Hangul 한글!

[Zolarius]

Another hangul question has come up.

I have noticed in hangul that spaces occur within sentences. I am very confused as to when a space should be utilized within a sentence, as they don't appear to break up inividual words.

Please try to help me clear this up.

[austinfd]

Another hangul question has come up.

I have noticed in hangul that spaces occur within sentences. I am very confused as to when a space should be utilized within a sentence, as they don't appear to break up inividual words.

Please try to help me clear this up.

^^ It's one of my biggest problems in writing Korean. There are a lot of compound words in Korean that don't require a space. My basic rule of thumb is that any particle(identifying subject/object, preposition, etc) is attached directly to the word. Sometimes verb pairs are word pairs and they just need to be learned.... And then there are the numerous ways to construct things like

"I can't read that book" -->
"그 책을 읽을 수 없어요"

It would be presented in a book as:" ㄹ 수 앖다/있다" (so the spaces are shown there)

In my experience, Koreans don't all know exactly where the spaces should go, and when I send text messages in Korean, I generally skip spaces altogether. it's easier to type!

[Zolarius]

Interesting but still confusing, though a general rule of thumb is always nice to get started with. Thanks.

So from what I gather in your last paragraph, while it is a nice finesse to writing, it isn't IMPERATIVE that I have spacing in my sentences?

Anyone else have more to add to this?

[austinfd]

I think spacing is important to "proper Korean." I just wouldn't beat yourself up over it. You can learn it as you learn new grammar constructions...and if you find some printed material, you might be able to parse some proper spacing from that....

You will be understood regardless of where you put your spaces, so I would focus on spelling and syntax first. That is more crucial to making a coherent sentence! The spacing comes as you spend time with the language...

But we really need a native speaker to weigh in on this!

[steved]

Spacing is important and without it can lead to misuderstandings, especially if the space is in the wrong spot. For example:

아버지가 방에 있다. This sentence has a completely diffent meaning from:

아버지 가방에 있다.

Generally, individual words should be spaced apart from other words and any particles are attached to the end of the words that they are associated with.

Even when speaking we put the spaces in the sentence with small pauses between words. Of course, we all probably know someone who doesn't put spaces in their sentences when talking anditcomesoutlikethis. While it is readable and understandable, spacing should be used to make the sentence easier to understand and more esthetically pleasing . Text messaging, on the otherhand, isn't really proper written language, whatever your native language, and just about anything goes as long as you can get your point across.

[Keith]

A good general rule to follow in terms of 띄어쓰기 (ttuieosseugi) - spacing - is that if a word can stand on it's own, then there should be a space.

Example:

저는 한국 사람입니다.
(jeo-neun hanguk saram-imnida)

This sentence has 한국 and 사람 which are two distinct and independent words, which can stand on their own. So therefore, they should have a space between them.

Another general rule to follow is, whenever you use a particle (은/는, 이/가, 을/를, 에, 에서, 으로, 등등), there should be a space after that.

And the word 이다 (ida) attaches to the word right before it. Another general rule. Take a look at the example above

[Zolarius]

Thanks Keith, I'll keep all of those in mind.

You had said that 이다(ida) attaches to the word preceeding it. Is this the case for all verbs?

[martijnathome]

Hi there. First of all great site. As a flight attendant İ come to Korea quite often, and I´m always desperately lost, haha. Today I have to go to Seoul and wıll stay there for a week. Really looking forward to it and a great reason to start learning the language. Started yesterday with lessons 1 and 2. And learned Hangul! With the help of the following site It was really easy. There ıs a great and thorough explanation of the script. You can find it under İntroductory Korean.

http://hompi.sogang.ac.kr/korean/index.html

There are many lessons here to find. Don´t know if they are any good, but it is always nice to have some other stuff available as well.

Doei,

Martijn

[Bouks]

Thank you Martijn, the hangeul lessons on that site are a good supplement to the material here. I am picking up vocabulary and grammar easily enough in the lessons here, but struggling with hangeul for some reason (translate: lazy brain), so those lessons give me a boost.

[Chriss]

I learnt Hangul from http://www.langintro.com/kintro/toc.htm . I tried some other sites I found through google, but that one suited me the best. I knew only a couple of words Korean when I started using the site.

I usually translitterate my name as "얄리타."

[Silja]

I studied hangeul from three sites. The first two were these:
http://www.langintro.com/kintro/toc.htm
http://www.learnlangs.com/RWP/Korean/
They are mainly for recognizing the characters. There are some sound files in the first one.

I don't think the third one has been mentioned here earlier but it should be because it's just great! The sites url is http://www.indiana.edu/~koreanrs/hangul.html.

[yhenry]

I see. (그렇군요)
Sweden is written "스웨덴" in Korean.
(스웨덴은 "스웨덴"이라고 써요.)

Let me add a little more to reveal (?) our Korean way of pronounce English simply because we don't have any consonant without a vowel to go with, unless in case of the double consonant.

As a result, we tend to add an extra vowel to a English consonant without one.

S (스) WE (웨) DEN (덴)
DA (다 , 데) VI (비) D (드)
RIGH (롸 이) T (트)
BE (베) D (드)

Can you see the additional bowel sound we added to sound right(?) according to our sound system?

Hope I am not too late to make you understand us doing that.

[kyuree]

Can you see the additional bowel sound we added to sound right(?) according to our sound system?

Hope I am not too late to make you understand us doing that.

I think you meant "vowel"

maybe we should start a new thread on English words in Korean. I find it's not consistent, e.g.
버스 but 샵.
sometimes they use ㅏ and sometimes they use ㅓ for the same sound.
hm... that wasn't a good example... but I will post again if I can think of a good example.

[untmdsprt]

Hangul on the computer:
If you want to be able to type hangul on the computer, beware. You have to learn an entirely new layout!

Here is a picture of the layout: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_l ... _Korean.29

How to type in korean on Windows XP:
Start -> Control Panel -> Regional and Language Options -> Languages

Thanks for the links! I'm wanting a good place to start learning Hangul before I actually start learning the vocab.

BTW, does anyone else use a Mac? I've already set it up to be able to type Hangul, but the problem is there are 5 different keyboards in which to choose. Which one would be the easiest to use?

[untmdsprt]

Once you've installed the Korean keyboard on your system, you can always
click on the little triangle next to the (KO) box at the right-handed bottom
of the page and make a keyboard guide appear, but if you want something
bigger and clearer than that, here you go!

Ah, thanks Hyunwoo! On the Mac (Leopard 10.5.x) it's called 2-Set Korean, and is the same layout as these.

Now to find a good flash card system to actually learn these characters first!