Simple site launched to help educate on pronunciation

[andyjeffries]

Not necessarily, and that's the point of using Korean terminology in the first place - it allows Taekwondoin to at least train together even if the don't fully speak each other's languages. They have a basic shared vocabulary in Korean.

I actually wish it was that simple. A lot of movements have either changed name over the years, so often people can use Korean and still not know what the movement is.

For example, when I did the Kukkiwon Poom/Dan Examiner course in 2015 the examiners told us that Arae Makki is now called Naeryo makki and we should change to the new standardised terminology (which Kukkiwon has a published document on). There were a few other changes, but because it is such a core movement that was the one that everyone was most shocked about.

Now I always use the new term, but if people come from another school, they often don't know the new term.

I had a few Korean friends come to stay with me in July for a couple of weeks and we had to resort to physical demonstrations to understand the terminology for a tornado kick (spin roundhouse kick). We use the older term Narabang (나라방) and the current Kukkiwon standard term Dolgae Chagi (돌개 차기), but in Korea it's commonly called "Turn" Chagi (턴 차기) - they do like their English loan words!

But I agree, there are plenty of times I've been teaching people from other countries and having the Korean terminology (particularly an understanding of the words behind it) really helped in communicating without a shared language.

How sure are you? My Korean pronunciation is relatively good, and I have spent a lot of time on it. My Korean friends don't always understand what I mean. Sometimes they correct my pronunciation in a way where I can't even hear a difference. That's the problem.

Hahahaha, amen brother! I can pronounce the difference between ㅂ, ㅍ & ㅃ (b, p and bb) but often when Korean people talk to me I can't quite detect the difference easily and have to resort to understanding the context to help me. In a sentence 팔 (arm) and 발 (foot) are almost indistinguishable to my ear!

 

[Archtkd]

According to the announcer/MC at the Taekwondo Grand Prix last weekend, the BBC also officially pronounces it broken. He tried to educate them, but they told him to say it the broken way. I've asked him to get me the details of someone in that department to try to help them. If anyone has a contact at the Cambridge English Dictionary, I'm happy to chase them too.

Andyjeffries: you may be fighting a losing battle, akin to the one over Iraq. Many American who have been to Irag, fought there, lost limb helping "liberate" the place and others who have politicized every aspect of the conflict for their own gain, continue to mispronounce Iraq's. It sometimes sounds as if it's done intentionally, as if to tell Iraqis we will call you whatever what we want to call you because you are inconsequential people whose culture or heritage we shouldn't care about.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Andyjeffries: you may be fighting a losing battle, akin to the one over Iraq. Many American who have been to Irag, fought there, lost limb helping "liberate" the place and others who have politicized every aspect of the conflict for their own gain, continue to mispronounce Iraq's. It sometimes sounds as if it's done intentionally, as if to tell Iraqis we will call you whatever what we want to call you because you are inconsequential people whose culture or heritage we shouldn't care about.

Most countries don't use the proper current pronunciation of other places. When I was in Lisbon a few years ago, I learned that "Lisbon" isn't particularly close to the way it is pronounced in Continental Portuguese, and France uses a very similar name. Our names for many other places in Portugal turn out to be significantly off. The same is true for the English names for many things in France, and so on.