Korean Language

[Rough Rider]

Ever since I've been studying Taekwondo (about 6 years) I've had a growing number of Korean words I needed to learn. About a year ago, I decided to go a little deeper and try to learn some Hangul. Through this effort, I found that many of the pronunciations I had been taught were incorrect and made an effort to pronounce the words correctly.
The biggest gaff was the name of the art itself: Taekwondo. Like everybody else in my school, and most Americans, I pronounced it "Tie-Kwawn-Dough". I now know that the first syllable is "Tay" and the second is "Kwun". At least I had "Do" right. So, now I say "Tay-Kwun-Dough". I'm not a jerk about it, and I don't correct others when they say it they other way (even my Grand Master says it the other way.)
Anyway, sometimes people ask my why I say "Tay" instead of "Tie". (They usually don't notice the "Kwun" as it's more subtle.) I tell them that it's actually the correct way to pronounce the word in Korean. I'll use the Hangul version as a visual aid and explain that the part that looks like an E makes a "T" sound and the part that looks like a tall, skinny H makes an "ay" sound.
Now, my question. If there was a word in Korean that sounded like "Tie", what would it look like in Hangul? I can't find any vowels that make the long I sound. It would really drive my point home if I could draw it and say, "If it was pronounced 'tie', it would look like this."

 

[andyjeffries]

Hey Rough Rider. I've only been learning Korean for 2 years (weekly lessons), so my Korean isn't at the "great" point yet, but I can answer your question. When Koreans need to Hangul-ize an "Ai" sound they use: 아이 ah-ee.

So Thai-kwondo or Tiekwondo would be 타이권도. Aikido is written as 아이키도 (they use the japanese pronunciation, hapkido is the same hanja but the Korean writing of it).

However, remember that 애 sounds more like "eh" and 에 sounds more like "ay" (although when they slow it down and pronounce it in isolation it can sound like "ay").

If you're on a Mac, you can run this command in a terminal to have the computer say all the versions to you:

say -r100 -v Yuna "태 테 타이"

Hope that helps.

 

[Rough Rider]

Thanks, Andy! The videos are very helpful.

 

[KangTsai]

When a k is put in a romanised Korean form, it usually means a 'g' pronunciation. So it's really pronounced 'tekgwondō.'

I should really just put the fact I'm Korean as a forum signature at this point.