Learning 한글?

안녕하세요, 여러분!
Hey everyone!

 So I have finally gotten round to making this post and it will solely be on the subject of reading, writing and pronouncing the Korean Alphabet, 한글. Now, as you're probably wondering,

 'How did she type in Korean? She's not Korean is she? Do I have to buy the keyboard?' 

Well, no. You DO NOT have to waste money on a Korean keyboard or on stickers that have the Korean characters on them. Here is a link to my simple guide (With images) on how to start typing in Korean on your English keyboard: http://londontrendy.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/typing-in-korean-windows-link-for.html 

This guide, however, is only for Windows as my mac is broken and I really don't care about it. I'm perfectly fine about using Windows to be honest and plus I love my Sims 3 so I don't want to be installing everything on my mac again.

• For those of you who have macs, here's a guide that I found :  http://www.foolsworkshop.com/120a/koreanmac.html

So I learnt to write the Korean alphabet in around 2 hours. That just proves and stresses the point that the Korean alphabet is the easiest Asian language to learn.  I personally think that learning to read, write and pronounce Korean was a great choice as you will be able to baffle your friends and enrich your life. Also, you will no longer be an analphabet when travelling to Korea.

Even though Korean may look just like Chinese or Japanese to most of us English speakers who don't know the difference between the weird character mumbo-jumbo, it is actually much easier, because the characters are a combination of just 24 letters and a few simple variations, rather than a few thousand more or less random drawings. So even going at a relaxed pace of 4 letters per lesson, you will have learned everything you need to read Korean after just a few lessons, while the Japanese or Chinese scripts take years to master!

The first Korean letter you should learn is Bieup:

ㅂ

This is a consonant and it is a soft b sound. You might not get it at first because we don't tend to pay attention to the pitch in which we pronounce letters but after some listening to native pronunciations, you should be able to master it. Don't worry if you can't I know my Korean alphabet inside and out and I still have to stop and think about how I am pronouncing the consonant in words. Listen to it Bieup.

In Korean, we pair consonants with vowels and this is what gives them a new sound and a new meaning , so here's a vowel to go with it:

ㅏ

This is the vowel a as in father. This is one of the most common vowels that you will see in Korean as I come across it all the time. It's easy to master and easy to remember so this won't need much practicing! Listen to it here.

Now, in order to combine them into a Korean character, all you have to do is to try to fit them into an imaginary little square box. This is done by writing the letter ㅏ right next to ㅂ, like this:

바

Can you guess how this character is pronounced?

Yup, it's BAh. Easy right?

Now, the next important letter is Nieun:

ㄴ

This is a regular n so there's no special pronounciation here! (~Phew!) . Listen to Nieun here.Can you guess how to write Na now?

나

Every character represents one syllable, so if you wanted to write baba for example, you would need two characters, one for each ba. It would look like this 바바

Now it's time for a little exercise. Try to read and understand the following word. (I'll put the answers at the bottom of this post but please don't cheat! You'll only be cheating yourself!!!!)

바나나

Every Korean syllable has to start with a consonant. That makes it easy to identify the beginning and end of syllables, but what about syllables that start with a vowel, such as the beginning of the famous Korean greeting "annyong haseyo"? Those syllables need a placeholder consonant that isn't pronounced. Since its influence on the pronunciation of the syllable is zero, it is written like a zero, too. (That's how you can remember it anyway)

ㅇ

It is called Ieung. So the syllable would actually be written as 아.

Here are some words for practise:

아바 name of a popular band                         

아바나 capital of Cuba                                      

One more thing for this post: it is possible to have syllables that end in a consonant. This typically occurs when there is a cluster of two consonants in the middle of a word: one consonant then forms the end of one syllable and the other forms the beginning of the next syllable. Fitting two consonants and a vowel into a little square box is a little more tricky, but not impossible. In most cases you write the first consonant + vowel next to each other as before and then put the final consonant below the two. For example, this is the syllable ban, which has no meaning of its own: 

반

Time for another exercise. Can you read the following? It's a name.

안나 personal name

Did you manage to read that? If so, I can promise you that you have everything it takes to be able to read Korean fluently. This was in fact the hardest lesson of all, because you didn't have any previous knowledge. If you want to carry on with your learning Hangul and you liked this post, then you can comment below and I'll know to continue making lesson  posts on the subject.

Anyway, thanks for visiting my blog! I hope you find many other posts interesting. 

Want to learn about KPOP? It's Korean POP and it's great if you want to know about the music that is popular in Korea now. I'm sure you'll get addicted and it's also a great way of furthering you Korean studies!

ANSWERS: Ba na na = Banana

                     A-ba = Abba

                     A ba na = Abana

                     

• An-na = Anna (If your name is Anna, this is how you would write it in 한글 and how you would pronounce it. Don't pronounce it with an English accent or your native accent though, otherwise Koreans might not understand.

                   

- Mary :D