Korean Job Discussion Forums

[pianowill]

I'm getting Hangeul down pretty quickly, but my pronunciation is terrible. Is there a good book I can buy here (close to Seoul) that teaches how to pronounce Hangeul? That would be great it if it had the Hangeul word followed by the anglicized version of that word followed by how to pronounce it.

I know, I know...a book for pronunciation? I'll be using the internet and co-workers for help as well. I just want something to study on the go.

Ex. 한글 = hangeul = HON (like han solo) and GHOUL (or like replacing the 'c' in 'cool' with a 'g')

The book I currently have tells me to pronounce the 'ae' symbol like the 'a' in 'hat', and in my experience so far, that's flat out wrong. More like the 'a' in 'hate.'

[mimis]

I haven't actually used it, but I came across this one on Amazon a while ago, it looks pretty comprehensive. http://www.amazon.com/Sounds-Korean-Pronunciation-Miho-Choo/dp/0824826019/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1253524415&sr=8-4

I'd be interested in buying it myself if it weren't so expensive
($21.60 at Amazon, ₩43,600 at Whatthebook)

[pianowill]

Looks good to me! I'll probably end up buying a few books anyway. Does Amazon ship here? If not, is there an Amazon-like Korean website where I can search for this book?

[mimis]

Yes, Amazon ships here, but you have to pay extra for delivery...honestly I'm not sure how it all works though, I can't order from Amazon, so I've never done it. Here's the international delivery section: http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=hp_navbox_596184_tips?nodeId=596188

Also, there's www.whatthebook.com but like I said, they charge a lot more. Kyobo charges W33,380 (http://www.kyobobook.co.kr/search/SearchEngbookMain.jsp)

Don't know about other websites, I think ordering from Amazon might be your best bet (depending on how many books you're going to order).

[crossmr]

[krd]

A big problem with such books is that it comes over differently for different people. ie British English and American English. People read how a word is supposed to sound and hear it in their own accent... That can differ widely, and consequently people pronounce words totally wrong.

Example - Americans and non-Americans speaking Korean will pronounce 'han' totally different. It's because the ㅏ sound is translated as 'a' and people pronounce that differently in English.

[Bread]

http://hompi.sogang.ac.kr/korean/kkl100/contents.html

Only works in Internet Explorer (like every Korean website). Has little sound clips of each one. And yeah, that HAN GHOUL was totally wrong. You should never rely on approximates for romanization. Once you learn how it really sounds, you can use romanization as long as you remember what sound each letter represents.

[Murakano]

[lichtarbeiter]

[fermentation]

No book is gonna tell you how to pronounce it properly. I have friends who think they speak really good Korean but butcher it on a regular basis. You need to ask Koreans and be around them.

[pianowill]

[crossmr]

[Reise-ohne-Ende]

IPA! IPA!! IPA!!!

That concludes my linguistics nerd advertising.

Don't even bother with a book. Study this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_phonology

I'm sure you can find more online. If you go here, you can click the sounds and hear them:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA


There's also a great book on Phonetics and Phonology by Ladefoged. It comes with a really cool CD where you can click on different parts of the vowel/consonant charts and a person says the letter both by itself and between vowels (if it is a consonant). So for example:

me: *clicks on [b]*

voice: "[b]. [ba]. [aba]."


Out of curiosity, what is your nationality?

[pianowill]

American. Midwest. So I believe my accent is considered to be the "American accent with no accent."

[Binch Lover]

North Americans seem to have a harder time than Europeans (i.e. Germans, French or Irish) with Korean pronunciation. Here's my theory:

Short a and short e sound very similar in North America, whereas in other European languages, the short a sound is very much like 아. Therefore, to native speakers, words like Gangnam or Bap end up sounding like Gohngnohm or Bohp. The Korean "a" sound is completely different to the sound in North American English. You have to learn how to make it!

In Korean pronunciation, there is no syllable stress. This is completely the opposite to English, where every word of two syllables or more has a stress. French and German are similar in that there is very little, if any, sentence stress. Native English speakers have a natural instinct to put a stress in the word at some point, which has the effect of reducing other vowel sounds to schwas. For example, Busan becomes B/soooohhhn (don't know how to write IPA on a computer!), with a heavy stress on the second syllable. Instead, each syllable (and therefore vowel sound) should have equal weight.

So, these are my two major tips:
1. Learn how to make the 아 sound properly.
2. Try to unlearn the instinct to attach syllable stress.

And never, ever, try to learn Korean pronunciation through romanized spellings. It'll only make things worse!