beginner's korean ebook #1 by jennifer gabriel
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Beginner's Korean eBook #1: Reading Korean Letters and Building Korean
Words (It’s Just Like Tetris!)
A Korean Language eBook by Jennifer Gabriel
Author’s Note To Korean language learners everywhere: My name is Jennifer Gabriel, and you may know me as the author of the popular Korean culture blog Western Girl Eastern Boy. Like you, I am interested in and passionate about South Korea, a country I discovered for the first time over eight years ago. Like you, I wanted to learn Korean; and, I have. I became fluent in Korean in just two years! However, I started out by learning the Korean alphabet, or 한글. Did you? If you are trying to learn Korean based on the romanization of the Korean alphabet, then do yourself a favor. Stop. Stop now. Learning 한글 has many benefits. including but not limited to the following:
Learning 한글 improves your pronunciation by helping you associate the correct sound with each and every character you learn. For example, the pronunciation of “ㅂ” is somewhere in between the pronunciation of “b” and “p”. Romanization just does not portray that important difference.
Learning 한글 improves your ability to learn simple grammar. Although English is a language written horizontally, Korean is a language that is written both horizontally and vertically. For example, to write out 나라, or country, you don’t have to go up and down. However, to write out 남자, or man, you do have to go up and down, making sure the character “ㅁ” is placed beneath the characters “나”not next to it!
Learning 한글 also improves your ability to learn complex grammar. Although English is a language based on syntax and word order, Korean is
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not. You have to learn how to build, or stack, words with characters before you can even begin to learn how to read or write in Korean, which is exactly what I am about to teach you!
So, if you are ready to learn Korean, then learn it with me. Now. Right now. Sincerely, Jenny G.
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Table of Contents
Author’s Note… Page 1
Table of Contents… Page 3
Lesson 1: Consonants and Vowels… Page 4
The Only Quiz!… Page 5
Lesson 2: 16 Characters! How Many Words?… Page 6
Patterns and Rules for Building Korean Words… Page 12
A Closer Look at Building Korean Words… Page 13
Review… Page 14
Practice… Page 16
Postscript… Page 17
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Lesson 1: Consonants and Vowels In Lesson 1 I will teach you 10 consonants and 6 vowels. There are more of each, but it will be easier to learn them later since they are simply variations on some of the consonants and vowels I am about to teach you now.
Consonants
1. ㅂ b/p as in crybaby 2. ㄷ d/t as in daylight 3. ㅈ ch/j as in angelic 4. ㄱ g/k as in beginning 5. ㅅ s/sh as in Sam or shepard 6. ㅎ h as in homesick 7. ㄹ l/r as in lock or ranch 8. ㅁ m as in mine 9. ㄴ n as in nose 10.ㅇ silent or ng as in running
Vowels
1. ㅏ a as in catnip 2. ㅓ eo as in default 3. ㅗ o as in Lowe’s 4. ㅜ u as in ado 5. ㅡ eu heavenly 6. ㅣ i as in tinman
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The Only Quiz! Test your knowledge of consonants and vowels with this short, sweet quizthe only quiz in this eBook.
1. ㅂ ___ 2. ㄷ ___ 3. ㅈ ___ 4. ㄱ ___ 5. ㅅ ___ 6. ㅁ ___ 7. ㄴ ___ 8. ㅇ ___ 9. ㄹ ___ 10.ㅎ ___ 11.ㅏ ___ 12.ㅓ ___ 13.ㅡ ___ 14.ㅜ ___ 15.ㅣ ___ 16.ㅗ ___
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Lesson 2: 16 Characters! How Many Words? In Lesson 2 I am going to teach you how to “build” words by stacking the characters you’ve learned from left to right and from top to bottom. Please don’t be confused by characters. We have characters, or letters, in English, too. We even use them to make words, too, but the process is much simpler since we place letters right next to each other. In Korean, you have to place characters next to each other, and beneath each other! Thankfully, this lesson will make stacking characters and building words as simple as playing Tetris.
Stacking Characters, Building Words
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Although I don’t know exactly how many words we can make with just 16 characters, I do know there are a lot. So, let’s get started! First, you have to think of each character as a tetris building block. Second, some words are built with one block. Some words are built with moretwo, three, or four blocks. Third, some words are stacked and make squares. Some words are stacked and make rectangles. Finally, the order we stack blocks in can be confusing, so I’ve done a little color coding:
Gray is stacked first Green is stacked second Black is stacked third Beige is stacked fourth and last
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1 Character Makes A Square
This is a square no stacking needed really!
Example: “ㅋ” is an onomatopoeia and means ha.
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2 Characters Make A Rectangle
This is a rectangle stacked horizontally from left to right.
Example: “나” is a pronoun and means I or me.
This is a rectangle stacked vertically from top to bottom.
Example: “소” is a noun and means cow.
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3 Characters Make A Square OR A Rectangle
This is a square stacked horizontally from left to right. We only stack twice on top!
Example: “남” is a noun and means south or stranger.
This is a rectangle stacked vertically from top to bottom.
Example: “곧” is an adverb and means soon.
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4 Characters Make A Square OR A Rectangle
This is a horizontally stacked square stacked from left to right on top and bottom.
Example: “삶” is a noun and means life.
This is a vertically stacked rectangle stack from top to middle to left to right on the bottom.
Example: “흙” is a noun and means earth
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Patterns and Rules for Building Korean Words
Patterns You may have noticed a pattern. Words with the following vowels stack horizontally:
ㅏ ㅓ ㅣ
And, words with the following vowels stack vertically:
ㅗ ㅜ ㅡ
Rules Now that you’ve seen some Korean characters, or letters, and words, here are the rules for eBook #1 vowels only:
The first character of a word is always a consonant The second character of a word is always a vowel The third and fourth characters are usually, but not always, consonants
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A Closer Look at Building Korean Words
The Building Block Breakdown I just showed you lots of words that are probably new to you, so let me break some of them down for you.
ㄴ + ㅏ = 나
ㄴ + ㅏ + ㅁ = 남
ㅅ + ㅏ + ㄹ + ㅁ = 삶
One Character Words? Some Korean words are “built” with one character, but many of them are simply onomatopoeias, slang, and abbreviations or acronyms. Here are some examples of each:
ㅋ ha (onomatopoeia; usually ㅋ ㅋ for ha ha ) ㄴ no (slang; usually ㄴㄴ for no no ) ㅇ yeah (abbreviation for 응; usually ㅇㅇ )
One character words can have a rude connotation, as if you are too busy or don’t want to be bothered. So, use the two character forms instead!
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Review Now you are ready to review what you have learned.
Consonants
11.ㅂ b/p as in crybaby 12.ㄷ d/t as in daylight 13.ㅈ ch/j as in angelic 14.ㄱ g/k as in beginning 15.ㅅ s/sh as in Sam or shepard 16.ㅎ h as in homesick 17.ㄹ l/r as in lock or ranch 18.ㅁ m as in mine 19.ㄴ n as in nose 20.ㅇ silent or ng as in running
Remember! Remember to start building words with a consonant first. A consonant is always followed by a vowel that goes next to it or underneath it.
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Vowels
7. ㅏ a as in catnip 8. ㅓ o or eo as in default 9. ㅗ o as in Lowe’s 10.ㅜ u as in ado 11.ㅡ eu heavenly 12.ㅣ i as in tinman
Quick questions! Which vowels stack horizontally? Which vowels stack vertically?
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Practice You must memorize the stacking of words in Korean just like you would memorize the spelling of words in English. One way to help memorize how Korean words are stacked is to practice stacking them on a computer. No, you will not need to download a language pack or any other software.
1. Go to Google Translate. Select Korean to English and click on the keyboard to open the Korean keyboard.
2. Practice stacking the words from this eBook or from anywhere else. 3. Go to Naver’s English Dictionary for better translations of the words you
practice stacking.
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Postscript
Jennifer Gabriel is a Korean culture blogger at Western Girl Eastern Boy.
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If you have any questions or concerns or if you are just curious about me, then feel free to visit my blog, Western Girl Eastern Boy. You can read more about me and contact me there. You can also contact me more directly at [email protected]. No email goes unanswered! Stay on the look out for my second Korean language ebook on greetings and selfintroductions (and more consonants)! And, if you’d like to subscribe to my eBooks and get them right when they are published, then just subscribe to my blog or follow me on Facebook. If you’d like to download a copy of this eBook without signing up for ISSUU, then just email me and ask for one.
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Happy Korean language learning!
:)
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