabulary dump - 01.09.17

경고 - Warning 소중한 - Precious 진정하다 - To calm down 무질서 - Disorder 과학 - Science 만남 - Meeting 유형 - Type 분석 - Analysis 이별 - Break up 욕심 - Greed 징징 - Whining 유모차 - Stroller 백열전구 - Lightbulb

Why I don’t like romanization

I spend a lot of time on the internet, and most of that time is split between watching Youtube videos and interacting with other language learners, particularly Korean learners. There’s a chatroom that I especially hang around in a lot, and every now and then someone looking to get in to learning Korean from step 1 comes in. When they ask for resources and advice, the first thing that I tell them to do is to learn Hangul by sight and sound, avoiding romanization (writing Korean words in the Roman alphabet) as much as possible. I usually link them this video because it doesn’t use romanization like most learn-Hangul sources.

So, what’s the deal with romanization and why is using it so bad? Today I’ll focus on what exactly romanization is and why I am so very against its use as a tool for learning Korean pronunciation.

Romanization—What is it?

Romanization, as I have already mentioned above, is using the Roman alphabet to write Korean words (for example, writing “annyeong” or “anyong” or anything else instead of “안녕”). Reliance on romanization is bad for learning Korean for a few reasons, including lack of adherence to the standard, differences between speakers, and ultimately its failure to accurately match the actual sounds of the Korean language.

There is an official romanization standard for Korean called “Revised Romanization of Korean.” Revised Romanization of Korean (from here on out, RR) is the standard that has been in place since 2000, introduced as a way to fix some problems with an earlier system… and yet this one also, in my opinion, is very unsatisfying. It fails for a few reasons, some that are an issue with the system itself and some factors that lie outside of the system.

Lack of adherence to the system

While RR is the standard romanization system of Korean and has been for some time, adherence to it outside of instances mandated by the government is not guaranteed. While most Korean language textbooks will use RR, some will go with another system or maybe even some other romanization that was deemed to “fit better.” I’ve read academic linguistic papers on Korean meant for English-language audiences, and some of those papers, despite being published after the introduction of RR (in some cases many years after) use incredibly strange romanization that doesn’t match either RR or the previous system. But more important than the usage of romanization in some obscure academic articles, at least for the purpose of this blog, is the use of romanization by Korean learners and Korean people—and going off of what I have seen on this website and other language exchange sites and apps, Korean learners and Korean learners alike tend to use romanization that is not in line with the standard and that can differ greatly from person to person. How can romanization possibly be a useful tool for learning when nobody seems to use it the same way?  How can you be sure you’re expressing the same sounds?

Confusion due to unfamiliarity

In addition to confusion caused by using different romanization types, just the presence of romanization itself can cause confusion! Many Koreans are of course not too familiar with romanization outside of place names because… they have no reason to be! They have Hangul, so of course they don’t use romanization in their daily lives. If you check out this video, you can see how hard it can be for native speakers to try to read Korean that is written in romanization. Supposing that your goal in learning Korean is to be able to communicate with native speakers, moving away from romanization and getting cozy with Hangul for writing is definitely the way to go.

RR’s failure to match the actual sounds of the language + differences between speakers

One of my other major bones to pick with RR—probably my largest, actually— has to do with the fact that it doesn’t really match up with the actual sounds of the Korean language. Have you ever seen someone ask (or asked yourself) if ㄱ is “k” or “g”? Maybe you’ve wondered if ㅂ is “p” or “b”? Sometimes ㄱ is written as “k” and sometimes as “g” in RR so it must be both, right? That’s a natural assumption to make, but it’s not the right answer. Korean makes use of some sound distinctions that English (and other languages that use the Roman alphabet) don’t make. In fact, there is no sound in Korean that corresponds to the sound an English speaker would think of when they see “g,” and the same goes for “b, j, ch…” NONE of those sounds as our English-speaking brains know them exist in Korean, but there they are in the romanization. It wouldn’t be a problem, I suppose, if you knew which speech sounds exactly correspond to which letter (combinations) in RR… but I’m sure that pretty much nobody studies phonetics just for the sake of making sure they’re reading romanization correctly. The large majority of people who look at romanization are not reading it correctly, and if you’re using it to learn Korean pronunciation, then your pronunciation will end up sounding more unnatural than it would if you just forwent the romanization altogether and just learned it more naturally, from sound (and with Hangul, sight-sound correspondence) alone. And add on to all this the fact that one’s native language and dominant dialect of that language will color the way one ends up pronouncing romanization that they see and read… it’s a jumbled path that can easily carry you off the path of more accurate pronunciation.

So, is romanization totally useless?

No, I’m not saying that romanization is useless by any means. In this globalized society, it is obviously necessary for the large majority of the world’s population who can’t read Hangul. However, romanization is used in such a scattered way by learners and native Korean speakers, and even the standard romanization fails to match Korean phonology properly, so it’s really not an ideal tool to use when learning Korean pronunciation. Please try your best to use all the great audiovisual resources online, like the video I linked at the start of this section, to learn the sounds of Korean without romanization~!

Happy studying, everyone!

Long but hits on all of the main reasons that I always recommend people to stay away from romanisation while learning Korean.

커피 – coffee 커피숍 – coffeeshop 카페 – café 찻집 – teahouse 라떼 – latte 바닐라 라떼 – vanilla latte 녹차 라떼 – green tea latte 홍차 라떼 – black tea latte 고구마 라떼 – sweet potato latte 오곡라떼 – five grains latte 아메리카노 – Americano 에스프레소 – espresso 모카 – mocha 카푸치노 – cappuccino 마키아또 – macchiato 카라멜 마키아또 – caramel macchiato 샷 추가 – additional shot 녹차 – green tea 프라페 – frappe 모카 프라페 – mocha frappe 민트초코 프라페 – mint chocolate frappe 핫초코 – hot chocolate  아포가토 – affogato  얼그레이(차) – earl grey tea 카모마일(차) – chamomile tea 페퍼민트/박하차 – peppermint tea 재스민(차) – jasmine tea 유자차 – citron tea 생레몬차 – lemon tea

The many faces of 되다

되다 is one of the most useful, and perhaps most confusing, verbs you will encounter while learning Korean. If you were to ask me what it means, my fast-and-easy answer would be “to become.” However, it serves a lot of purposes in a lot of different contexts. Today, we’ll look at some of the most common of its usages.

To become

As I already mentioned, “to become” is my fast answer for whenever someone asks me what 되다 means. Let’s look at some simple examples:

Passage of time

되다 is also often used when one wants to refer to how much time has passed. This usage often occurs with the grammar -(으)ㄴ 지, which can be translated as “since.”

“Leave it!”

Sometimes when you’re annoyed, you just want to tell someone that you’re done with the conversation or that you want them to leave you alone. You can accomplish this with a single exclamation:

“됐어!”

Let’s look at it in some context:

Permission

If you want to ask permission—or deny permission!—되다 is there for you! In this case, it is paired up with -아/어도 or -(으)면 (even if). When -아/어도 or -(으)면  is followed by 되다, it takes on the meaning of, “Is it okay if…?” when presented as a question or as granting permission when presented as a statement. Adding negation to 되다 will turn that granting of permission into refusal. Also, you can simply use “돼요” and “안 돼요” for the same meaning.

Disbelief

Imagine an action movie, the lead hero and and his or her sidekick fighting together, when suddenly the sidekick is seriously injured! The hero cries out “No!” in disbelief and rushes to the sidekick’s side. That “No!” can be translated in Korean to “안 돼(요)!” This usage is fairly limited to negative situations.

Acceptability judgments

Sometimes you need to decide if something is up to a certain standard, or if something is suitable for a certain purpose. In this case, you can use 되다 to pass judgments on something:

Completion

Finally, 되다 can be used to express completion! Suppose a friend asks you if you’re done with your part of a group project. You can show them your finished portion and tell them, “다 됐어!”

As always. happy studying~

Noun modifier endings

Today I’ll give you an overview of noun modifier endings. I’m not sure if this is actually the proper term for it, but it’s what my teacher used back in the day!

Noun modifier endings are  actually applied to action verbs and descriptive verbs to change them into forms that can then be used to modify following nouns. More simply, they turn action or descriptive verbs into what we would in English call relative clauses and adjectives respectively. 

A relative clause is a clause starting with a relative pronoun, such as “that, who, which, etc,” that describes a noun. You can think of it as a long adjective. Let’s check out some examples in English first:

In this example, “that I ate” is a relative clause that describes the cake.

In this example, “where I met my friend” is a relative clause giving more information about the school.

And of course adjectives are simpler:

Now, let’s build some relative clauses and adjectives in Korean!

Action verbs

Present tense: -는 — The present tense noun modifier ending for action verbs is -는. Just slap it onto the root of your verb (keeping in mind any changes with irregular verbs) and you’re good to go!

Past tense: -(으)ㄴ — For verb roots that end with a consonant, add -은. For roots that end with a vowel, just add -ㄴ. Make sure to keep changes for irregular verbs in mind!

Past habitual: -던 — If you want to refer to an action that was done repeatedly or habitually in the past, attach -던 to the verb root.

Future tense: -(으)ㄹ —  Again, depending on if the root ends with a consonant (-을) or vowel (-ㄹ), you use a slightly different form.

Descriptive verbs

Present tense: -(으)ㄴ — The present tense noun modifier endings for descriptive verbs look like the past tense noun modifier endings for action verbs. Make sure you use -은 for roots that end with consonants and -ㄴ when the root ends with a vowel.

Past tense: -던; -았/었던 — Just as we can use -던 with action verbs to indicate a habitual past action, we can use it with descriptive verbs to indicate that a state was continuous in the past. Using just -던 on its own gives a feeling of looking back on or reminiscing about something that may still be continuing to the present time. On the other hand, -았/었던 carries a feeling of “was X in the past, but is no longer.”

Future tense: -(으)ㄹ — The future tense noun modifier endings for descriptive verbs are the same as for action verbs. As always, make sure that you make any needed changes for irregular verbs. Also, please note that [descriptive verb + -(으)ㄹ NOUN] is not a very commonly used structure unless it’s followed by the noun 것 (thing). However, that starts getting into full future tense, which isn’t the point of this post.

Nouns

Nouns on their own can’t take noun modifier endings, but the endings can be attached to 이다 (to be). My notations of the forms the noun modifier endings take will include 이다 and be written as single units, but just be aware that they are actually 이다 plus the actual noun modifier ending.

Present tense: -인 — It’s the same regardless of whether the noun ends with a consonant or a vowel!

Past tense: -이었/였던 — -던 makes another appearance! This time it appears with 이다 conjugated to the past tense. Add -이었던 if the noun ends with a consonant and -였던 if it ends with a vowel.

Future tense: It’s sort of weird to use the future noun modifier ending -(으)ㄹ directly on 이다. Rather, you would use [NOUN이/가 될…]. This way, you are using the action verb 되다 to say that something or someone will be come something else. 

Happy studying~

EMPHASIS matters (pt. 1)

In Korean it’s generally very easy to tell where the sentence is going depending on the words they’re started with. Some words can elaborate the entire upcoming sentence, and help emphasize the message. In Korean these words are known as 문장 부사어 (sentence adverbs).

Let’s check some out,

과연 – indeed, really, sure enough. (also used to emphasize a question) 과연 듣던대로 잘 생기셨습니다. Like I was told, you really do look handsome. 과연 이번 대통령은 누가 될까? Who will REALLY become our president this time?

설마 – No way / I couldn’t believe it (surprised statement or emphasizes a negative question [shows doubt]) 설마했는데 설렁탕에 땅콩이 들어갈 줄이야. I couldn’t believe it, but there were peanuts in the ox bone soup.   설마 내일 야외 결혼식에 비가 오지는 않겠지? No way it’s gonna rain tomorrow during the outside wedding… right?

만일 – if (similar to 만약) 만일 평생 한가지 음식만 먹어야 한다면, 뭐 먹을 거야? If you could eat only one thing for the rest of your life, what would you eat?

설령 – even if, even though (negative) 설령 지금부터 24시간 공부한다고해도 내일 시험은 망한거 같아. Even if I study for 24 hours straight from now, it seems like I’m gonna fail the test tomorrow.

설사 – even if, even though (negative) 내일 경기에서 이길 가능성이 설사 적더라도 최선을 다해 보자. Even if we have the smallest possibility to win our match tomorrow, let’s try our best.

비록 – even though, although 비록 내가 가진건 몸뚱아리 하나지만 나중에 꼭 부자가 될거다. Even if the only thing I own at the moment is my body, I’m definitely gonna be rich later on.

A lot of these words don’t have one exact translation, so it’s important to understand how and why they’re used. So make sure to study multiple examples rather than the direct translations.

As always, stay tuned for more :) 

[漢字 배우자! 4 ] Countries

Back with more 한자 for you! This time we’ll look at the characters associated with different countries’ names. These characters are often used on the news and in newspapers to unambiguously reference those specific countries. Of course, this varies from station to station and paper to paper. Some news stations and newspapers make more extensive usage of 한자 than others, so depending on what you’re watching or reading, you might see a lot of 한자, or you might not see many at all! For example, the 한겨레 newspaper entirely rejects the usage of 한자, and it also limits it usage of loanwords and the Roman alphabet. It was also Korea’s first newspaper to be printed horizontally instead of vertically!

Two other newspapers with wide circulation in Korea are the 동아일보 and the 조선일보. Both of them use 한자, but the 조선일보 does so more extensively than the 동아일보.

Anyway, let’s dive into some of the country 漢字 most commonly seen on the news and in newspapers. You can find stroke order diagrams for each character at the bottom of the post.

한국/나라 한 韓

Of course, we’ll start with the character that stands for South Korea! This character is 한국 (Korea) 한. Pretty special that it gets its own character! But here’s a little fun fact about this character—it also refers to one of the ancient Chinese states during the Warring States period!

아름다울 미 美

This character is 아름다울 (beautiful) 미 美, and it is used to refer to America, 미국.  Oh beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain~ This one comes from Chinese transliteration. In Chinese, 美國 is read “Mei3guo2,” with the “Mei” sounding a bit similar to the second syllable of “America.” For the sake of good international relations, they chose a character with a pleasant meaning :)

날 일 日

We learned this character in the last [ 漢字 배우자! ]. This 漢字, which means “day,” is also used for Japan, or 일본 日本. This comes from Japan being one of the first countries to see the sun rise each day (ever heard someone refer to Japan as “land of the rising sun”?). The second character in 日本 is 근본 (origin) 본 本, so the name 일본 literally means “origin of the day” or “origin of the sun.”

북녘 북 北

북녘 (north) 북 北 is the character used in reference to North Korea, 북한 北韓. It’s pretty self-explanatory.

가우데 중 中

This character means “center” and is used for China, 중국 中國. I had to look this up to make sure I’m not giving you bad information. An answer to a question on Quora about why China calls itself 中國 said, “It referred during the Eastern Zhou/Spring & Autumn period/Warring States period (771 BC to 221 BC) to the powerful central fiefdoms-cum-states of the North China Plain surrounding the Zhou.” There’s a lot more information provided by others on that thread, so please do check it out!

홀로 독 獨

홀로 (alone) 독 獨 is the character used for Germany, 독일 獨逸. This is one that comes from Japanese transliteration. Germans aren’t really lonely… at least I hope not!

꽃부리 영 英

Finally, we have 꽃부리 (corolla [petals]) 영 英. This character is used to represent England 영국 英國. Again, this one comes from Chinese transliteration, with the Chinese reading of 英, Ying1, being similar in pronunciation to the “Eng” of “England.”

BONUS:

로시아: 이슬 로(노) 露

This character used to be used for Russia, but not any longer. 로시아 is a transliteration of the name “Russia,” and the character 이슬 (dew) 로 is the first character of that transliteration. Now, it’s far more common to see (and hear) 러시아.

Of course, these are not the only country 漢字, but this post would get incredibly long if I wrote all them out. For a more extensive list, you can click here! A little fun fact about these 漢字 names is that most of them came from Chinese or Japanese. The Japanese and Chinese people would hear the name of the country in its original language and then approximate it to fit their own pronunciation patterns. Those transliterations then made it to Korea, where they were passed through the filter of yet another language.