fills in many of the details about the elegant alphabetic writing system used in Korea since about the same year that moveable-type printing began in Europe. The development of this writing system was a great advance over the former use of Chinese characters to write Korean (which is NOT a language cognate with Chinese). The simplicity and consistency (even with five centuries of subsequent sound change) of hangul spelling for learning to read Korean helps school pupils in Korea learn more in fewer total hours of schooling than is possible in Chinese-speaking countries.
As someone who took 5+ years of college-level Japanese and majored in (applied) Linguistics, recently learning Korean in my free time has made me appreciate the simplicity of the writing system.
In Japanese, a (non-native) reader can go from understanding one sentence to not even being able to read the next. Sure, there are instances where one may be able to _understand_ a sentence you can't read through inferring meaning from the kanji -- if one couldn't read [水力], but knew both characters (water and power), one could infer that it's "water power" or something hydroelectric. It's a slight advantage to have meaning inside of the characters, however, it's a wonder if the Japanese writing system is too information dense.
Now Korean (and my limited knowledge of it) seems, to me, that it might be the sweet spot. It's relatively information dense (takes less room than just writing things in Japanese kana[1], or hell, even just regular Latin alphabet), but it's quicker to read (and write).
What resources are you using to learn Korean? I spent a few years there as a kid, but on a military base, so my exposure was limited. Outside a handful of expressions I've almost completely forgotten it at this point (certainly the script). I've spent the last couple years around a lot of native Spanish speakers so I've been relearning that, and it rekindled my interest in languages so now seems like a good time to start on something new.
I'm using Pimsleur to bootstrap some phrases and simple grammar. IMHO this is a great way to get started on speaking the language and practicing pronunciation, at least if you are self-studying.
I bought this because it was cheap and it covers a variety of levels: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307972232/ref=oh_details_o.... I am not sure how useful it is for me right now, but I expect that over time it will be helpful for small collections of vocab. (It's also pretty cheap!)
Quizlet is an invaluable resource for this: quizlet.com. They have text to speech so you can hear pronunciation for arbitrary words, and lots of people have made sets for different collections of vocab. It's not just flashcards, as it offers you a few ways to test your knowledge. And there are apps for Android and iOS.
If anyone else has found useful mobile apps, I'd love to hear it. For the most part I haven't found anything that I thought was truly great, so for the most part I just listen & practice the Pimsleur lessons when I'm in transit.
Thanks for the reply and suggestions. It also occurred to me that "there's a reddit for that", and sure enough there is one so I'll check out the resources you've listed and what I can find over there. One of my hobbies has come to a screeching halt (scheduling conflicts, people moving) so I actually have time over the next few months to spend on this.
I actually use mostly the Wikipedia article and the overarching Korean language article[1] mentioned for most of the basics, though I may not be such a good source for gathering materials as I'm just gingerly walking through the material.
If you're _really_ intent on learning more than just Korean, getting familiar with the IPA[1] would also prove useful if you also want to speak the language.
Alright, thanks. There was a time in college lo these many years ago, when I thought about becoming a linguistics minor. I just took a couple of dead languages instead (Latin and Old English - because why not?). Later on I wish I realized how much time I wasted not taking more courses and additional languages, free time is harder to come by for these things when you're "grown up".
With some work and a combination of sources, you can actually get to a fairly conversational level of speaking/writing within a year. I and many others I know have done it. Just hang in there because it gets a little tough after the beginner phase. Be sure to drop by /r/korean's irc channel(http://webchat.snoonet.org/korean) if you have any questions.
I am not a subscriber or even a speaker of Korean, but I did learn the alphabet in College and if I ever had time, I feel like I could learn Korean at this site.
I'm a Wikipedian, and between posting my first comment here and replying to yours, I was just posting to a talk page of a biography article on yet another pseudoscientist who has too many credulous followers on Wikipedia. I like Wikipedia well enough to roll up my sleeves to try to make it better, but I dearly wish that more Wikipedians knew more about how to look up reliable sources before adding edits to the encyclopedia that any bozo can edit.
I know the editing wars take a toll on Wikipedians(thanks for being one) but I still have to take issue with the idea that useful articles on Wikipedia are rare. As for being the encyclopedia that any bozo can edit, that is true, but unavoidable. Think how much worse off HN would be if it disallowed comments by any bozo(looking in mirror).
The opposite problem can happen. I've had a problem with the page for my local hackerspace. Someone nominated it for deletion. I found numerous legit sources, which the deltionist did no research and dismissed with bogus arguments the source (a government funded technology incubator was dismissed as "only a blog"). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion...
The writing system is easier to learn. But the pronunciation is a lot harder to learn than Japanese, and the grammar harder to learn than Mandarin.
There's also the fact that Mandarin has a lot of non-native speakers who are Chinese. I believe 400 million in the PRC, or 1/3rd of the population, only have a basic grasp of the language. Even a lot of the fluent speakers have thick accents. So the Chinese are used to speaking in Mandarin with non-native speakers, something that the Japanese and Koreans aren't as accustomed to.
I agree 100%. This is, I think, and underappreciated aspect of language study. Chinese people speak Mandarin with accents, so they're not irritated to hear my accent.
Korean is easier to learn to read and write, but much as w1ntermute says upthread it is harder to pronounce. Mandarin is quite regular & systematic in pronunciation; the tone just becomes part of the pronunciation. Grammar is relatively simple compared to Korean. This is an imprecise metric but it also seems to me that Korean has way more syllables for the same words, if nothing else because of all the particles and politeness levels.
But Mandarin reading & writing is punishingly hard. I studied Mandarin for a few years and although I could have some really basic conversations, I never learned to read or write. Korean has felt more rewarding in this regard-- I enjoy sounding out the words and delight in the occasional loanword.
I find Korean easier to speak and be understood. I know some Mandarin, but native speakers don't even know what I'm trying to say to them when I attempt it.
Hmm. I wonder why that is. Did you have a hard time with tones, do you think? Or do you think it's just harder to speak idiomatically? I could definitely see the latter.
My feeling — i.e. this is subjective — is that Mandarin pronunciation is far more regular. In Korean, it's not arbitrary, but there are more rules about pronunciation, and pronunciation is more subtle to my Western ears & tongue.
There are rules for consecutive consonants, where some of them disappear or change entirely (e.g. formal/deferential speech level endings, where p/b turns to m). Some sounds also just get dropped or emphasized based on where they are (e.g. words that end with ㅆ, depending on the next consonant). Then there's plain vs tense vs aspirated, diphthongs, etc. I'm still getting a handle on the various particles but there seem to be around a dozen, not including measure words.
Anyway there's one sort of irregular case in Mandarin, which is 3rd tone followed by 3rd tone. Other than that, if you learn how to say the "ie" as in "xiexie" or "bie", neither "x" nor "ie" or "b" really change depending on what they're paired with.
It may be that in practice, a Korean listener can figure out what sounds you're trying to make more easily than in Mandarin. Anecdotally Mandarin seems to have a lot of cognates because many basic words are one or so syllables + tone. Korean seems to me to have more syllables and more particles, which could help disambiguate. But this is just speculation from someone who is by no means an expert on either language.
ISTM this would be difficult to study for periods that predate the phonograph? I guess one could look at rhyming poetry, but it's not clear how much that would help.
As someone who is Korean, I don't find it all that more efficient or less efficient than Latin characters. I also speak Mandarin, however, and I do appreciate Hangul's terseness.
I wrote my name in Hangul and it came out to 16 "strokes", in English I approximated about 18 strokes (things like m/n I'm not quite sure how to calculate in strokes, so I counted both as a single stroke).
Meanwhile my Chinese name is a whopping 52 strokes. I hate writing my Chinese name.
Latin alphabet's main problem is that it doesn't have any fricative consonants (sh ch j...) so every language has to roll out their own in incompatible fashion leading to confusion. Languages using alphabets specially tailored for them have much more consistent spelling.
Latin actually had them I think, they just got lost because romance languages didn't have much use for them, and english famously went proprietary with its great vowel shift.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangul
fills in many of the details about the elegant alphabetic writing system used in Korea since about the same year that moveable-type printing began in Europe. The development of this writing system was a great advance over the former use of Chinese characters to write Korean (which is NOT a language cognate with Chinese). The simplicity and consistency (even with five centuries of subsequent sound change) of hangul spelling for learning to read Korean helps school pupils in Korea learn more in fewer total hours of schooling than is possible in Chinese-speaking countries.