Learning Hangul (Was Re: Neosyllabaries)

--- "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@...>
wrote:

> 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.
>
> But not to pronounce Korean.
>
> Look at Sohn's book.
>
> > > 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?
>
> "The usual romanization" is a 1-to-1
> transliteration.

Actually there seems to be 2 standard romanizations
and
1 ad-hoc one in my experience:

One uses a diacritic over "o" and "u" for vowels not
in
English.
The second uses "eo" and "eu" (and may have other
differences).
The one I think of as ad-hoc may well only be used for
people's names in passports and such and uses "oo"
where the other systems would use "u".

Do all three of these systems reflect the spelling
rather than the pronunciation?

> If it's "full of holes," then so is Korean
> orthography. If you call English spelling "full of
> holes," then so is Korean -- it's MORPHOPHONEMIC.

I'm sure Korean orthography is more logical than
English orthography but that doesn't mean an amatuer
foreigner can figure it out without being taught.
Maybe a bit like an English speaker trying to get used
to French orthography without being taught.

Andrew Dunbar.

> --
> Peter T. Daniels
> grammatim@...
>
>
>

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

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