Korean Job Discussion Forums

NAVFC · Joined: 10 May 2006

I only said the middle sound in John and Song were alike, not that the entire words were the same. They are different words. But that middle sound is the same.

If John ended in NG instead of hn it would be an exact rhyme of song. Thats what Im talking about. that middle sound.

and furthermore, just to clarfi before we go any further, are you then saying that Koreans are in error when they pronounce 김일성 as Kim Il Sung? And that the correct pronunciation, is Kim Il Song?
and if so why would they mispronounce their own language?

Were not talking about merely transliterating to english here. We are talking about actually saying and speaking the word.

if 김일성 was really pronounced Kim Il Song, why wouldnt they just say Kim Il Song? Why do they say Kim Il Sung, when speaking, In korean? Ie not just during romanization?

ontheway · Posted: Wed Feb 25, 2009 8:22 am Post subject:

ontheway · Posted: Wed Feb 25, 2009 8:40 am Post subject:

And, as I said on page 3, the middle sounds of "John" and "song" are not the same in standard American English according to 3 major dictionaries.

You have a local dialect. You are from somewhere that has an unusual sound. You are unable to hear the Korean sounds correctly. This is due to the fact that you "hear" all sounds within a certain region of pronunciation as being the same even though others can hear the differences. You would need extensive sound listening training to learn to hear the sounds you are presently "deaf" to. This is the same condition that the Koreans who made the current government transliteration system suffer from.