# Learning to Speak Korean



## lulflo (Mar 24, 2005)

An yo ha shim ni ka?

I know that is not the correct spelling, but is supposed to be hello or literally "are you at peace"?

I am looking for some friends to help me supplement my learning Korean verbally with the actual way to spell the Korean words I am learning. Any help out there?

Kam sa hap ni da! (thank you)

Farang - Larry


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## oldnewbie (Mar 25, 2005)

If you go to the International TaeKwon-Do website they have a lot of words and phrases that you can read and hear....rather cool I think
www.itatkd.com/terminology.html


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## lulflo (Mar 25, 2005)

kam sa hap ni da. (thank you) Oldnewbie.

I am hoping to work on my conversational Korean too. I will check out that website, if there are any others out there, please feel free to post.

an yang he que ship she yo (good bye or literally "peacefully stay")

Farang - Larry


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## karatekid1975 (Mar 25, 2005)

I want to learn Korean also (other than term for class). Here is a good site to look at http://www.johnwasham.com/korean/forum/  There a lot of helpful people on that forum to help with anything that has to do with the Korean language  I hope this helps.


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## lulflo (Mar 26, 2005)

You are wonderful, thank you so much!

  Farang - Larry


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## karatekid1975 (Mar 26, 2005)

lulflo said:
			
		

> You are wonderful, thank you so much!
> 
> Farang - Larry



Your welcome


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## Miles (Mar 26, 2005)

If you go to a bookstore, there are often a number of "how to learn a language" tapes/cds.  We picked up one for my trip to Korea-used it a little-mostly conversational phrases for travelers.  Are you planning on going to Korea?

 If you really want to learn the language though, I think you need to find a native-speaker or do a course at a college (or church-had a friend who learned conversational Korean and how to write Hanguel through a Korean church).

 Good Luck!

 Miles


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## D Dempsey (Mar 26, 2005)

I speak can some korean.  I used to live there and I took some classes on it.  Plus my wife is korean so I hear it all the time.  Have you ever considered going to school in korea?  I remember hearing offers a the time for americans to study korean in korea.  College there is really cheap compared to the US.  Plus you could always teach english for extra money.  It'd probably be a lot of fun.  Korea is an interesting place.  Plus the food is awesome.
-David Dempsey-


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## searcher (Mar 26, 2005)

You should check out the Pimsleur language learning series.   They are considered the best at teaching languages by many professional linguists.   There system helped me learn Japanese.


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## Jim Tindell (Mar 26, 2005)

I want to study Korean language, but the only colleges that offer full courses are in Hawaii.


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## lulflo (Mar 27, 2005)

Yes I have Pimsleur's course on Korean 1, lessons one through ten on CD. I am up to lesson four. No plans on going to Korea. Just want to learn new language(s). A friend of mine has Chinese from Pimsleur and another has French. Plus I have a Spanish CD-ROM. I am mostly looking to learn how to spell the words that I am learning correctly. Thank you very much for your assistance.

  Farang - Larry


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## D Dempsey (Mar 27, 2005)

If your main interest is learning how to read write and spell, why don't you take a semester of korean at a local university.  A lot of places offer elementary korean classes.  Besides reading writing and spelling is the easiest part.  You could probably learn how to do it in about 2 days.  Korean is probably one of the most difficult languages to learn.  The US Department of Defense has it rated as the most difficult language that they teach at the Defense Language Institute.  So I wish you luck in your goal.-David Dempsey-


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## searcher (Mar 28, 2005)

lulflo said:
			
		

> Yes I have Pimsleur's course on Korean 1, lessons one through ten on CD. I am up to lesson four. No plans on going to Korea. Just want to learn new language(s). A friend of mine has Chinese from Pimsleur and another has French. Plus I have a Spanish CD-ROM. I am mostly looking to learn how to spell the words that I am learning correctly. Thank you very much for your assistance.
> 
> Farang - Larry


Sorry, I thought you were in it for the speaking aspect.   I have had to self-teach myself to read and write the Japanese language.   I went to Borders Books and bought up a few for beginners.


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## lulflo (Mar 28, 2005)

Thanks again for the help. I think that maybe it will work out to get some books to work on the writing in English. I think the next step will be writing the Korean characters too. It would be awesome to have a friend to email back and forth to work on conversational Korean too. Any takers?


Farang - Larry


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## Bearhugj (May 30, 2005)

hi,
 I can help you with some of the Korean assistance you need.  Ultimately the best thing you can do is to learn "hangul", that way you'll be able to pronounce everything correctly and you'll actually be able to read almost any korean at that point. As for vocabulary and grammer, that is quite a bit more difficult.  Pimsleur has some decent korean courses that you can find on ebay and other places. I learned korean in early high school (about the same time as I joined the HWD HQ here in So Cal, and then went to korea several times, and then was a student at the Defense Language Institute in Korean.  Let me know if you need some further pointers etc.  By the way, it really should pronounced more like "hwa rang", NOT far rang. Koreans do NOT have an "F" in their alphabet system.


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## Steronius (May 31, 2005)

Not legal, but you can get almost all the pimsleur sets on p2p networks (kazaa, emule, etc)


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## lulflo (May 31, 2005)

I appreciate your offer Bearhugj. How long have you been training Hwarang do? I would like to exchange some information with you and have conversation, maybe by phone, please PM me if you would be willing, I think it would be easier to have someone to converse with audibly. I don't know what I have to offer you in exchange, but I would appreciate anything you could do. I have gone through Pmslr's Korean I lessons 1-10 already and am still working on the last two lessons to have it down well, and I think I should buy the next set if there is one. Again, thank you for your post.


Farang (Hwa Rang) - Larry


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## ciondk (Jun 3, 2005)

For whats its worth, for saying hello I would probably say "Annyoung haseyo" and "Gamsa hamnida" thats the pronounciation. "Kamsa hapnida" is a valid spelling but the P is pronounced as a M in that context.

Just for the record, the letter F does not excist in the Hangeul, so Farang is not a possible korean word. If it is a word makde specifically for your art, it may be possible.


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## Bearhugj (Jun 4, 2005)

Hi Larry,
 Well you can reach my at my email at johnrubi2002@yahoo.com

 I'm not sure if the Department of Defense is selling any of their Defense Language Institute programs anymore, but that was my main resource for learning Korean.  I was an interrogator with various units both here in the US and in Korea.  As you know the situation with North Korea has always been very precious.  I also did a semester at Yon Sei University in Seoul, studying Korean History.  Korean History is another area where there is much confusion, legend, and hype, but the reality is as equally fascinating (and contradictory to) as legends.  As to spelling korean using our alphabet, there really is no set system in place to the best of my knowledge.  Unlike "pinyin" which is a standardize way of "romanising" chinese (yes I learned mandarin, which is really "pu tong hua") our attempts to spelling korean can only "approximate".  As to "thank you"..."kam sa hab ni da", the 4th part ends in a "bi up"  which is really a hard "b" sound, but it blends into the next part "ni" which is a "ny un"...so it often sounds like an "m" sound. Another way to say thank you, which I prefer as a little more formal is "ko map sub ni da".  Well hope to hear from you  - John


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## Bearhugj (Jun 4, 2005)

my thoughts on "farang"....
 when I was at the Downey HQ (I was starting high school at that time), I remember people saying "farang" and asking how to pronounce "hwa rang". At that time Master Lee had just completed the new Building and moved from the tiny and cramped school that was in the little down town area on Downey ave ..but being at the time very few korean speakers around, nobody really knew how to say it...and nobody wanted to bother Master Lee (he was a rather imposing & gruff figure and not very approachable at times)  so some people said "hwa rang" but many others said "fa rang"  but simply because nobody really know how to say it - and it just kept going on because so few people learned "han geul"... so it's rather amusing to me, that now...about 25 years later...the "fa rang" saying is still going strong


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## Pale Rider (Jun 5, 2005)

If anyone would like to check out one of the pages on *Korean Terminology*
I offer assistance in Korean as well as Hangul.

If I can be of service, let me know
Thanks


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## Dan G (Jun 8, 2005)

Anyong haseyo!

A number of the universities in Seoul run summer courses for overseas students. They are definitely worth investigating, and would be an excellent experience. Yonsei University have a good program at their Korean Language Institute, and in 95 they also had two gold medalists from the '88 demo olympics team teaching taekwondo on campus, I am not sure if this is still the case, but I am sure there would be good opportunities for a Korean stylist to train in Seoul.

Dan


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## Pale Rider (Jun 8, 2005)

If someone wants to know how to write in Korean (Hangul) - I can be of some service as well...

&#45817;&#49688;&#46020;

&#48716;&#47532;&#52264;&#46300;&#49828; &#51060;&#45800;


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## Akidorina (Jun 13, 2005)

"_Tae_" means "foot" or "to strike with the feet". "_Kwon_" means "hand", or "to strike with the hand". "_Do_" means discipline, art, or way. Hence _TaeKwonDo_ (foot-hand-way) means literally "the art of the feet and the hands" or "the art of kicking and punching". Different schools and/or styles may impose different variations on the formal definition however. For example, some styles add the words "self defense" to the literal definition and/or throw in some form of the phrase "physical and mental training". ​Korean counting​1​: ​_hanah_​2​: ​_dool_​3​: ​_set_​4​: ​_net_​5​: ​_dasot_​6​: ​_yasot_​7​: ​_ilgop_​8​: ​_yadol_​9​: ​_ahop_​10​: ​_yool_​​Tenets of taekwondo​_ye ui_​: ​courtesy​_yom chi_​: ​integrity​_in nae_​: ​perseverance​_kuk gi_​: ​self-control (also "_jah jeh_")​_baekjool_​: ​indomitable spirit (also "_boolgool eui jung shin_")​Commands:


_cha ryuht_​: ​attention​_choon bi_​: ​ready​_bah ro_​: ​return to starting position​_dwi uro dorah_​: ​about face​_dorah_​: ​turn​_elosoh_​: ​stand​_gomahn_​: ​stop (also "_mum cho_")​_geuk gi hyang ha yoh_​: ​face the flag​_jwa woo hyang woo_​: ​face each other​_sah bum nim keh_​: ​face instructor/master​_sun bae nim keh_​: ​face senior student​_simsa kwan nim keh_​: ​face examiner/tester​_dobok dahnjung_​: ​fix your uniform​_dhee dahnjung_​: ​fix your belt​_hai sahn_​: ​class dismissed (also "_hae cho_")​_jonglee_​: ​line up (also "_ji hap_" and "_jung yul_")​_kyung nae_​: ​bow​_ahnjoe_​: ​sit​_kool o angi_​: ​kneel (kneeling)​_bah ro angi_​: ​sit in lotus position (yoga posture)​_bahl bah kwah_​: ​switch your stance (switch your feet)​_koo ryung op see_​: ​in your own time​_seijak_​: ​begin​_shiuh_​: ​relax​_kalyeo_​: ​break (or stop)​_kae sok_​: ​continue​
This is all I know or can think of..​


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## lulflo (Jun 14, 2005)

Thank you very much to everyone who has posted, I am working on languages as a hobby and will be saying hello soon to those who have given me a way to do so. 

  On yong he que ship she yo

  Larry


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## Pale Rider (Jun 14, 2005)

Here are the numbers with Hangul:
First	Ill / Cho	&#51068; / &#52488;
Second	Ee	&#51060;
Third	Sam	&#49340;
Fourth	Sa	&#49324;
Fifth	Oh	&#50724;
Sixth	Yuk	&#50977;
Seventh	Chil	&#52832;
Eight	Pahl	&#54036;
Ninth	Gu	&#44396;
Tenth	Ship	&#49901;


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## Jonathan Randall (Jul 9, 2005)

Bearhugj said:
			
		

> Hi Larry,
> Well you can reach my at my email at johnrubi2002@yahoo.com
> 
> I'm not sure if the Department of Defense is selling any of their Defense Language Institute programs anymore, but that was my main resource for learning Korean. I was an interrogator with various units both here in the US and in Korea. As you know the situation with North Korea has always been very precious.- John


Are the DLI courses any different than the FSI courses in terms of the texts and tapes? How would you rate the material(both or either)? I know the DLI itself is dam* good at teaching languages fast and well. I'm considering getting myself back up to speed in a couple of languages and QE'ing as a Coast Guard interpreter. It's been a long time, though and I'd need good materials and a block of time.

I'm currently working on Japanes now and wonder if you are familiar with, and would recommend the FSI material? The first blocks are available commercially. If it came down to it, and I could find a friendly field grade officer, I could probably get some non-classified DLI stuff free through the chain (I'm a uniformed volunteer). I'd rather go commercial rather than announce that I'm learning a language that I may or may not eventually obtain an adequate working knowledge in, though.

Thanks for your input into this thread. I had a friend stationed near the DMZ during the 95 crisis. It was a very frightening time. If the situation ever blows up there again the services certainly are going to need a lot of Korean language interpreters. Thank you for your service there. Despite what's going on in the Middle East, Korea has the potential of becoming the MOST dangerous place on earth. It doesn't help that the NK leadership is freakin' nuts.


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## howard (Jul 10, 2005)

Bearhugj said:
			
		

> ...As to spelling korean using our alphabet, there really is no set system in place to the best of my knowledge. Unlike "pinyin" which is a standardize way of "romanising" chinese (yes I learned mandarin, which is really "pu tong hua") our attempts to spelling korean can only "approximate"...


 Hi John,

 There are actually several formal romanization systems for Korean.  The McCune-Reischauer and Yale systems are two of the most widely used.  Also, the Korean government recently published its own romanization system.  You can read about it here...

http://www.mct.go.kr:8080/english/K_about/Language04.html

 Regards, Howard


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## Bearhugj (Jul 17, 2005)

howard
 I stand corrected,  - well it's been a long time since I learned korean and since that time I've made more studies into madarin so i've been out of the korean studies loop for a bit.  But it has always been a bug a boo of mine about the romanization of korean. it just never seemed to be "quite right" from what I could see out there.  I guess living among koreans, gaining a "korean ear" always made it more difficult for me to "see" in our romanizations anything that could come close.  but anyways, good thing that they are working on systems. Korean was always much easier for westerners to pronounce than chinese is.  although japanese isn't too difficult either. 

 as to DLI courses, I do remember the DLI (in monterey) allowing us (former students) to purchase courses from them, but I've lost contact with them quite a while ago.  Maybe contact with DLI would be a good thing , see how it goes and let anyone know that's interested about it.

 I'm not familiar with the FSI courses.  The DLI courses were very good, they began with basic korean and every day language. BUT...they did proceed into more military stuff as all of us were either Interrogators, Counter Intelligence, Analysts or Interceptors.  I remember they even had a few sets in North Korean dialect available back then. 
 the DLI courses emphasized Hangul 100% though, which I still think is the very best way to get a very good capability in korean.

 tty soon


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## Bearhugj (Jul 17, 2005)

Jonathan,
 btw, I agree with your assesment about N korea.  I was at the DMZ for a good bit during the late 80's and in Seoul's top HQ areas as well.  Never a good thing going on between the Two koreas there. Always a large # of infiltrators every year....and continuing.  A lot of malarky and baloney proganda always accompanying it as well. 
 probably the two most disheartening issues to me these days are the younger korean's apathy towards the situation - and China's bi polar behavior of egging them on on the one hand, and ignoring it on the other.  yet the majority of people in china would rather the CCP bring an end to it as well.  (expensive and crazy to keep a mad man in power these days). 
 There were some very good stories on MSN about the North Korean death camps about 2-3 years ago if you can research them ...they will tear at your heart though. 
 well..the stories and inside info on N Korea can go on and on and on...but it's just too bizarre in this world today.
 I was also in Iraq in gulf 1, ...for what I'll never know - other than I was still in and could go, but my arabic was only limited to a few words


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## ave_turuta (Jul 23, 2005)

D Dempsey said:
			
		

> If your main interest is learning how to read write and spell, why don't you take a semester of korean at a local university. A lot of places offer elementary korean classes. Besides reading writing and spelling is the easiest part. You could probably learn how to do it in about 2 days. Korean is probably one of the most difficult languages to learn. The US Department of Defense has it rated as the most difficult language that they teach at the Defense Language Institute. So I wish you luck in your goal.-David Dempsey-


 I would like to respectfully disagree with this statement. The Defense Language Institute divides languages into several groups according not to their implicit "difficulty" (languages are only "easy" or "difficult" depending on who is learning them), but rather according to the level of difficulty that that particular language has for an English speaker trying to learn it. The difficulty level is actually measured by the number of hours of instruction it is estimated a regular student would spend until s/he can achieve a certain level of proficiency in that language. Currently, Korean shares the "most difficult language to learn" label with three other languages: Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese. However, and once again, this is only from the perspective of a native speaker of English. For a native speaker of Chinese, for example, learning Koren is considerably easier, just as it is for an Arabic speaker to learn a language like Hebrew. As you may know, linguists group languages into "families:" a speaker of an indo-european language, for example, has more ease at learning a language from the same family (english, spanish, farsi), a fact that is more evident when the other language is from the same subdivision within that family (as in germanic or romance languages, for example). As a Spanish speaker, for instance, I read without difficulty languages like Portuguese, Galician, French, Italian, and Catalan (I have had training in some, but not all, of those languages); I have studied Farsi, which is very easy as it is a Indi-European language, etc. etc. I am proficient in Arabic (a Semitic language and rather difficult at that), but from there it was very easy for me to "jump" to Hebrew, which shares a lot of grammatical structures and vocabulary with Arabic. I have never tried to learn an Asian language, but again, it all depends on your previous training, your ability (some people just "get it," some people don´t) and of course, the amount of effort and time you put to the task. Saying that one language is intrinsically more difficult than another is, from a linguistic point of view, incorrect. It can be more difficult _to learn _for a particular group of people, but that´s about it. 

 Respectfully, 
 A.T.


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## ave_turuta (Jul 23, 2005)

lulflo said:
			
		

> I am looking for some friends to help me supplement my learning Korean verbally with the actual way to spell the Korean words I am learning. Any help out there?


 Larry: I believe it all depends on what you need/want. If you want to actually learn Korean (or any other language) there is no substitute to the learning process but (a) taking lessons in that language, or (b) a total immersion program in the country. Since you seem to be more interested in acquiring vocabulary, any of the methods indicated by the fellow members would suffice. However, I would encourage you to seek out lessons if you are interested: learning a new language is one of the most rewarding things in the world. Besides checking the language programs at your local university or community college, I would also recommend seeking out an exchange with a native speaker of Korean who can help you with this. If you live in a large urban area, I am sure you will have no difficulty finding native speakers of Korean who would be happy to exchange their language skills with you for free. Check out Craigslist.org or any other local service you can find. Many people do this where I live and benefit from other people´s knowledge, instead of paying large sums to learn the language. 

 Good luck on your endeavor! 

 AT


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## ave_turuta (Jul 23, 2005)

Jonathan Randall said:
			
		

> Are the DLI courses any different than the FSI courses in terms of the texts and tapes? How would you rate the material(both or either)? I know the DLI itself is dam* good at teaching languages fast and well. I'm considering getting myself back up to speed in a couple of languages and QE'ing as a Coast Guard interpreter. It's been a long time, though and I'd need good materials and a block of time.
> 
> I'm currently working on Japanes now and wonder if you are familiar with, and would recommend the FSI material? The first blocks are available commercially. If it came down to it, and I could find a friendly field grade officer, I could probably get some non-classified DLI stuff free through the chain (I'm a uniformed volunteer). I'd rather go commercial rather than announce that I'm learning a language that I may or may not eventually obtain an adequate working knowledge in, though.
> 
> Thanks for your input into this thread. I had a friend stationed near the DMZ during the 95 crisis. It was a very frightening time. If the situation ever blows up there again the services certainly are going to need a lot of Korean language interpreters. Thank you for your service there. Despite what's going on in the Middle East, Korea has the potential of becoming the MOST dangerous place on earth. It doesn't help that the NK leadership is freakin' nuts.


 Jonathan, I believe the FSI courses are available through a series of different materials. You may check: 

http://www.multilingualbooks.com/fsi.html

 You may also check the DLI website at http://www.dliflc.edu/

 The latter, however, is of limited access despite their excellent reputation.


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## Grenadier (Jul 25, 2005)

I'd have to agree with one of the above posters.  It may as well be better if you learned the language as well as the alphabet itself.  

Unlike Chinese or Japanese, Korean is not a character-based system, and has a true alphabet, consisting of 14 consonants and 10 vowels (as well as various dipthongs).  It's pretty much straightforward, and probably one of the simplest East Asian languages to learn.  

If you studied the alphabet, words, and sentence structure, you'd be surprised at how quickly you can learn it.  This way, you'll also have the correct pronunciation of every word, which Europeans and Americans that have not trained in such language, tend to mangle, despite the language's simplicity.  

If your local university / college offers some courses, I'd take full advantage of them.  If anything, it wouldn't hurt to enroll as a non-degree seeking student, if you're just in it for the knowledge.


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