Learning Korean 1

Learning Korean is easier than learning Chinese, and maybe easier than English. I will give you some basic lessons that will have you reading Korean before you know it.

This sign is on a road near where I am this summer. For this very short lesson I will teach you 9 “letters.” I won’t bother with the proper names for now. This is just to show you how easy this really is.

The 9 are:

ㄷ

= t

ㄴ = n

ㅇ = silent, ng

ㅊ = ch

ㄱ

= g, k

ㅗ = o

ㅣ= i

ㅓ= eo’

ㅕ= yeo’

Today you will be reading East Incheon Station. 동 인천역 appears in the upper right corner of the sign. You can see the line of Korean writing is broken up into what looks like 4 characters. The first says “dong,” (동) the second “in,” (인) third “cheon,” (천) and fourth is “yeok” (역). You might be happy to know that the word for East 东 has the same sound in Korean as it does in Chinese.

The first “character” (동) is actually a combination of 3 “letters;” ㄷ=d, ㅗ=o, ㅇ = silent, ng. The D is on top. The O is in the middle. The final ‘letter’ is NG. [East]

The second character (인) is also a combination of 3 “letters;” ㅇ = silent, ng, ㅣ= I, ㄴ = n. The SILENT is on the left. The I is on the right. The final ‘letter’ is N. [“Incheon” is the name of a city in Korea].

The third character (천) is also a combination of 3 “letters;” ㅊ = ch, ㅓ= eo’ , ㄴ = n. The CH is on the left. The EO is on the right. The final ‘letter’ again is N, just like before.

The fourth character (역) is also a combination of 3 “letters;” ㅇ = silent, ng, ㅕ= yeo’, ㄱ = g, k. The SILENT is on the left. The YEO is on the right. The final ‘letter’ is K. [“yok” means station.]

“Dong Incheon Yeok” means East Incheon Station동 인천역.