problem with spacing in between words

[allysark7131]

hi everyone,

i'm pretty new here and i wondering if any of you have problems with the spacing in between hangul syllables? the spacing seems to be the same to me and so i have problem figuring out which ones form a word. an example on an english word would be, instead of "wondering", i see " won de ring". so when i try to romanize korean words, i don't know how to space them and which ones form a word. any tips?

[trutherous]

You will undoubtedly be exposed to one or the other of the methods used to romanize Hangul as you continue your study, so you don't have to re-invent the wheel, so to speak, it will come in time. My advice is not to ever learn to romanize.


"wondering" is a great example of why Hangul is brilliant -- in Hangul every word is divided into syllables already, so they are much easier to "sound out"

keeping in mind that there is no "er" ('er' as in tiger) sound in Korean

원더링 won-deo-ring

To make an easy example I will Hangulize the English "I am wondering about you:"

In the following (English) sentence

"아이 엠 원더링 아바우트 유" (alternatively 아이 엠 원더링 아바우 츄)

you see no space between syllables but a single space between words -- can you sound it out?

아이 - 'ah-i' or 'ah-ee' ""I""

엠 - am

원더링 - won-deo-ring - wondering -- we could also write this 원덜잉

아바우트 - ah-bau-tu - about

유 - yoo - you -yu

anyway just keep studying Hangul and one day soon (very soon) you will say "Eureka! I've got it!"

[julialim]

Thank you!! 영훈 님

띄어쓰기(word spacing) is the most difficult part of Korean. Even Korean always makes a mistake in a sentence.

Don't worry!!


Let's try this sentence~~
We learned 띄어쓰기 with this sentence when we were a child.

아버지가방에들어가신다.

[allysark7131]

thanks for the tips everyone.

julia, i'd sound out the sentence you gave like this

a beo ji ga bang e deur-eo ga sin da

the only word i can recognize from this sentence is "a beo ji" and "ga" is a particle, so i know it should be "abeoji-ga" so when i speak it, i know where i should pause but i have no idea about the rest and can't even look up the dictionary since i don't know which forms a word. do you understand what i mean? is "bangedeureo" a word? what about "sinda"?

just for the fun of it, i practice romanizing korean songs so I can sing along and I always have problem with the spacing. if i don't romanize, my sight reading is too slow for the songs to sound right. i know it's a lazy way to learn but it's very encouraging and fun when i can sing the whole piece!

[trutherous]

Hi Julia! I hope you are well and happy -- when do I get to hear the new advanced lessons?

아버지가방에들어가신다.

Such fun! This sentence is the most common example of the importance of proper spacing.

Here are a couple ways to look at it:

1. 아버지가 방에 들어가신다. Father가 room에 goes into신다 = Father goes into the room. (honorific 시 시는 신)

2. 아버지 가방에 들어가신다. Father suitcase에 gets into신다 = Father (honorably) gets into the suitcase (bag). hahaha ㅋㅋㅋ

Some alternative misunderstandings might also occur from spacing 들어 apart from 가신다 which would mean 'picks up' and 'goes' or 'carries away' rather than 'enters' or 'goes into.'

[orbiter]

Hi Julia! I hope you are well and happy -- when do I get to hear the new advanced lessons?

아버지가방에들어가신다.

Such fun! This sentence is the most common example of the importance of proper spacing.

Here are a couple ways to look at it:

1. 아버지가 방에 들어가신다. Father가 room에 goes into신다 = Father goes into the room. (honorific 시 시는 신)

2. 아버지 가방에 들어가신다. Father suitcase에 gets into신다 = Father (honorably) gets into the suitcase (bag). hahaha ㅋㅋㅋ

Some alternative misunderstandings might also occur from spacing 들어 apart from 가신다 which would mean 'picks up' and 'goes' or 'carries away' rather than 'enters' or 'goes into.'

Oh... now I see why the sentence is commonly used to teach sentence spacing! Haha... so interesting. Yes, I struggle with sentence spacing alot too. One aspect of Japanese that I find easier to learn than Korean is sentence spacing. In Japanese, everything just strings together. In Chinese too!

What about "고 싶다"? What is the correct spacing for this? "하고 싶다"? or "하 고 싶다"? or "하고싶다"?

[trutherous]

먹고 싶어요

가고 싶어요

하고 싶어요

잊고 싶지 않아요

[orbiter]

그렇군요. 고맙습니다!