The Korean Language

So, I've started learning Korean, and i've been completely suprised by the language so far. You've all heard the term, "That's Chinese to me". Well, before coming here that was very true. Looking at Korean was like looking at small diddle-daddles written randomly on paper. Now i'm not a stranger to learning foreign languages, but this is my first time learning a totally new alphabet, and on top of that, my foundation in latin languages would not be useful whatsoever. To be quite blunt, I was petrified of even attacking the Korean language or trying to speak it.

Well, after just a few days here, my fears are definitely gone. In fact, they have been replaced with a lot of excitement and ambition. The alphabet was incredibly easy, and within a couple of days I can read most anything in Korean. Sure, I may sound like a kindergarten student and I may not know what I just read, but for only a couple of days, I'm really pleased with my progress. Speaking is more difficult, but still not that bad. Let me explain a little bit about the Korean language.

For starters, the Korean alphabet, called "Hangul" or 한글 has 14 consonants and 10 vowels. The vowels can be paired up at times to create other sounds, and the consonants as well can be double (only the same consonant) to slightly change the sound. One interesting fact is that the Korean language always pairs a consonant and a vowel. You can never live without eachother. And because Korean is a very syllable based language, this means that you get words like this for example: Seth = Se Sa ; Vodka = Vo du ka; Camera = Ka ma ra. So if you notice, even though in English camera is pronounced "Cam Ra", those two consonants side by side won't work, so you add the extra syllable so that it  can be written in Korean.

The way that words work is by syallables. You can use the alphabet in sets of 2, 3, or in some cases 4 to create a sound. You can stack these on top or beside eachother in an almost tetris like form in order to create one syllable. Then, you move to the next space and make a syllable until you have finished the word. Some words are one block, some are many. However, after you have finished the word, you simply keep going, no spaces, commas, or periods involved. This will be difficult for me to distinguish, but i'm sure i'll get the hang of it. So, here are some examples:

제이름은세쓰입니다 = My name is Seth

My name is = "Jeh ee-rum un" = 4 syllables. So, 4 blocks. 제이름은

Notice the small characters in the blocks. It looks like one big character because in western languages the letter always go the the right, and are never stacked. But, each block contains 2 or 3 letters.

ㅈ = "J" sound

ㅔ= "Eh sound"

 ㅇ = "Silent"

ㅣ="ee"

Making the finished product = 제이

Seth = "Se Suh" = 2 syllables. 2 blocks. 세쓰

The final ending shows that it is a formal conversation = "ib nee da" or 입니다.

So ya, that's how Korean Hangul is put together to form an entire phrase. It's not that bad, but it will take a lot of practice to reach a level of fluency that I would like. I know one thing, curiosity has defiinitely kicked in as I am fascinated by how the language looks and sounds.