Learning Korean

[komitsuki]

Originally Posted by Miyavifan

It's not cover up material.

I said "for those Chinese-character-words". Only implying to specific kind of words in Korean.

[komitsuki]

Originally Posted by lself

However, Korean seems a heck of a lot harder to pronounce to me....

Because there are more vowels compare to English and there's another way to aspirate consonants.

But if you learn hangul... i mean, they only have one alphabet right?

There's only one hangeul.

[lself]

Yes, I noticed that about the vowels. But at least there's only one alphabet. In that aspect, it's easier then japanese at lease, lol

[Miyavifan]

Originally Posted by komitsuki

I said "for those Chinese-character-words". Only implying to specific kind of words in Korean.

I don't understand this. I'm sorry.

Originally Posted by lself

I'm going to start taking Korean, but I've only taken one year of Japanese. However, Korean seems a heck of a lot harder to pronounce to me.... I didn't know that about chinese-characters. But if you learn hangul...i mean, they only have one alphabet right?

It seems actually easier in a sense to pronounce the words.

What do you mean by one alphabet?

@ komitsuki

there's no e in Hangul.

[lself]

Really? Maybe it does depend person to person...

I meant, hangul is their only alphabet. I was looking up hanja, and it said pretty much that you only need it for historical documents, since even chinese-origin words are now mostly written in hangul.

[komitsuki]

Originally Posted by Miyavifan

I don't understand this. I'm sorry.

There are two kinds of words in Korean:

1. native Korean words and foreign loanwords (approx. 30% of words)
2. Chinese-character-based words either from Korea, China and Japan (approx. 70%)

Because there are a lot of homophones (words that sound the same but has different meanings) in those Chinese-character-based words, you need Chinese characters to understand the precise meanings. If not, people learning Korean will have a hard time.

And besides, 98% of Koreans have names based on Chinese characters.

Originally Posted by Miyavifan

@ komitsuki

there's no e in Hangul.

I'm only using the official romanization method endorsed by the South Korea's Ministry of Culture since the year 2000. This is what I'm used to because of the old McCune–Reischauer romanization system is extremely hard for native speakers and non-native speakers to understand.

I don't want people to say [han-GOOL] because it's a deliberately wrong pronunciation.

[komitsuki]

Originally Posted by lself

I was looking up hanja, and it said pretty much that you only need it for historical documents

You need to memorize 1000-1200 chinese characters if you want to go to university.

[lself]

You would have to be pretty darn fluent if you were attending university...
Do they really use hanja that much in day to day writing and stuff though?

[Miyavifan]

Originally Posted by lself

Really? Maybe it does depend person to person...

I meant, hangul is their only alphabet. I was looking up hanja, and it said pretty much that you only need it for historical documents, since even chinese-origin words are now mostly written in hangul.

hmm. maybe.

ah, ok.

There are Chinese origin words in Korean?

@ komi...

ah, ok... well, shouldn't they be able to pronounce it right, if they look up how?

[komitsuki]

Originally Posted by lself

You would have to be pretty darn fluent if you were attending university...
Do they really use hanja that much in day to day writing and stuff though?

Not today... but hanja is important when you use the dictionary or reading very formal papers.