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Good Kor-Eng Eng-Kor dictionary

 
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Zed



Joined: 20 Jan 2003
Location: Shakedown Street

PostPosted: Mon Jan 20, 2003 4:06 am    Post subject: Good Kor-Eng Eng-Kor dictionary Reply with quote

Can anyone tell me where I can get a Korean-English English-Korean dictionary that is WRITTEN FOR FOREIGNERS TRYING TO LEARN KOREAN not for Korean students trying to learn English. All the grammar, context and examples in the ones I have found are written in Korean and don't help me out much at this point in my Korean studies.
Thanks
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dmaster



Joined: 18 Jan 2003
Location: Seoul, S. Korea

PostPosted: Mon Jan 20, 2003 4:13 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I am not sure if there is an actual dictionary written for foriengers trying to learn korean, but there are a lot of good books out there. Yonsei and Seoul University use some pretty good text books in their Korean language classes.

I would recommend going to the bookstores at those schools, or any bookstore that would carry those books, and purchase one. I know the Seoul one, I have used it (the Yonsei book my friend uses) have both English and Korea, and are pretty helpful.

Good luck in your studies
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kimcheeking
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PostPosted: Mon Jan 20, 2003 5:08 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The only dictionaries written for foreigners use romanization. If you need a dictionary then there is no need for romanization - you should be able to read the script. It only took me 2 days to learn how to read & write Korean. Now understanding it all has been a whole other story.

Honestly I would love to buy a learners dictionary for Korean learners, but the market is so small that I can't imagine publishers being bothered, and if they were the cost would be exhorbitant.
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yoda



Joined: 19 Jan 2003
Location: Incheon, South Korea

PostPosted: Mon Jan 20, 2003 5:32 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
the market is so small that I can't imagine publishers being bothered


Exactly.
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jsmac



Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Gangwon-do

PostPosted: Mon Jan 20, 2003 2:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hollym publishes the "Standard English-Korean Korean-English Dictionary for Foreigners." It's alphabetized by romanization, but it includes Korean too. So if you can read the Korean word, you should be able to look it up in romanized form quite easily. But Kimcheeking is right: while you can learn to read and write the hangul alphabet in a couple of days (which is my own priority), just having the dictionary isn't enough to translate. The syntax and grammar are thoroughly baffling and thoughts are packaged almost backwards from an english speaker's point of view. Good luck!
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Ka-CHING!



Joined: 15 Jan 2003

PostPosted: Mon Jan 20, 2003 2:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I used Hollym's romanised dictionary (the Standard English-Korean Korean-English Dictionary for Foreigners) at first but I outgrew it fairly fast. A good beginners' textbook will have a glossary you can use, and you'll learn hangul fairly quickly. After I got the hang of the alphabet, I got Metro Dong-A's English-Korean, Korean-English Dictionary that has been way more useful than the Hollym.
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yoda



Joined: 19 Jan 2003
Location: Incheon, South Korea

PostPosted: Mon Jan 20, 2003 2:40 pm    Post subject: heads up Reply with quote

Quote:
The syntax and grammar are thoroughly baffling and thoughts are packaged almost backwards from an english speaker's point of view


That's correct. Korean is a head last language and English is a head first language. Almost everything is entirely backwards.

Examples:

English --> Korean
on the bed --> bed on (prepositional phrases)
catch a ball --> ball catch (verb objects)
the man that I saw --> the I saw man (relative clauses)

Japanese is also a head last language. Chomsky uses these facts as evidence of parameter setting.
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mokpochica



Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Location: Ann Arbor, MI

PostPosted: Tue Jan 21, 2003 9:11 pm    Post subject: online dictionary Reply with quote

There are some good electronic translators out there, although they are expensive. I've even seen some that have a screen where you can scrawl in Chinese characters and the little device can recognize them and translate them to English or Korean.

Anyway, here's a site that may be helpful. I find that it is a little more useful than my SISA dictionary (which often misleads me!)
http://www.sigmainstitute.com/koreanonline/dictionary.shtml
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TobyWhite



Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Gumi

PostPosted: Wed Jan 22, 2003 9:11 pm    Post subject: Foreigner Dictionary Reply with quote

The Insight Pocket Travel Dictionary: Korean is quite helpful and aimed at foreigners. It's not really pocket sized despite it's name. ISBN: 1-58573-198-6 Smile
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Zed



Joined: 20 Jan 2003
Location: Shakedown Street

PostPosted: Wed Jan 22, 2003 11:31 pm    Post subject: thanks for the replies Reply with quote

Thanks for all the ideas about the dictionary. I suppose I wasn't clear enough in my initial posting. I, as well, learned how to read and write hangul in a matter of days so I'm not interested in Romanisation. My problem is reading the technical jargon in the dictionary. There are many times that I have thought that I was using a correct word in Korean because I had checked in the dictionary only to find out (occasionally in some mildly embarassing circumstance) that I wasn't. An entire column in a dictionary explaining 17 different meanings and contexts, etc. for a word is too much for me to understand at this point. Parts of speech written in Korean are about as far as I can go at this time. According to the Korean book that I am learning from there are 50 universities in the US and Canada offering Korean courses and more in Europe. With tens of thousands of English teachers in Korea and many military personnel, I would certainly think that producing a dictionary for English speaking Korean learners beyond level 1 would not be cost prohibitive.
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kimcheeking
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 23, 2003 12:39 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

You would have to pay someone (rather a team of someones) alot of money. It would take a very long time to get a return on the investment if at all. This is a very risky venture - I would not invest in it.

I also wouldn't trust this unless the team was comprised equally of korean native speakers and english native speakers with a good command of second language for both.
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Ka-CHING!



Joined: 15 Jan 2003

PostPosted: Thu Jan 23, 2003 2:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Zed,

You might try an online bookseller like Amazon, or contact a university with a KSL programme and order from the uni bookstore. A lot of universities have syllabi posted online and they might have a KSL dictionary recommended. Certainly, the only KSL dictionaries I've seen in Korea have been the romanised ones already mentioned.
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mimo



Joined: 22 Aug 2003

PostPosted: Mon Sep 15, 2003 8:20 pm    Post subject: Korean is classified as Subject Object Verb Reply with quote

Quote:

yoda Posted: Mon Jan 20, 2003 2:40 pm Post subject: heads up
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Quote:
The syntax and grammar are thoroughly baffling and thoughts are packaged almost backwards from an english speaker's point of view

That's correct. Korean is a head last language and English is a head first language. Almost everything is entirely backwards.

Examples:

English --> Korean
on the bed --> bed on (prepositional phrases)
catch a ball --> ball catch (verb objects)
the man that I saw --> the I saw man (relative clauses)

Japanese is also a head last language. Chomsky uses these facts as evidence of parameter setting.



Head first? Head last? These other terms maybe easier to understand:

Subject Object Verb (OSV)

and

Subject Verb Object (SVO)

That's what I learned in a couple of linguistics classes and the terms may be easier to understand for people without any linguistics background. (I don't remember head first/last)

The largest number of the world's languages are classified as OSV --Korean, Japanese, Persian, and I think Russian.

English and Chinese are classified as SVO.

And even rarer is the VSO language --if I remember right Hebrew and Welsh.

It's kind of interesting to think about how this may reflect a culture's view of the world.

Found a link about it that's a good fast read
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_typology
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matthews_world



Joined: 15 Feb 2003

PostPosted: Mon Sep 15, 2003 8:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I've seen the YBM/SISA English-Korean dictionary. It's pretty good. It gives you examples on how to use the English equivalent.



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