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Korean romanization & pronunciation | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| pmiller Account terminated Groupie Canada Joined 5674 days ago 99 posts - 104 votes  Speaks: English* | Message 1 of 13 21 July 2009 at 11:08pm | IP Logged | ||
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There are different systems of writing Korean using the Latin alphabet. For instance, the city in southeast South Korea is alternately spelled Pusan or Busan. Question: how should I pronounce the name of this city? With an English P or B or something in between? I don't understand how there can be confusion between p and b - they are quite different sounds in English. That's why I think perhaps the Korean sound must be between the two English sounds.
Similarly with the island off of South Korea - you will see it spelled as Cheju or Jeju. Which is it? A Ch sound or a J sound? Or again, something in between? It's interesting because in this case the second j is the same in both spellings. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5766 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 2 of 13 21 July 2009 at 11:51pm | IP Logged | ||
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Korean phonetics. Read about it.
(Trolling a bit? Or do you want us to spoon-feed you?) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| The Real CZ Senior Member United States Joined 5649 days ago 1069 posts - 1495 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 3 of 13 22 July 2009 at 12:07am | IP Logged | ||
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The romanization is a mess, to be honest. It's Pusan and Cheju, but the P and Ch are light (very little aspiration), hence they became B and J respectively when they revised the romanization. Same goes with D/T and G/K. Usually only after vowels and nasal consonants, they're pronounced b/j/d/g.
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| pmiller Account terminated Groupie Canada Joined 5674 days ago 99 posts - 104 votes Speaks: English* | Message 4 of 13 22 July 2009 at 5:14am | IP Logged | ||
Why do you feel the need to be rude? If you don't know about Korean phonetics or don't care to comment on it, just move along, that's all. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 Jiwon Triglot Moderator Korea, South Joined 6436 days ago 1417 posts - 1500 votes Speaks: EnglishC2, Korean*, GermanC1 Studies: Hindi, Spanish Personal Language Map | Message 5 of 13 22 July 2009 at 9:11am | IP Logged | ||
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Ok
In English, you have B and P as the two plosive consonants you can produce with your lips. The distinction is between voiced (b) and voiceless (p). By voiced, it means that there is a vibration in your throat when you pronounce that consonant. In Korean, it's quite different. There are B, BB and P (well, at least according to the current romanization system). Except P, you can't find an exact substitute in English. This is because in Korean, it's not the voicing that differentiates B and P, it's the aspiration (a puff of air that comes out when you pronounce something). So if you say B in Korean, it sounds like English p for foreigners, but if you pronounce English p, we'll think you are saying Korean P. So it works a bit like this (brackets mean what the speakers will perceive the sound as, although the sound may not be produced by the speakers): aspirated unaspirated voiced (English P), Korean B English B, (Korean B) voicless English P, Korean P The tense cosonants (like BB) DO belong to unaspirated, voiceless category, but it is the tensing of the throat that makes it different. Its closest approximate in European language is the P in Spanish or Italian. Edited by Jiwon on 22 July 2009 at 9:13am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Z.J.J Senior Member China Joined 5608 days ago 243 posts - 305 votes Speaks: Mandarin* | Message 6 of 13 22 July 2009 at 9:50am | IP Logged | ||
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Jiwon 씨에게 질문하고 싶습니다. 감사합니다.
Does 吏讀(이두) still exist in modern Korean? I found that only 音讀(음독) is widely used in 漢字語(한자어), however, 音読(おんよみ) and 訓読(くんよみ) are both used in Japanese. Edited by Z.J.J on 22 July 2009 at 9:54am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ennime Tetraglot Senior Member South Africa universityofbrokengl Joined 5904 days ago 397 posts - 507 votes Speaks: English, Dutch*, Esperanto, Afrikaans Studies: Xhosa, French, Korean, Portuguese, Zulu | Message 7 of 13 22 July 2009 at 12:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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To make it simple... Pusan is McR (old romanization in S-Korea, still in use in N-Korea)
and Busan is the new Revised Romanization since beginning of this century official in S- Korea. As it's been less than 10 years, you still find the old spelling popping up. That's how I understood it... in general romanization systems are never perfect... they are an attempt at getting as close as possible while preventing it from getting toooo complicated. Hence always a compromise 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| qklilx Moderator United States Joined 6186 days ago 459 posts - 477 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Korean Personal Language Map | Message 8 of 13 22 July 2009 at 2:19pm | IP Logged | ||
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In my opinion romanizing Korean is like getting shot in the head. Both are REALLY uncomfortable. :P
Given how easy it is to learn to read hangeul I would think it'd be easier just for people to learn it instead of cluttering their thought processes trying to figure out how to pronounce the string of letters they were just shown. It's about as bad as spelling out English words in Korean. A real-life example of that was when an American friend and I were talking to a Korean about California. Official Korean spelling: 캘리포니아 My friend and I prefer this: 카리포냐 or something along that line. Jiwon what do you think? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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