Practical Korean. Samuel E. Martin

is included throughout, and the romanization system follows the Korean government’s most recent method.

      Two sets of native-speaker recordings for all Korean words and sentences are included in the disc (each word/sentence is read twice)—these enable the reader to have an idea of how different people pronounce the same words. The audios are grouped by lessons.

      We hope that Practical Korean helps you to succeed with the Korean language, just as it’s helped many others.

      Introduction

      THIS BOOK has been written to fill a specific need: that of the hundreds of thousands of people now visiting Korea for business or holidays, or even living there for a year or two, who wish to learn something of the language spoken around them. The structure of Korean is peculiarly complex, and difficulties plague the foreign student from the very beginning. I have attempted to simplify some of the common problems and to acquaint the reader with the most useful way to say a lot of everyday things, without having to memorize long lists of grammatical rules.

      The sentences are almost all given in the Polite (yo) style, which is both the simplest and the most widely useful. From this style, another common style—the Intimate style—is easily derived simply by dropping the final particle. Koreans who look at the book will miss the Formal (-seumnida) style which they feel more appropriate to use with foreigners on first acquaintance. My purpose in sticking to one style is to provide the reader with the means to say a great many different things, rather than teach him or her a great many ways to say the same thing. From an academic point of view, this approach has certain drawbacks. From a practical point of view, however, it is the quickest and simplest way to put the foreigner into direct communication with Koreans, and that is the aim of this book.

      The material is presented using the romanization method that is officially authorized by the Korean government. The equivalents in other romanization systems are given in the table at the very end of this book.

      The reader who plans to go on with his or her study of Korean beyond the material contained in this book will probably find it advisable to do so in the native script (Hangeul). For a scientific description of the structure of Korean, the reader is referred to the author’s other publications, Korean Phonemics and Korean Morphophonemics.

      I hope that the material contained in this book—while perhaps oversimplifying a complicated language—will be of some immediate, practical use to the reader who wants to learn some Korean. And I hope some of those who learn Korean in a hurry will find such an interest in the language and the people who speak it that they will someday spare the time and patience needed to master the language more in depth.

      SAMUEL E. MARTIN

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      LESSON 1

      Vowels

      The vowels and combinations of y or w with a vowel are pronounced somewhat as follows:

i		ㅣ	as in marine (meet, cheat)
	wi	ㅟ	as in we(queen, between, sweet)
e		ㅔ	This is pronounced identically to aein modern Korean.
			There isn’t an exact English equivalent.
	ye	예	Halfway between “yay” and the “ye” in yes (or yeah)
	weh	ㅞ	More like the English word way, but about halfway to “weh.”
ae		ㅐ	The closest English equivalent is like the English “eh”—sort of between “ay” and “e.” There isn’t an exact English equivalent.
	yae	ㅒ	Halfway between “yay” and the “ye” in yes
	wae	ㅙ	More like the English word way, but about halfway to “weh.”
oe		ㅚ	usually pronounced just like the English word way,but halfway to “weh”
a		ㅏ	as ah(father)
	ya	ㅑ	as yard, German ja
	wa	ㅘ	as Wahshington (but not Worshington or Wohshington!)
eu		ㅡ	This is like the French sound eu—there is no English equivalent.
u		ㅜ	as June, soon, too(WITH LIPS PUSHED OUT)
	yu	ㅠ	as you,cue, pew(WITH LIPS PUSHED OUT)
eo		ㅓ	between song and sung; like song, law, bought (WITH LIPS PULLED BACK HARD); or like sung, lung, butt (WITH TONGUE PULLED BACK AND PUSHED DOWN, AS IF WITH A SPOON)
	yeo	ㅕ	between yawn and young
	wo	ㅝ	between wall and won
o		ㅗ	as in no
	yo	ㅛ	as in yokel
ui		ㅢ	The combination uihas three different pronunciations depending on the usage:(1) At the beginning of a word it is pronounced like u.(2) At the end of a word it is pronounced like i.(3) As a separate particle meaning of, it is pronounced like e.
			In this book, you will find the first pronunciation indicated as ui(i) and the second as eu i. But you will have to remember that the particle ui is pronounced like e.

      You will note that letters in Korean are not written independently as in English but rather are connected in syllables. Each syllable is read left-right and up-down, and some are only left-right while some are only up-down and some are both. Here are some examples:

      Left-right: ㅇ (place marker) + ㅏ (a) = 아 (a)

      ㄴ (n) + ㅓ (eo) = 너 neo

      Up-down: ㄱ (g) + ㅗ (o) = 고 (go)

      ㅇ (place marker) + ㅜ (u) + ㄹ (l) = 울 ul

      Both: ㄴ (n) + ㅐ (ae) + ㅁ (m) = 냄 naem

      ㅈ (j) + ㅣ (i) + ㄱ (k) = 직 jik

      Here are some common words to practice the vowels on:

i	tooth	이
jip	house	집
gwi	ear	귀
jwi	rat	쥐
dwi	behind	뒤
ne	yes	네
ye	yes	예
gyohoe	church	교회
hoeui	meeting	회의
Choe	Choe (name)	최
soe	iron	쇠
sae	bird	새
sonyeo	girl	소녀
agi	baby	아기
hae	sun, year	해
maeil	every day	매일
iyagi	story, talk	이야기
wae	why	왜
mal	horse	말
bam	night	밤
joreugi	badger; tighten	조르기
wanbyeok	perfect, perfection	완벽
gwanggo	advertisement	광고
eumsik	food	음식
eunhaeng	bank	은행
geurim	picture	그림
nun	eye; snow	눈
mu	turnip	무
yuri	glass	유리
dubu	bean-curd, tofu	두부
gyuyul	regulations	규율
meonjeo	first