Korean - easier than I thought

Some people want to learn Korean because they like Korean dramas: other enjoy the songs and stars of Korean modern music. I want to conquer the challenge of reading Korean - I have made progress on Greek, Hebrew and Cyrillic and now I have started Korean on Duolingo and elsewhere. Arabic, Tamil and Vietnamese are still of my dream list.

I went back to the Duolingo Korean alphabet page to copy it. I originally dismissed the Korean alphabet page as it looked too long and complicated. But on my return I clicked on a learn button and found that Duolingo teaches you two letters only at a time. You keep clicking on one or the other, which is easy. It helps you see which one goes to the right or the left. You can use your mouse to draw a line around the shape of the letter which helps you to remember it.

Today I read that the Korean vowel O appears above and before the vowel starting a word, as a placeholder. rather like the big letter alpha in Hebrew when the tiny diacritic or dot or dash for a vowel is underneath. One more piece in the puzzle of getting familiar with foreign languages.

Useful Websites

https://duolingo.fandom.com/wiki/Korean_Skill:Alphabet_1

https://www.forbes.com/advisor/in/education/languages/korean/

If you want to hear more from me on languages come to one of my online Toastmasters clubs.

Harrovians, the first Monday evening of the month in the UK 7 pm. Singapore Dynamic online every Friday,  LILT languages club every Sunday, an hour earlier than the Friday club, breakfast time USA, lunchtime in the UK, evening in Singapore.

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How I learn Korean on Duolingo

 I thought I would never learn to read or hear or speak Korean. I am still struggling with pronunciation.  I am listening to the sound on Duolingo and copying it by repeating it aloud every time. 

SEOUL

Seoul (/soʊl/; Korean: 서울; IPA: [sʌul] ^ⓘ; lit. 'Capital'), officially Seoul Special City, serves as the capital of South Korea,

The word for Seoul, the capital, starts with a curve like an upside down v, or the Chinese word for person. The word consists of several shapes. But when I am matching pairs, only one of the sets or words has the curve at the start and several shapes. 

However, to my surprise the recognition of both individual letter shapes and sounds, and multiple syllable words with several shapes is going well. I am doing it by trying to imagine a picture to match the shapes.  

For example the G sound looks like a gun, a vertical and horizontal. 

The word for milk has a double o, which reminds me of two breasts. 

The word for cucumber has n o on the left and a line like a vertical straight l on the right. So I imagine ti cross section of the cuumber and the length of the cucumber. 

The word for reoul starts with what look like an s/ R and s are adjacent letters of the alphabet  so I remember the successive letter of the alphabet, r is s.

Yes and oh are the same symbol. It looks like the letter o attached to the right hand half the letter H. It is pronounced oh! Think of oh, yes!

Useful websites

https://www.duolingo.com/alphabets/ko/hangeul

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_language

https://www.duolingo.com/characters

https://translate.google.com

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Learning About Korean and Learning Korean on Memrise - my memory aids for hello, goodbye, Korean and maybe

Problem
I am learning Korean on memrise. Most of the syllables aren't easy.

Answer
The language was created in the 15th century by ruler Sejong the Great.
The alphabet has:
19 consonants - whose shape imitates the shape of your mouth saying them.
21 vowels.
That's funny. Another site says 14 consonants and 10 vowels. I supposed it depends on whether you count the doubles and the end of word letters.

The word HAN means great. Geul means script or writing.
Han also means Korea.

I have made up a few memory aids.

Korean on the world map from Wikipedia article on Korea.

For example:

The M sound is square and reminds me of the same square shape in Chinese and Japanese means mouth.

The K sound is a bit like a kite shape or an arrow.

Memrise allows you to write in a word or add a picture as a memory aid.

The yo sound looks like two verticals and I think of it as two yo-yos, or the letter Y formed into a square.

The yae sound looks like an elongated H or ladder and I remember: Yay! I'm climbing a ladder.

Korean flag from Wikipedia.

Hangeul is the Korean word for Korean language and Korea. It looks like the letter o followed by a hanging symbol. So I remember 0h - hang - o!

The word for maybe/probably looks like o then a square then an opened square, o - maybe not - maybe.

The sign for Hi or goodbye has a circle in the air above another sign followed by a low circle below another sign. Think of it like the letter o in hello then the two letters o in goodbye.


Wikipedia and even simple wikipedia give you umpteen varations and are impossible for me to follow.

https://yeskorean.com/learn-korean/lesson-1-the-korean-alphabet-is-24-letters/

memrise.com

Author
Angela Lansbury