Korean Grammer Question regarding ㄱ, ㄷ, ㄹ, ㅂ

[meNotKorean]

Okay, so I am becoming a little bit more proficient with each lesson. I have done alot better with KC101 than with Rosetta Stone. My vocab is up to about 200 words after a month of use.

What I haven't figured out yet is when to expect ㄱ to be a K or G ㄷ to be a T or D ㄹ to be an R or L and ㅂ to be a P or B. I'm thinking there are rules with these letters as there are in english i.e. C in Car and in Chance

I'm still on the newbie series and haven't progressed to any beginner sessions. I'm not sure if this is discussed in the one of the grammer points on a lesson. Any help would be appreciated. Maybe even just pointing me to a lesson if available.[/list]

[manyakumi]

What I haven't figured out yet is when to expect ㄱ to be a K or G ㄷ to be a T or D ㄹ to be an R or L and ㅂ to be a P or B. I'm thinking there are rules with these letters as there are in english i.e. C in Car and in Chance

They tend to sound K,T,R,P when they are used for the first letter of a word.
But differ from English, they sound as the voiced sound regardless of where they are located.
So they can be distinguished from ㅋ,ㅌ,ㅍ which sound more like K,T,P.

[tbriley]

Check out a book called The Sounds of Korean: A Pronunciation Guide.

I found it to be an excellent resource when first learning the language. The correct pronunciation and ability to distinguish between these sounds is really important, as English sounds can't easily be substituted for Korean ones. Hope this helps ^^

[chobrad]

If you know how to read korean more correctly,
this website would be helpful to you.
It transcribes Korean with Alphabet and let you know how to read it.
Its address is http://www.readkorean.com
It was built for people like you.

[meNotKorean]

감사합니다

[meNotKorean]

ㄱ, ㄷ, ㅂ are as g, d, b when they appear before a vowel and are k, t, p when followed by another consonant or forming the final sound of a word.
ㄹ as r when followed by a vowel and l when followed by a consonant or apearining at the end of a word. =)

[timandyou]

Pronunciation~~!!

about ㄱ, ㄷ, ㄹ, ㅂ

1. ㄱ is like 'g' or 'k' in English; more likely 'g'.
2. ㄷ is like 'd' in English.
3. ㄹ is like 'r' or 'l' in English; I know both Korean and English quite well. Korean ㄹ is like between 'r'and 'l'. Korean don't say both 'r' and 'l' sounds. Let's say Korean ㄹ is likely English 'l' sound.
4. ㅂ is like 'b' or 'v' in Korean; more likely 'b'.

Remember this! - sounds of syllables may vary depending on where was put and depending on other syllables nearby. Only way to perfectly learn Korean is to speak often and keep practice, since the system of pronunciation in Korean is very flexible.
The more you speak, the more your Korean becomes natural.
Listening to many Blogs will help you out.
Hope you often listen to KoreanClass101.com!
cheers,

[trutherous]

It took me a while to realize this, but Hangul should not sound "like" anything else. What I mean is that the trick is to get the mind to accept a new symbolic representation of sounds, just as they are, and not having the mind run them through a translation filter. However I know it helps some people to have a reference in mind at the beginning stages of learning so I created this little reminder (have fun with it):

[timandyou]

Very interesting, George~~~!!
to some degree, maybe... it is... but it's somehow unjustifiable & unnatural.
It's very funny though....
Who knows!!????

[trutherous]

The 'justification:'

As I was studying the development of phonetic writing systems I came across the origin of the word 'phonetic.' It came from an ancient group of international traders known as the 'Phonecian' who kept track of their trade using a crude writing system. Their basic 'alphabet' is believed to have influenced the development of many other writing systems throughout the world, and hence we have the word 'phonetic,' meaning 'representing sound.' And upon examining the Phonecian alphabet (circa 1400 BC), I couldn't help but notice the similarity between a few of the letters and those found in Hangul, created some 2800 years later. Therefore, based upon the idea that all human beings are more similar than different, I got the idea that any group of human beings who sought an accurate method to write sounds should reach a similar symbolic representation. That is when I created the Hangul-to-English 'morph' chart you see above. Of course, as my studies soon revealed, humans do not have any innate sense of what a sound should look like, and any similarity between independently developed alphabets is purely coincidental.

[timandyou]

Hello, George.

I do like your insight that you put here.
I really don't have any idea about how Korean alphabet came from...

I shouldn't say that it was "justification"

I do agree that it is very interesting.

I am very humble that we, KoreanClass101.com, have you here.
Thanks,
cheers George~~!

[meNotKorean]

@trutherous I wld agree with you. In the begining I felt like I needed an english equivelent sound. Up until recently I decided to learn Hangul's symbols as Hangul without english representations. It became easier.