Day: September 1, 2007

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Learning Consonants Part 2

2007년 9월 01일  

Still on the consonants with dual pronounciation (this is my own term for these 한글characters) ㄷ,ㄱ and ㅅ are included.  ㄷ is pronounced ‘t’ as in the word take or ‘d’ as in the word date.  In one of my favorite songs from Se7en, 와줘 (Come Back), the phrase  돌아와줘 is often heard note that is  pronounced as (do-ra-wa-juo) while ㄷ sounds like ‘t’ in 도로 (taw-raw).

In English the letter ‘k’ will never be mistaken as ‘g’ but in Korean, the sound of ㄱ is similar to the sound produced in the letter ‘k’ and ‘g’ as in the word kite and game respectively.  In one of the books I read, ㄱ awhen at the beginning of a word, should be romanized as  ‘g’ based on the recent government imposed standards on translating 한글 in English alphabet.

ㅅ also has a tricky pronounciation.  In most cases it sounds like ‘s’ as in the word soup. However, if the vowel next to it is ㅣ it should be pronounced as ‘sh’ like the word 식당 which mean restaurant (shiktang).  ㅅ is treated as ‘t’ in some cases where it is a final consonant like the number 3 which 셋 (set) in Korean.

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Learning Consonants

2007년 8월 31일  

한글 has few consonants compared to the English alphabet. I have been reading phrase books in the past few months and it seems they are true to their claim that almost every sound that an English word have can be written in 한글.  

Here are the first few consonants that I learned while doing self study.  The order may not be correct (similar to how we have been singing a-b-c)

ㅂ ㅈㄷㄱㅅㅁㄴㅇㄹㅎㅋㅌㅊㅍ

Of these characters ㅁㄴㅋㅌㅊㅍ are the less tricky in terms of reading.   The sound produced by these characters are written next to it ㅁ(m)  ㄴ (n) ㅋ(k)  ㅌ (t)  ㅊ (ch)   ㅍ (p). 

The rest have certain variation in pronunciation, i have encountered such in studying some phrases and words.   Take the case of ㅂ (the sound is between ‘p’ and ‘b’).  In some cases this letter is pronounced as ‘m’.  For example in the phrase:

 만나서 반갑습니다 (man-a-so  pan-gap-sum-ni-da) which translates as ‘Nice to meet you’, instead of pangapsupnida it is pronounced as pangapsumnida. ㅂ takes the ‘p’ sound rather than the ‘b’.

ㅈ is usually ‘j’ when pronounced as in ‘July’ but in some cases the sound is ‘ch’ as in ‘cherish’.  Like the word 잘 which means good or well in English, ㅈ is more of ‘j’ rathen than ‘ch’.  ㅈ sounds like ch in these samples:

  • 집 (chip) means house
  • 좀 (chom) means please
  • 제발 (chebal) means please or appointment