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Korean pronunciation | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| IronFist Senior Member United States Joined 6218 days ago 663 posts - 941 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 1 of 48 04 September 2007 at 2:29pm | IP Logged | ||
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I know there's already a thread out there about why Korean is so difficult, but I want this thread to be specifically about Korean pronunciation.
So I obtained the Korean 30-lesson Pimsleur program. Years ago I had their 10-lesson one, which was the only Korean program they had on the market. It was not very good. The 30 lesson one is much different, and the first 10 lessons are completely different, so it's not like they just added onto the 10 lessons. For reference, I've recently finished the 30 lesson Japanese Pimsleur program and I thought it was good. It was at a good pace and wasn't too hard. Years ago I finished the second Pimsleur Japanese course as well. The first two lessons of the Korean one were like 10 times harder than anything in the Japanese one so far. This is strange to me, because the word order is basically exactly the same as Japanese. It's SOV, it uses particles, etc. But I just cannot grasp the pronunciation. One of the first things they teach you to say is "do you speak Korean?" Forgive this horrible romanization, but even tho I can read and write hangeul, I still have no idea what they're saying even after they break it down syllable-by-syllable. So it's something like "HanGeuk-EuReul HalShiSeuISseumNiKka?" Oh, btw, when I romanize Korean, I capitalize the first letter of each cluster, and I put spaces between words. "HanGeul" is much better than "hangeul," because you don't know if the latter is "HanGeul" or "HangEul." Ok, that's fine. After rewinding the CD like 10 times I could kind of pronounce that sentence. This leads me to my next point, which I have always maintained even tho I thought I was crazy for thinking this: Korean consonants change sounds with no apparent reason. I don't mean like when "b" changes to an "m" in words like "HamNiDa." I mean the same consonant, in the same position, in the same sentence. The same speaker can read the same sentence 3 times, and it would sound different each time. There are many instances of this in the first few lessons of Pimsleur Korean. For example, they teach you how to say "(I) can't speak (Korean)." It's something like "Mot HaeYo". Ok, that's fine. I seem to remember reading someplace that "mot" means "can't do" something, so this makes sense. But then the speaker says it again, and "Mot" sounds like the English word "boot." Did I hear that right? I rewound the CD a little bit. "Boot HaeYo." My ears do not deceive me. Then the same speaker says it again: "Mot HaeYo." I guess this is why, in Korean dramas, when the father is pissed off and he yells "What?!" it sounds like "Bo-ya?". But there are more consonant shifts. Sometimes "N" becomes an English "D." They teach you the word for "weather," which they teach as "NalShiGa" (I think "ga" is a particle, right? They teach particles as part of the word in the first few lessons, at least). Ok, that's fine. You learn "NalShiGa ChoSeumNiDa" or something like that for "the weather is good." Fine. Except later, the same speaker pronounces it as DalShiGa. What?! I swear I'm not making this up. And then when he repeats the same sentence it's back to "NalShiGa." Please tell me that someone else has experienced what I'm talking about. I have enough difficult distinguishing between t/tt/t' as it is... I don't also need an N that sounds like a D. I've seen little Korean kids on TV learning English, and they say "My dame is JiWoon" or whatever. When I heard that, I knew I wasn't crazy. Oh, and the word for "speak", is there an L at the end of it? For the first half of the first lesson I thought they were saying "HaShiSeuISeumNiKka", but then it started to sound like "HalShiSeuISeumNiKka." Oh, and is the "shi" in "do you speak Korean" honorary or something? Cuz it wasn't there in "I speak Korean." I guess maybe my ears just don't hear Korean correctly. I've been watching Korean TV for years, I can read/write HanGeul with no problem, and I even have some Korean CDs. So it's not like I'm a newbie to the sounds of Korean. I picked up Japanese pronunciation with almost no problem... but it just seems like I cannot hear what is going on for the life of me... even when I know what they're saying ahead of time. I really think it's a cool language, and I like the culture/media/etc., but I am seriously about to give up on learning Korean because I think there is something wrong with my ears. lol. edit - if I pretend like I'm drunk and intentionally try to slur my speech, I sound much better. Like I don't even try to pronounce the words correctly, and I try to contract everything as much as possible. Like the sentence they teach you "HanGeuk-ESeo OShoSeuYo" (I'm sure that's wrong... "did you come from Korea?") I have no idea if the vowels in that verb are O's or Eo's or whatever, but if I slur it all together it sounds pretty good. lol. Edited by IronFist on 04 September 2007 at 2:36pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| IronFist Senior Member United States Joined 6218 days ago 663 posts - 941 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 2 of 48 04 September 2007 at 3:53pm | IP Logged | ||
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Someone on another forum told me I'm smoking crack and they've never heard anyone say an "M" that sounds like a "B" or an "N" that sounds like a "D".
So I'm gonna try and post some soundclips this evening if I can. I'll post them back to back, so you'll hear Mot Haeyo and then Boot Haeyo right after it. Edited by IronFist on 04 September 2007 at 3:53pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| trauma2020 Diglot Groupie United States Joined 6355 days ago 58 posts - 64 votes Speaks: English*, Korean | Message 3 of 48 04 September 2007 at 5:59pm | IP Logged | ||
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You're definitely not crazy - the M can sound like a B, and the N can sound like a D. Depends on the speaker really.
You should really get away from any romanization whatsoever. There are sounds in Korean that you can't really represent using roman characters, so I think that only serves to confuse you further. I've never used the Pimsleur course, so I can't comment on that. But overall, the pronunciation is on the difficult side. Many times I will say something that a native speaker won't understand. I'll spell it out for them, and they'll go "Oh, that!" and repeat what I just said - to my ears exactly how I just said it. It can be frustrating, but with continued exposure, especially in person with native speakers (Korean Koreans), you'll get a firmer grasp of it. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| dfdfsaadsfdgs Bilingual Triglot Newbie United States Joined 6094 days ago 14 posts - 17 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese*, French | Message 4 of 48 04 September 2007 at 7:08pm | IP Logged | ||
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You are not crazy my friend, I second that. Korean pronouciation is just.......hell. I tried reading books and they sucked and did not teach anything. I did not understand what the hell they were talking about half the time. Luckily though I have many korean friends so I pester them and listen to them speak. My advice would be to go get korean friends and shamelessly copy their pronouciation like a parrot that will not shut up until you get it right. Thats what I am doing.
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| DancerX Newbie United States Joined 6129 days ago 12 posts - 21 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Korean, Vietnamese, French | Message 5 of 48 04 September 2007 at 8:36pm | IP Logged | ||
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When I was a college freshman I took a semester of Korean. I was in a total fog the whole time because I could not hear or repeat many of the vowels and consonants properly. I gave up.
Years later, I took a year of Korean at a local community college. This was a very slow placed course, and it took the first few weeks to get through a very basic book. I believe it was called "you can speak korean". There was not much to this book, but it came with a CD, and it clearly specified where your mouth and tongue should be when you say certain consonants and vowels. Since I was resolved to finally learn Korean, I took this seriously, and it helped immensely. I think Korean is so different in its pronunciation that you have to start with the basics and take them seriously. Basically, I couldn't *hear* Korean properly until I could *speak* Korean properly. By being careful with mouth and tongue position up front, you will initially only be able to feel the difference between close sounds when you say them yourself, but later you will be able to hear them. Recently I've bought Assimil Coreen, and starting from July 1, I've been going through a lesson a day. I've finished the passive wave and am halfway through the active wave. The lessons toward the end initially seemed unimaginably fast, but they were about as fast as the dialogue that I hear in Korean movies and dramas. I think the main problem with Korean speech is that you have to be fast - and accurate. I've seen other people recommend that you concentrate on hitting your consonants and not worrying too much about the vowels, but I think that is very English-centric. As English speakers we're used to a lot of vowel drift, and used to tuning it out. As far as I can tell Koreans nail their vowels, even at high speed. So when I went through Assimil I approached shadowing practice the way I approach learning a fast run on a musical instrument (which also requires speed and accuracy). I would reduce the speed to what I could comfortably speak at without stumbling, and then steadily up the tempo, until I was at full speed. I would then shadow the line at least 10 times perfectly, before moving on to the next line. After doing this for a couple months, I feel that I can pick out individual words in movies and dramas much better than before, and the speed no longer seems fast - I just need to load up on more grammar and vocab to make it comprehensible. So basically, I'm saying that I couldn't *hear* Korean at normal conversational speed until I could *speak* Korean at normal conversational speed. I can't comment much on the examples that you've mentioned, because I would have to hear them myself to see if they still gave me problems as well. But I recall problems like the ones you mentioned when I first started out with Korean. I haven't used Pimsleur, but I think having korean writing to read while you hear would be better, and would reinforce the correlation between what you hear and the way it's spelled. And I agree with anyone that recommends avoiding romanization for Korean - it's a one way road to absolute incomprehsibility. -Don 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| LuckyNomad Groupie Korea, South Joined 6128 days ago 79 posts - 89 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 6 of 48 04 September 2007 at 8:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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Yes, Korean pronunciation is very difficult compared to Japanese. If I hadn't learned Korean in Korea from the beginning, I probably wouldn't have bothered with it. I find that if you speak Korean as if you are an English speaker, it's not going to be perfect because the sounds simply don't match up and neither does the "method," of speaking. I often just pretend like I'm a Korean when I speak it. By, "method," I mean that when I speak english it's like a huge, loud, tidal wave, indiscriminantly going over everything. When speaking Korean, you must speak more like a gentle stream, flowing smoothly over the various stones which represent the different, subtle sounds. Most Koreans, (especially males), do not speak like a gentle stream, but because you are not a native speaker, you can't really tidal wave your speech.
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| IronFist Senior Member United States Joined 6218 days ago 663 posts - 941 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 7 of 48 04 September 2007 at 9:59pm | IP Logged | ||
lol. That's what I do... except I can't tell the difference between their consonants, either. I thought I would at least be ok with "m" and "n" since they didn't have multiple forms (like the T's and the S's and the K's and the P's), but sometimes they sound like "b" and "d," respectively. So I have trouble with every Korean consonant except for the r/l one. Oh, and I can say "ng" pretty well, too. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| IronFist Senior Member United States Joined 6218 days ago 663 posts - 941 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 8 of 48 04 September 2007 at 10:04pm | IP Logged | ||
You're not the first person I've heard say that before :) I'm not kidding... I went through the first few lessons with a huge grin on my face; a grin of being dumbfounded. Normally I get annoyed or angry when I can't understand something, but this Korean program just makes me laugh when I don't understand it. It would be like: Pimsleur: "Say 'I cannot speak'" Me: (sweet, I know this one!) "Mot HaeYo!" Pimsleur: "boot HaeYo." Me: (laughing) wtf?!! Pimsleur: "Mot HaeYo." Me: omg!!! Now I understand why, every time a foreigner speaks Korean on Korean TV, they subtitle it in Korean. Hahaha. 8 persons have voted this message useful |
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