Archive for May, 2009
Colors Posted by Ginny on May 28, 2009
Let’s go over sekkkal (색깔) or colors in Korean! Before I begin, I just want to mention that some of the colors are written and pronounced differently from when they have a counter, while others don’t have any changes in spelling at all. blue – 파랑색. Blue chair: 파란 의자. white – 하양색/흰색. White house…
Buddha’s Birthday Posted by Ginny on May 25, 2009
This year, May is the month of Buddha’s birthday. This day is called 석가탄신일, also called 부처님 오신 날, or 사월 초파일. For those who may be unfamilar to Buddhism, the Buddha refers to Prince Siddhartha Gautama. He is considered a spritual man who attained englightenment. Prince Siddhartha came from a wealthy family. He was…
Spoken versus Written Posted by Ginny on May 22, 2009
A lot of people think that the Korean language is phonetic, meaning that words are pronounced exactly as they are written. This is true to some extent, but there are cases where there is a discrepancy between the way Korean is read and the way it’s written. When a riul (리율) or ㄹis placed next…
Placeholder Posted by Ginny on May 19, 2009
Whenever you see a vowel such as this: 아, you’ll see a circle right before the vowel. All vowels have this feature. However, when vowels are combined with consonants, they lose this feature. Let’s look at a two letter word: 나. This word is written correctly because it starts with a consonant followed by a…
Consonants Posted by Ginny on May 15, 2009
If you want to spell out a word in Korean, you’ll need to know what each character is called. Luckily, the vowels are just called by the way they sound, but the consonants actually have a name. ㄱ – giyok (기역) ㄲ – ssang giyok (쌍 기역) ㄴ – niun (니은) ㄷ – digut (디귿)…
Vowels Posted by Ginny on May 10, 2009
Did you know that there are 10 simple Korean vowels? I’ll try and give you an idea of what these vowels sound like; with examples of words that contain these sounds in English. However, the best way to learn these vowels is to hear them over and over. 아 – “a” like in father 야 –…
Honorific Titles Posted by Ginny on May 7, 2009
Honorific titles can help you figure out the nature of your relationship with other people. For example, shi (씨) can be translated as Mr./Miss/Mrs. When you use this title, you are showing a level of respect. Shi (씨) is attached at the end of the name. We’ll use Minji (민지) as the first name. Minji shi…