Korean Language

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Language in Korea

Korean Language

Hangul - Korean Language As daunting as it seems, living and working in Korea without former knowledge of Korean is not THAT difficult.

In your classroom you are not supposed to use ANY Korean so students are forced to communicate with you exclusively in English. For all intents and purposes this seems to work quite well. There are times when you need more moves than a mime at the circus but you are still able to communicate quite effectively without any skills in Korean.

The beauty of the matter is that if you are interested in learning Korean, getting the basics is really quite easy.

List of Korean Language Programs

Korea Information - Korean Language

Useful sites for studying Korean:

http://www.learnkorean.com/
http://yuldo.net/language.htm
Sogang University Korean Program: http://korean.sogang.ac.kr/
Online Korean classes: http://www.declan-software.com/korean.htm
An introduction to Korean: http://www.langintro.com/kintro/
Yonsei University: http://www.yonsei.ac.kr/yu/eng/index.html

Learning Korean

Korea Information - Korean Language

This perspective is from someone who is living in a relatively small city (half a million) where English is not widely spoken with much fluency.

Every now and then I run across someone who can speak English well, I am sure the experience in bigger cities may be different. But even if you live in Seoul you will probably travel somewhere else at some point so I still think knowing the basics is important.

The first thing you need to know is you CAN live here without speaking a word of Korean, but after a while you might get tired of pointing and grunting like a caveman. In my opinion to improve the quality of your life you should learn the alphabet so you can read bus schedules, menus etc, if there is no English. In addition both the Chinese and Korean number systems so you can recognize times and prices when spoken to you. This is practical for movie tickets, asking how much something is, getting times for buses and other various things.

I believe I would have learned a lot more by taking a formal class than private instruction to learn Korean, but that is just me. Other than that some of the basic living phrases, like goodbye, hello, how much, asking for something or asking for more of something, and I am sorry I don't speak Korean are very helpful and in my opinion will improve the quality of your life here.

I also recommend that you learn the most polite ways to talk you can always go down in formality but it can be embarrassing if you insult someone by talking too casually to them. Respect for elders, even if they are just a year older is very important. Part of the problem for me learning the language was the people at my small institute (I was the only foreign teacher) had no idea why I would want to learn any Korean and were not helpful or supportive of me learning at all. This really discouraged me for a long time. Don't listen to people if they tell you this (why are they learning English??).

Even though I don't know that much Korean, I find that my day is a lot more pleasant when I can communicate on a basic level and don't feel like a total idiot when I have to go and do something.

People respect you a lot more I think when you are at least trying. There are some great books and tapes out there too, for learning Korean and understanding Korean culture.

Just remember how much or how little Korean you decide to learn is up to you!

Korean Language Breakdown

Korea Information - Korean Language

Korean is an unusual language in that no one is exactly sure of its origins. The most widely accepted theory is that Korean is a member of the Ural-Altaic family of languages, which also includes Turkish, Finnish, Mongolian and Hungarian. In reality Korean has far more in common with Japanese and Chinese than it does with Mongolian or European languages, and many Korean words have Chinese origins. Korea also uses two numeric systems, one of which is Chinese based. The structure of a Korean sentence is always ‘subject object verb’, and the verb is always the last word in a sentence, thus in Korean the sentence “I go to the store” is “I store go.” Levels of formality in Korean are also indicated by verb conjugation- there are three basic levels of formality in Korean, and speakers indicate respect and familiarity by the verbs they use, thus the way someone says “good morning” to a child is different than the way one says “good morning” to an elderly person. Offense can be taken if levels of formality are not used correctly, particularly when “panmal” or the lowest form is used to address older people or people with greater social standing than one’s self, (your boss, for instance.) Don’t worry about inadvertently insulting someone- as you learn Korean you will find that Koreans are thrilled that you are studying their language and will give you a lot of leeway both in your grammar and your use of the correct form.

Hangul originally consisted of 28 characters but has subsequently been reduced to 24. The symbols used in Korean are extremely simple- basic lines, circles and squares, and Korean is not pictographic like Chinese. These letters- 14 consonants and 10 vowels, are combined in groups of two three or four characters and are read in clockwise circles from left to right. Although this may sound initially intimidating, Korean is in fact one of the easiest languages in the world to learn to read and write. Two and three year olds in Korea can usually write basic characters, and school age children usually have complete mastery of the written form of the language. Over 98% of Koreans are literate.

As daunting as it may seem initially, most foreigners can learn to read basic Korean characters in a couple of weeks. Even if you never progress beyond this stage, learning to read Korean will make your stay in Korea infinitely easier- you will at least be able to read street signs and be able to tell where busses and subways are headed. Korean language classes are offered through several private language academies and several universities in Seoul, including Sogang University and Ewha Women’s University. The most cost effective way to learn is to purchase the university Korean language textbooks at a bookstore, and then find a Korean who speaks some English to participate in a language exchange- there are many Koreans who are more than happy to trade English for Korean lessons. As easy as Korean is to read and write, it’s transliteration into English can often be baffling. For many years the Korean government used the McCune-Reischauer system of Romanizing Korean, however many Koreans used their own Romanized spellings, thus Mr. Choi and Mr. Chae might be brothers. Recently the South Korean government embarked on a multi-million dollar project to change how Korean words are spelled in English. The brilliance of the powers that be devised a system that makes Korean words spelled in English nearly unpronounceable for non-Korean speakers. Under the old system the word “Koryo” which is pronounced “Kor-yo” is now spelled, “Goryeo” and “Chosun”, pronounced “Cho-son” is now spelled “Joseon.” Go figure. Welcome to Gorea.