Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Can you read this?
안녕하세요 (hello in Korean)
Believe it or not... I CAN!!
It is pronounced roughly like "ahn noung ha say yo." However, since there are many sounds in English that do not exist in Korean and also sounds in Korean that are not found in English, it is very difficult to translate it correctly into English pronunciations.
But... I found the solution to that! I googled some free Korean language sites and am very excited to say that in about two hours, I can now pronounce (slowly) most Korean words! Its soooo cool and I definitely feel very proud of myself!
When you first look at the circles and lines in Korean, it looks very intimidating. However, Hangul which are the Korean symbols, is extremely easy once it is broken down. In fact, when it was first introduced in Korea it was said to be able to be learned by the wise by the morning and the fool by night! Well... I consider myself quite a fool, but a willing fool! LOL! Anyways, there are only 14 consonant symbols and 10 vowel symbols which combine to make the sounds. Most of them are easy patterns to memorize too. It was waaaaaaay easier than I thought!
So... I now have a new past time to try to make our wait for our referral go by quicker. I suppose its more productive than just stalking blogs and sitting by the phone willing it to ring! (I probably will still do that!) I am going to spend these next 7-10 months getting ready to travel to Seoul, Korea and actually be able to speak some of the language! Wish me luck!
Who wants to join me??
Here is a FANTASTIC website with awesome free lessons to learn how to read Hangul! Even though I have not learned what the Korean words mean yet (that's my next step), it was very helpful to learn the proper way to pronounce the sounds and be able to "read" the Korean language. If you are interested in learning Korean, definitely start here! Here is a great FREE website that I found... Talk to Me In Korean. Click on the "Read and Write Hangul" link to get started.
안녕히 가세요! (Bye!)
안녕하세요 (hello in Korean)
Believe it or not... I CAN!!
It is pronounced roughly like "ahn noung ha say yo." However, since there are many sounds in English that do not exist in Korean and also sounds in Korean that are not found in English, it is very difficult to translate it correctly into English pronunciations.
But... I found the solution to that! I googled some free Korean language sites and am very excited to say that in about two hours, I can now pronounce (slowly) most Korean words! Its soooo cool and I definitely feel very proud of myself!
When you first look at the circles and lines in Korean, it looks very intimidating. However, Hangul which are the Korean symbols, is extremely easy once it is broken down. In fact, when it was first introduced in Korea it was said to be able to be learned by the wise by the morning and the fool by night! Well... I consider myself quite a fool, but a willing fool! LOL! Anyways, there are only 14 consonant symbols and 10 vowel symbols which combine to make the sounds. Most of them are easy patterns to memorize too. It was waaaaaaay easier than I thought!
So... I now have a new past time to try to make our wait for our referral go by quicker. I suppose its more productive than just stalking blogs and sitting by the phone willing it to ring! (I probably will still do that!) I am going to spend these next 7-10 months getting ready to travel to Seoul, Korea and actually be able to speak some of the language! Wish me luck!
Who wants to join me??
Here is a FANTASTIC website with awesome free lessons to learn how to read Hangul! Even though I have not learned what the Korean words mean yet (that's my next step), it was very helpful to learn the proper way to pronounce the sounds and be able to "read" the Korean language. If you are interested in learning Korean, definitely start here! Here is a great FREE website that I found... Talk to Me In Korean. Click on the "Read and Write Hangul" link to get started.
안녕히 가세요! (Bye!)
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2 comments:
That is SO cool Amber! I am totally checking this out, but I might not pick it up as quickly as you :)
That's awesome! I am totally intimidated by the written words and have been trying to learn using the romanizations. Since I don't seem to be learning much, perhaps it's time to invest in learning the written form! Thanks for the link.
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