Korean Language Log

[basica]

So, I had all this leave, but nowhere to go - woe is me I have some friends in Korea and will be spending about a fortnight there. My general plan is this:

• So, from what I understand the writing system is fairly straight forward. I will spend some time on learning that first before I spend too much time learning anything else. I don't think this would take me more than a couple days at a casual pace, but I might change that up since I might be missing something with my understanding of it.
  
• I will focus on learning as few levels of formality as possible, hopefully knowing just the "polite" version will be enough day to day.
  
• Lastly, I will be focusing on islands. Starting off with how to introduce myself and talk about what I do and why I am there and so on. Getting past that, I will focus on touristy vocabulary - asking for things, how much they cost and so on and work my way up to directions (more importantly the vocabulary I'd probably need to understand any response).

That's it for now, more to come soon

[Bylan]

한국말에 환영합니다!

For hangul, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqFGHMx ... JwAzp7IoJ2 - this should start you moving. Write the stuff out, I'd say 10-20 times each, you just want rote repetition at the beginning. You'll soon start sounding out syllables and then words.

Talk To Me In Korean (http://www.talktomeinkorean.com) is the way to go in the beginning. Start from level 1 and work slowly. You only need to learn the basic polite level of speech --> 요 (yo). Only a few phrases in the formal polite form will get you tons of mileage from the get go ---> ㅂ니다 (eumnida). Examples:

감사합니다 (gam-saham-nida) - thank you
반갑습니다 (ban-gap-seum-nida) - nice to meet you

Grammar that you'll be glad you learned include things like:

-고 (verb+and)
-고 싶어요 (verb+want to)
-어서 (verb+so ... basic "because" clause)
-으면 (verb+if/when)
-지만 (verb+but/however)
-지요 (verb+right ... "agreement")
-에서 (noun+from ... I'm "from"...)
-에 (noun+to ... we go "to"...)


이/가 + 을/를 + 은/는 - if this your first SOV language, these are strange concepts, but an absolute must to know in Korean. People will tell you that Koreans omit them all the time, so you can too, but this is shortsighted to say the least. Koreans omit them because they know how they work and when it's natural to drop them. Omitting them without a strong understanding of them will impede your understanding of the language, and the Koreans you speak to.


Verbs to focus on include:

이다 (to be something ... 이예요)
있다 (to be/exist ... 있어요)
없다 (to not be/exist ... 없어요)
하다 (to do ... used all the time for tons of stuff ... 해요)
먹다 (to eat ... 먹어요)
마시다 (to drink ... 마셔요)
자다 (to sleep ... 자요)
알다 (to know ... 알아요)
모르다 (to not know ... 몰라요)
가다 (to go ... 가요)
나가다 (to go out ... 나가요)
들어가다 (to go in ... 들어가요)
오다 (to come ... 와요)
나오다 (to come out ... 나와요)
들어오다 (to come in ... 들어와요)
주다 (to give ... 줘요)
쉽다 (to be easy ... 쉬워요)
어렵다 (to be hard ... 어려워요)

Korean verbs are very regular, but there are 7~8 types of them, depending on the vowel-consonant makeup just before the 다 (which is the infinitive form), and there are 7 or so different types of suffixes that work differently with each of the verb types. It's a bit of a steep curve to learn them, but once you do you can conjugate anything you come into contact with. It's just recognizing them for what they are - that's the hard part.

Anytime you ask someone for anything, you'll need to attach an 으세요 to honor them, or you'll sound like a rude dude. They'll understand and think it cute of you if you don't use it, but you'll get more respect for using it.

That should get you started. Feel free to PM if you need any questions answered, I've tutored Westerners in Korean for some time now, and I've gotten pretty good at it.

화이팅! (hwa-ee-ting = good luck / go for it ... comes from the English word "fighting" lol, very common)

[basica]

Thanks for the post, it's rather informative. The video is really nice too. I liked how they had big representations of the letters/components because it took me a little bit till I found some charts where they had them big enough for me to see properly. Korean doesn't seem too foreign to me as I had studied Japanese in college so things like the formality levels and word order are things I found there. Though I think there are more levels of formality then in Japanese from what I've seen so far.


OK, as for the Korean study itself. I began by studying the most common characters (according to the first video in the playlist linked above) and their sounds. I have now done this, took me about an hour or so. I need to learn the remaining characters, which by the looks of it are not that many. Another aspect is the sound shifts. From what I have been reading thus far, a few of the characters shift sounds depending on where they're at in the word (d -> t, g -> k, and so on). This is a bit of an annoyance but I will just have to cop it on the chin.

The next step now after familiarizing myself with the remaining letters/components is then getting used to seeing them in their various combinations. I will be using the videos Bylan has kindly linked above, and I will probably try reading bits of something like the Korean wikipedia to improve my reading skills. After this, I will practice more on getting the sounds right, there's a couple of them which aren't easy vowels for me to pronounce (though they are similar to sounds in English).

After I've done this, I will begin studying the language itself. I guess this will start to happen this weekend. I will probably pick myself up a Colloquial to keep on me and I might get myself an audio course of some kind, unfortunately, my favorite series the Glossika series still haven't released Korean so I will have to find something similar. Will post more when I find something suitable. Anyways, that's it for now see y'all again in the next day or so