Korean Job Discussion Forums

[garethnz]

I want to learn conversational Korean but I don't what to have to go through the process of learning Hungal.
I am trying to track down a book or learning system of some description that will teach me some Korean that is in English and not in Hungal.

Does anyone have some ideas or could point me to an online shop or something.

[Atavistic]

Here's an idea: sack up and spend the day it takes to learn Hangul.

Seriously, King Sejong himself (IIRC) said it takes a day to learn, an idiot a week. At the most, you're talking a week.

And here's how you learn it:
http://langintro.com/kintro/index.htm

[Hyeon Een]

This is a terrible, terrible idea.

Learning Hangul is easy and only takes a few hours (though your reading speed will be slow at first). It's not like trying to learn thousands of chinese characters, it's like learning the bricks in tetris.

There are NO good study books which don't use Hangul. The reason for this is that Hangul is piss easy to learn.

I'm assuming from your post that you want to become somewhat conversational. If however you only want to learn how to say please and thank you then I guess you could get by without learning Hangul. You could try the vocab at the back of the Lonely Planet Korea guidebook or Making Out in Korean if you want.

Learning Hangul will make your life a hell of a lot easier if you ever live in Korea because it'll give you the ability to read menus and maps. Reading menus is important if you like eating except in McDonalds =)

Drop your foolhardy plan of learning Korean without spending the 4 hours it takes to learn Hangul.

[IncognitoHFX]

Yes, Hangeul isn't hard.

The previous poster said it took a day-week to learn, which means to memorize all the sounds and symbols, but it takes a few weeks to get used to them and be able to read things fluently and intuitively. Either way, learning it is a major step in learning Korean and it will help you.

[Scotticus]

[Dome Vans]

Yep, steer clear of the romanised version. Hanguel is simple to learn, I find it a lot easier to pronounce seeing it in Hanguel than the romanised version you find in phrase books. Koreans understand proper pronunciation better, that's the real deal.

[Otherside]

ditto. Took me about 3 hours to learn the basics.

I still read REALLy slow, and I havent gotten out of pronouncing words as syllables rather than words...

So i'll read 마우스 as ma-oo-se rather than mouse (i normally only spot english words written in hanguel after reading them, then i'm fine second time round hehe).

For learning, I still enjoy having roman transliterations (i usually do them myself just for practice). But learning hangeul is the easiest part about learning korean and the most rewarding (in that you can see huge results in a couple of hours... from illiterate to literate between lunch and dinner).

[Ginormousaurus]

[Chris Kwon]

I wanted to be lazy like that initially, but romanized Korean is not very accurate in pronunciation. Suck it up like everyone else said

[Easter Clark]

I'll add that learning hangeul comes in especially handy when you want to know which bus / train to take.

[Return Jones]

As others have mentioned, Hangeul is a phonetic alphabet, not a pictograph one like Chinese. You really can learn it in one afternoon. I learned the basics on a 90 minute subway ride many years ago. I just read the English versions of the station names and then figured out the corresponding Hangeul. Once I had learned the basics, I never ever looked back to English transliteration. It will just confuse you.

Routine things like taking a bus or reading signs on the shelves in a grocery store become possible and quality of life improves drastically. Hangeul is super easy. Good luck!

[kiwiduncan]

You're not trolling are you? Here's an example of how easy Korean writing is

ㅂ = b

ㅏ = a

ㄴ = n

ㅋ = k

ㅓ = o (like in off)

ㅁ = m

ㅍ = p

ㅠ = yu

ㅌ = t

ㅣ = ee
The following words are all the same in Korean and English. Each has three syllables. Number 1 and 3 both have six letters read from left to right just like English. Number 2 has seven letters, the first syllable left>right>down, the second syllable top>bottom and the third syllable left>right.

1) 바나나 (It's a fruit)

2) 컴퓨터 (you are using one now)

3) 비키니 (Spliff wears one)

[garethnz]

O.K. Point taken.
It seems like you all have had personal experience with learning Hangul.
Based on this I will give it a go.

Where should I start then? Were can I buy a "Hungal for dummies"
Online shop would be good.

I will give it a crack and we will see if Hungal can be learned quickly as you all have explained in this post.

[caniff]

"Hungal"? You had it right for a minute. It's "Hangul".

Knowing this will help you shop for a book that teaches the Korean writing system.

And as everyone else has said, it's pretty easy if you dedicate some hours to it (the vowel combos can be a little tricky at first).

[Toon Army]

Hangul is easy to learn as previous posters have said. Plus it makes life alot easier IMO. Simple things like reading menus etc