"Speak"

I've been trying to increase my vocabulary as well as try to read Korean or Hangul (한글) at a faster pace. It actually is a fairly easy language to read once you get the basics down.

Hangul is organized into syllabic blocks. Each block consists of usually two to four of the 24 Hangul letters, and contain at least one each of the 14 consonants and 10 vowels. These syllabic blocks can be written horizontally from left to right as well as vertically from top to bottom in columns from right to left. 

For anyone who wants to learn to read, I highly recommend using these pictographic PDF's which you can also find here. They have helped me immensely!

 

For example you might see this: 커피 - the first 2 letters are [ke'] and [ô] and the second are [p'] and [ee]. Add them together and you get kopee - or coffee. Now, that's all fine and dandy (yes, I just used the word dandy) if you're reading something that is derived from the English language. (aka Konglish)

Another example of this would be: 

아파트 [a] [pa] [teu] or "apartment"

For those who are wondering, the [ㅇ] is silent at the beginning of words - it's a silent consonant like the "h" in "heir", but unlike the letter "h" is it is always silent at the beginning of words. When found at the end of a syllable it makes an "ng" sound.  

Another example of this would be:

콩글리시 [kong] [geul] [re] [see] = kongeulresee (or konglish)

As a side note, most words end in vowels and when Koreans try to speak just about any English word, they add a vowel to the end. I can't tell you how many times I've been called "Nick-ah" or "Teach-ah" when sitting at my "desk-eh".


I've noticed that there are different rules sometimes that you may only figure out by being corrected by, or having a native speaker with you. There is a lot of trial and error, which probably isn't the best thing when you're trying to order food or ask a question to a native speaker, but they usually get the point and try to help you the best that they can.

The best thing I have done recently is establish my new classroom rules of forcing the kids to write down vocabulary in their notebooks. Since I have them say the words aloud in English, I also have them repeat it in Korean to make sure they understand. After teaching the same lesson for a week, I can repeat the Korean translations of many of the vocabulary words I give to them. They learn from me, I learn from them. It's a great system if you ask me. Just don't ask me in Korean - at least not YET.