Learning to Speak Korean

[Pale Rider]

If anyone would like to check out one of the pages on Korean Terminology
I offer assistance in Korean as well as Hangul.

If I can be of service, let me know
Thanks

 

[Dan G]

Anyong haseyo!

A number of the universities in Seoul run summer courses for overseas students. They are definitely worth investigating, and would be an excellent experience. Yonsei University have a good program at their Korean Language Institute, and in 95 they also had two gold medalists from the '88 demo olympics team teaching taekwondo on campus, I am not sure if this is still the case, but I am sure there would be good opportunities for a Korean stylist to train in Seoul.

Dan

 

[Pale Rider]

If someone wants to know how to write in Korean (Hangul) - I can be of some service as well...

당수도

빌리차드스 이단

 

[Akidorina]

"Tae" means "foot" or "to strike with the feet". "Kwon" means "hand", or "to strike with the hand". "Do" means discipline, art, or way. Hence TaeKwonDo (foot-hand-way) means literally "the art of the feet and the hands" or "the art of kicking and punching". Different schools and/or styles may impose different variations on the formal definition however. For example, some styles add the words "self defense" to the literal definition and/or throw in some form of the phrase "physical and mental training".
​

Korean counting​

1
​

:
​

hanah
​

2
​

:
​

dool
​

3
​

:
​

set
​

4
​

:
​

net
​

5
​

:
​

dasot
​

6
​

:
​

yasot
​

7
​

:
​

ilgop
​

8
​

:
​

yadol
​

9
​

:
​

ahop
​

10
​

:
​

yool
​

​

Tenets of taekwondo​

ye ui
​

:
​

courtesy
​

yom chi
​

:
​

integrity
​

in nae
​

:
​

perseverance
​

kuk gi
​

:
​

self-control (also "jah jeh")
​

baekjool
​

:
​

indomitable spirit (also "boolgool eui jung shin")
​

Commands:

cha ryuht
​

:
​

attention
​

choon bi
​

:
​

ready
​

bah ro
​

:
​

return to starting position
​

dwi uro dorah
​

:
​

about face
​

dorah
​

:
​

turn
​

elosoh
​

:
​

stand
​

gomahn
​

:
​

stop (also "mum cho")
​

geuk gi hyang ha yoh
​

:
​

face the flag
​

jwa woo hyang woo
​

:
​

face each other
​

sah bum nim keh
​

:
​

face instructor/master
​

sun bae nim keh
​

:
​

face senior student
​

simsa kwan nim keh
​

:
​

face examiner/tester
​

dobok dahnjung
​

:
​

fix your uniform
​

dhee dahnjung
​

:
​

fix your belt
​

hai sahn
​

:
​

class dismissed (also "hae cho")
​

jonglee
​

:
​

line up (also "ji hap" and "jung yul")
​

kyung nae
​

:
​

bow
​

ahnjoe
​

:
​

sit
​

kool o angi
​

:
​

kneel (kneeling)
​

bah ro angi
​

:
​

sit in lotus position (yoga posture)
​

bahl bah kwah
​

:
​

switch your stance (switch your feet)
​

koo ryung op see
​

:
​

in your own time
​

seijak
​

:
​

begin
​

shiuh
​

:
​

relax
​

kalyeo
​

:
​

break (or stop)
​

kae sok
​

:
​

continue
​

This is all I know or can think of..
​

 

[lulflo]

Thank you very much to everyone who has posted, I am working on languages as a hobby and will be saying hello soon to those who have given me a way to do so.

On yong he que ship she yo

Larry

 

[Pale Rider]

Here are the numbers with Hangul:
First Ill / Cho 일 / 초
Second Ee 이
Third Sam 삼
Fourth Sa 사
Fifth Oh 오
Sixth Yuk 육
Seventh Chil 칠
Eight Pahl 팔
Ninth Gu 구
Tenth Ship 십

 

[Jonathan Randall]

Hi Larry,
Well you can reach my at my email at [email protected]

I'm not sure if the Department of Defense is selling any of their Defense Language Institute programs anymore, but that was my main resource for learning Korean. I was an interrogator with various units both here in the US and in Korea. As you know the situation with North Korea has always been very precious.- John

Are the DLI courses any different than the FSI courses in terms of the texts and tapes? How would you rate the material(both or either)? I know the DLI itself is dam* good at teaching languages fast and well. I'm considering getting myself back up to speed in a couple of languages and QE'ing as a Coast Guard interpreter. It's been a long time, though and I'd need good materials and a block of time.

I'm currently working on Japanes now and wonder if you are familiar with, and would recommend the FSI material? The first blocks are available commercially. If it came down to it, and I could find a friendly field grade officer, I could probably get some non-classified DLI stuff free through the chain (I'm a uniformed volunteer). I'd rather go commercial rather than announce that I'm learning a language that I may or may not eventually obtain an adequate working knowledge in, though.

Thanks for your input into this thread. I had a friend stationed near the DMZ during the 95 crisis. It was a very frightening time. If the situation ever blows up there again the services certainly are going to need a lot of Korean language interpreters. Thank you for your service there. Despite what's going on in the Middle East, Korea has the potential of becoming the MOST dangerous place on earth. It doesn't help that the NK leadership is freakin' nuts.

 

[howard]

...As to spelling korean using our alphabet, there really is no set system in place to the best of my knowledge. Unlike "pinyin" which is a standardize way of "romanising" chinese (yes I learned mandarin, which is really "pu tong hua") our attempts to spelling korean can only "approximate"...

Hi John,

There are actually several formal romanization systems for Korean. The McCune-Reischauer and Yale systems are two of the most widely used. Also, the Korean government recently published its own romanization system. You can read about it here...

http://www.mct.go.kr:8080/english/K_about/Language04.html

Regards, Howard

 

[Bearhugj]

howard
I stand corrected, - well it's been a long time since I learned korean and since that time I've made more studies into madarin so i've been out of the korean studies loop for a bit. But it has always been a bug a boo of mine about the romanization of korean. it just never seemed to be "quite right" from what I could see out there. I guess living among koreans, gaining a "korean ear" always made it more difficult for me to "see" in our romanizations anything that could come close. but anyways, good thing that they are working on systems. Korean was always much easier for westerners to pronounce than chinese is. although japanese isn't too difficult either.

as to DLI courses, I do remember the DLI (in monterey) allowing us (former students) to purchase courses from them, but I've lost contact with them quite a while ago. Maybe contact with DLI would be a good thing , see how it goes and let anyone know that's interested about it.

I'm not familiar with the FSI courses. The DLI courses were very good, they began with basic korean and every day language. BUT...they did proceed into more military stuff as all of us were either Interrogators, Counter Intelligence, Analysts or Interceptors. I remember they even had a few sets in North Korean dialect available back then.
the DLI courses emphasized Hangul 100% though, which I still think is the very best way to get a very good capability in korean.

tty soon

 

[Bearhugj]

Jonathan,
btw, I agree with your assesment about N korea. I was at the DMZ for a good bit during the late 80's and in Seoul's top HQ areas as well. Never a good thing going on between the Two koreas there. Always a large # of infiltrators every year....and continuing. A lot of malarky and baloney proganda always accompanying it as well.
probably the two most disheartening issues to me these days are the younger korean's apathy towards the situation - and China's bi polar behavior of egging them on on the one hand, and ignoring it on the other. yet the majority of people in china would rather the CCP bring an end to it as well. (expensive and crazy to keep a mad man in power these days).
There were some very good stories on MSN about the North Korean death camps about 2-3 years ago if you can research them ...they will tear at your heart though.
well..the stories and inside info on N Korea can go on and on and on...but it's just too bizarre in this world today.
I was also in Iraq in gulf 1, ...for what I'll never know - other than I was still in and could go, but my arabic was only limited to a few words

 

[ave_turuta]

If your main interest is learning how to read write and spell, why don't you take a semester of korean at a local university. A lot of places offer elementary korean classes. Besides reading writing and spelling is the easiest part. You could probably learn how to do it in about 2 days. Korean is probably one of the most difficult languages to learn. The US Department of Defense has it rated as the most difficult language that they teach at the Defense Language Institute. So I wish you luck in your goal.-David Dempsey-

I would like to respectfully disagree with this statement. The Defense Language Institute divides languages into several groups according not to their implicit "difficulty" (languages are only "easy" or "difficult" depending on who is learning them), but rather according to the level of difficulty that that particular language has for an English speaker trying to learn it. The difficulty level is actually measured by the number of hours of instruction it is estimated a regular student would spend until s/he can achieve a certain level of proficiency in that language. Currently, Korean shares the "most difficult language to learn" label with three other languages: Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese. However, and once again, this is only from the perspective of a native speaker of English. For a native speaker of Chinese, for example, learning Koren is considerably easier, just as it is for an Arabic speaker to learn a language like Hebrew. As you may know, linguists group languages into "families:" a speaker of an indo-european language, for example, has more ease at learning a language from the same family (english, spanish, farsi), a fact that is more evident when the other language is from the same subdivision within that family (as in germanic or romance languages, for example). As a Spanish speaker, for instance, I read without difficulty languages like Portuguese, Galician, French, Italian, and Catalan (I have had training in some, but not all, of those languages); I have studied Farsi, which is very easy as it is a Indi-European language, etc. etc. I am proficient in Arabic (a Semitic language and rather difficult at that), but from there it was very easy for me to "jump" to Hebrew, which shares a lot of grammatical structures and vocabulary with Arabic. I have never tried to learn an Asian language, but again, it all depends on your previous training, your ability (some people just "get it," some people don´t) and of course, the amount of effort and time you put to the task. Saying that one language is intrinsically more difficult than another is, from a linguistic point of view, incorrect. It can be more difficult to learn for a particular group of people, but that´s about it.

Respectfully,
A.T.

 

[ave_turuta]

I am looking for some friends to help me supplement my learning Korean verbally with the actual way to spell the Korean words I am learning. Any help out there?

Larry: I believe it all depends on what you need/want. If you want to actually learn Korean (or any other language) there is no substitute to the learning process but (a) taking lessons in that language, or (b) a total immersion program in the country. Since you seem to be more interested in acquiring vocabulary, any of the methods indicated by the fellow members would suffice. However, I would encourage you to seek out lessons if you are interested: learning a new language is one of the most rewarding things in the world. Besides checking the language programs at your local university or community college, I would also recommend seeking out an exchange with a native speaker of Korean who can help you with this. If you live in a large urban area, I am sure you will have no difficulty finding native speakers of Korean who would be happy to exchange their language skills with you for free. Check out Craigslist.org or any other local service you can find. Many people do this where I live and benefit from other people´s knowledge, instead of paying large sums to learn the language.

Good luck on your endeavor!

AT

 

[ave_turuta]

Are the DLI courses any different than the FSI courses in terms of the texts and tapes? How would you rate the material(both or either)? I know the DLI itself is dam* good at teaching languages fast and well. I'm considering getting myself back up to speed in a couple of languages and QE'ing as a Coast Guard interpreter. It's been a long time, though and I'd need good materials and a block of time.

I'm currently working on Japanes now and wonder if you are familiar with, and would recommend the FSI material? The first blocks are available commercially. If it came down to it, and I could find a friendly field grade officer, I could probably get some non-classified DLI stuff free through the chain (I'm a uniformed volunteer). I'd rather go commercial rather than announce that I'm learning a language that I may or may not eventually obtain an adequate working knowledge in, though.

Thanks for your input into this thread. I had a friend stationed near the DMZ during the 95 crisis. It was a very frightening time. If the situation ever blows up there again the services certainly are going to need a lot of Korean language interpreters. Thank you for your service there. Despite what's going on in the Middle East, Korea has the potential of becoming the MOST dangerous place on earth. It doesn't help that the NK leadership is freakin' nuts.

Jonathan, I believe the FSI courses are available through a series of different materials. You may check:

http://www.multilingualbooks.com/fsi.html

You may also check the DLI website at http://www.dliflc.edu/

The latter, however, is of limited access despite their excellent reputation.

 

[Grenadier]

I'd have to agree with one of the above posters. It may as well be better if you learned the language as well as the alphabet itself.

Unlike Chinese or Japanese, Korean is not a character-based system, and has a true alphabet, consisting of 14 consonants and 10 vowels (as well as various dipthongs). It's pretty much straightforward, and probably one of the simplest East Asian languages to learn.

If you studied the alphabet, words, and sentence structure, you'd be surprised at how quickly you can learn it. This way, you'll also have the correct pronunciation of every word, which Europeans and Americans that have not trained in such language, tend to mangle, despite the language's simplicity.

If your local university / college offers some courses, I'd take full advantage of them. If anything, it wouldn't hurt to enroll as a non-degree seeking student, if you're just in it for the knowledge.