--- "i18n@..." <i18n@...> wrote:

> Andrew Dunbar wrote:
>
> >
> > I was taught hangul in Mexico and Guatemala by a
> > Korean
> > backpacker. She taught me the alphabet in order.
> > First the consonants and then the vowels. Then she
> > showed me how to arrange them into a square.
>
>
> I had a similar experience in Boston on the T.
>
> > She made no mention of syllabaries and showed me
> > no syllable charts.
>
> In my case, I do believe that a comparison to kana
> was made, but that may have been because I was
> reading a Japanese book at the time of the
> introduction, and she may have perceived it as
> representing an intermediate ground in my
> understanding of Korean writing systems.
>
> I kinda remember that way, but I could be wrong.
>
> > I learned it in 1 or 2 days but never learned much
> > vocabulary or spelling.
>
> Same here - I haven't kept up, but I have often
> thought it would be a mighty good bar bet to claim
> that I could teach someone how to read
> elementary Korean characters in the space of a long
> day.

Well I still love going to strange Korean restaurants,
reading the Korean version of the menu, and ordering
in Korean. I have shocked several waitresses that way!
But other than "... chuseyo" I only know hello and
thank you.

> > It's only in the last year that I've discovered
> > just how tricky Korean spelling is.
>
> How so? Are there exceptions, or do you mean that
> the usual Romanization is full of holes?

A site called Amritas has done a whole series of
articles. I didn't keep up with it but here's a link:
http://amritas.com/041030.htm#10251525

You may be surprised how difficult it is.

Some linguist types may be put of by the right-wing
views in the same site...

Andrew Dunbar.

> Best,
>
> Barry
>
>

http://en.wiktionary.org -- http://linguaphile.sf.net/cgi-bin/translator.pl

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