Andrew Dunbar wrote:

>
> --- "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?

Yes. That's why they're called transliterations and not transcriptions.

> > 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.

Why would you think the _orthography_, as opposed to the writing system,
is "more logical than English"?
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...