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Korean - basic questions | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Dixon Groupie Canada Joined 6052 days ago 54 posts - 74 votes  Speaks: English* | Message 33 of 49 27 March 2010 at 6:37am | IP Logged | |||||
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I feel like learning how to listen and pronounce Korean isn't so tough, but we all have different learning styles.
A lot of you guys have heroic levels of dedication so can sit at a desk and read a textbook for a while. I probably find listening and speaking slightly easier since my materials orientated me that way. I highly recommend koreanclass101, especially their free audioblogs. They post hangul transcripts and English translations with them. I play them all the time--while driving, doing errands, at the gym or whatever. I used the pimsleur course as my introduction to the language. Now I have a book called 2000 essential Korean words for beginners. It comes with a cd which plays the sentences for each word. I put the sentences In my SRS and get a native Korean speaker to help with translations. I highly recommend the drama Dae Jang Geum if you're looking for something to watch that is hosted for free online. There's 54 hours of enjoyable content in that drama. It may also be under the title Jewel In The Palace. Edited by Dixon on 27 March 2010 at 6:40am 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| crafedog Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5819 days ago 166 posts - 337 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Korean, Tok Pisin, French | Message 34 of 49 16 July 2010 at 2:03pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Some extra books/series I'd like to add to my earlier suggestions that I've come across since are the "Speaking Korean" series by Francis Park that the Professor mentions earlier in this thread; "Using Korean" by Miho Choo; and finally "Sounds of Korean" again by Miho Choo.
Speaking Korean by Francis Park: This is quite a well-known series to some learners of Korean. I believe the author was originally a FSI instructor and that is reflected in the style and layout of the book. It's a series of 4 rather large books (Books 1 & 2 are Grammar; 3 is Hanja; 4 is newspaper articles). (The user Malcolm on this forum did a rather comprehensive review of the series [Francis Y. T. Park’s "Speaking Korean"] if you want to know more about the series as a whole). I'm going to mainly write about Book 1 but I've heard Book 2 is completely identical in style and substance. Basically a Unit in Book 1 starts off with a very short dialogue that uses all of the main grammar that you will be looking at in the chapter. There are some expressions and then some brief notes on the dialogue itself. After that the author will introduce 2-4 grammar points (or sometimes a pronunciation change). It explains what the grammar is/does, gives a few examples and then it does exactly the same thing for the next couple of grammar points. It briefly introduces some vocabulary and then it does some drills with the grammar that's been covered in that Unit/sometimes prior units as a review. After all of that it will quite commonly introduce some more vocabulary and then have a brief reading and that's it. There are 46 chapters in the first book so as you can imagine you go through quite a lot of grammar in just one book (no filler as Malcolm notes). Now some people are not fond of this book/series. Why? 1. Basically everything I just told you is what Book 1 is. That's it for about 450 pages. There is no more to it than that apart from a mediocore CD and some rather useful pronunciation notes in the beginning. So basically it's VERY dry. If you're the type of learner who prefers to have a running story, pictures and games then it's not for you (Active Korean might cover you though). You have to really power through it to get the most out of it. Great for the intensive individual learner but in a classroom setting I'm sure this would be a nightmare for most. I take my time with it (it takes a while but it's worth it). I read one Unit, highlight the most interesting parts/best examples in the Unit. The following day I re-read/write out the most interesting parts into my notebook. A day later I write the English, mostly from memory/translation, then I write a brief log of the grammar in the back of my notebook and then I read and highlight the next chapter etc. 2. It's outdated. The book was written a long time ago and though it's been revised, I'm not sure if it's been particulary updated. For example it fairly frequently (but not all the time) uses the ㅂ니다/습니다 (which I despise seeing in Korean language books) and for example the grammar point of unit 28.2 (여간 and negative) is not used nowadays according to my Korean friend. One or two other things are outdated or are only used by people's parents as well. Don't forget though that these are 2-3 problems out of approximately 100-140+ solid grammar points so it's not the end of the world. 3. It uses drills as a core part of its methodologies which many people believe is an outdated form of learning. 4. You do find an odd translation/mistake here and there. Counters to these points 1. It is very dry but it was exactly what I was looking for. There is an abundance of generic textbooks for Korean that are more interested in selling you a series/teaching you in a classroom than they are for helping you learn a language individually. "Speaking Korean" Books 1 and 2 are no frills, no fuss grammar books. I have books for dialogues, vocab, listening etc but I didn't have something with such a wealth of knowledge about the grammar and many examples to match it. "Active Korean", though great for a language exchange/classroom, just doesn't give enough information about the grammar. Few books do. With Speaking Korean you will typically learn what it means, how to form it, how to negate it, how to change the tense etc. In a regular Korean language book you only learn the bare basics which are not enough and it just leaves you with an incomplete understanding of the grammar. 2. It does show its age but my minor counter point to this is that you will have to learn the few, more outdated points eventually while learning Korean especially if you decide to take the TOPIK or if you ever converse with someone's parents. You may not see it in dramas too often or hear it in songs but it does exist and some people still do use it regardless of how common or modern it might be. 3. Now I would never use drills with my students (unless I was perhaps teaching stress/prosody but even then I'd probably think of something more intersting to do) but for an individual learner I think this has its uses. A pet theory of mine: When you speak a foreign language you might know the grammar well and have a terrific accent but your speed/fluency could be pathetic. When you speak your native language you are obviously not forming the grammar in your head. You speak reflexively i.e. without hesitation and with speed. How do you speak reflexively? Well you've probably said that sentence in your native tongue before a million times (or a similar form of it). Now imagine you have to present something using vocabulary on a topic you're not familiar with and/or have never spoken of before. Your speech will be hesitant and broken like the first time you tell a story about something. But imagine you've since done this presentation or told this story 20 times. It will be easy for you. Trying to form the grammar in your head is too slow and too much effort, especially for simpler/common senteces; making it reflexive is much easier but unfortunately that only comes from using it many times i.e. experience using the language or simply sometimes drilling. Also each drill is another example for you and many books (like the Active Korean series again), I feel, don't give nearly enough examples so even if the grammar explanation is strange/difficult you can still understand it from context/practice. 4. I've yet to find a Korean language book without some errors or strange examples to be honest. To overcome Book 1's problems/outdatedness I use it in conjunction with "Korean Grammar in Use" for more modern examples and I will use the 2nd book in conjunction with "Using Korean". Why do I like this series and why do I think you should buy it? - I've seen it frequently recommended by some intermediate to high-level Korean learners. Some think of it fondly, some remember slogging through it, some say the 2nd book isn't as good (I haven't got to that stage yet) but all of these guys used Books 1 & 2 as a main part of their study. Regardless of their feelings of the books style/methodology, they clearly must have helped for them to develop to this level and continue to acknowledge that this series played a part in it. - I've learnt a lot from it. Some things I had read before, some things I had glimpsed briefly, some things I had never seen before but once I read a Unit's grammar, study it and finish it I feel confident enough to use it because I feel I know it so completely now. - good value. As Malcolm in his review notes, Book 1 alone covers an extraordinary amount of grammar. - strangely it's helped my listening a lot. I never expected a grammar book to improve my listening (I ignored the CD) but I'm normally able to hear stuff that I've studied in the book perhaps as early as just the day before and I know I've never been able to pick up on it prior to that. It's weird but obviously a nice surprise/added benefit. Also I forgot to add that I'd probably recommend this ideally for those students who are already at least upper-beginner/elementary and have already learnt a bit of the language. For a complete beginner this might be a bit too much but for someone who at least knows the simplest particles 이/가, 는/은, 에/에서, 를/을 etc. and some very basic sentences then they should be fine from then on. Like I said I'm really happy with this book. I intend to buy Books 2 and 3 after this year's TOPIK and I really feel that these are the books that will one day put my Korean at the level I'm aiming for so I hope they help you do the same one day. (as this post has gone on rather long I will write about the other books I mentioned above another time) [edit; wow, what an epicly long post] Edited by crafedog on 17 July 2010 at 3:44am 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6769 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 35 of 49 16 July 2010 at 2:52pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I'd like to hear more on about Sounds of Korean by Miho Choo.
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| Snowman2204 Diglot Newbie Japan Joined 5329 days ago 2 posts - 2 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese | Message 36 of 49 16 July 2010 at 4:05pm | IP Logged | |||||
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There a lots of books and other resources in Japanese for Korean learners.
So many words in Korean are the same as or similar to Japanese when written in hanja. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Warp3 Senior Member United States forum_posts.asp?TID= Joined 5536 days ago 1419 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Korean, Japanese | Message 37 of 49 16 July 2010 at 6:46pm | IP Logged | |||||
Sounds of Korean is a book published by University of Hawaii Press that deals solely with Korean pronunciation. It covers the basic hangul sounds, aspiration, tensing, sound shifts that occur when certain letters meet, prosody, etc. The book also has mouth diagrams for a few of the sounds to better explain how to produce the sound. Also included is an MP3 CD with native speaker audio recordings of the exercises. The book is targeted at one very specific purpose, and isn't particularly exciting to read, but I don't regret buying it as it was quite useful. For reference, it is currently $21.38 at Amazon (the US site, anyway; not sure if Amazon.co.jp has it): http://www.amazon.com/Sounds-Korean-Pronunciation-Miho-Choo/ dp/0824826019/ 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5382 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 38 of 49 16 July 2010 at 7:55pm | IP Logged | |||||
24 vowels? I was just looking at the Wikipedia page on Korean phonology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_phonology) and it states that there are 8 vowels in a short and long version. If you consider longer vowels as a distinct sound, then you need to say that Japanese has 10 vowels. I would agree though that vowel harmony would present an additional challenge, at least at first. In turn, you should also mention that Japanese has a pitch system, which Korean doesn't have (expect for some dialects, it seems). 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Warp3 Senior Member United States forum_posts.asp?TID= Joined 5536 days ago 1419 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Korean, Japanese | Message 39 of 49 19 July 2010 at 4:40pm | IP Logged | |||||
From what I've read, the "long/short" vowel distinction is virtually gone from Korean now. According to Sounds of Korean, some older speakers do still distinguish them, but most modern Korean speakers don't. (I can't recall hearing anyone making this distinction, but it doesn't mean I haven't heard it and simply not noticed, though.) There are 21 vowels + diphthongs in Korean (I'm not sure where IronFist got 24): ㅏ ㅐ ㅑ ㅒ ㅓ ㅔ ㅕ ㅖ ㅗ ㅘ ㅙ ㅚ ㅛ ㅜ ㅝ ㅞ ㅟ ㅠ ㅡ ㅢ ㅣ If you discard all the "w~/u~" diphthongs and the "y~" vowels, there are 8 base vowels (two of which, ㅐ and ㅔ, were actually diphthongs originally, but are considered unique vowels now): ㅏ ㅐ ㅓ ㅔ ㅗ ㅜ ㅡ ㅣ Edited by Warp3 on 19 July 2010 at 4:43pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6769 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 40 of 49 20 July 2010 at 3:20am | IP Logged | |||||
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At any rate, in my opinion, it's the consonants that are hard in Korean, not the vowels.
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