23
votes
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How is Hangul composed with a keyboard?
I understand that the 500 or so possible digraphs and trigraphs have been encoded as single unicode blocks, but I would expect that most computer systems would use the 40 individual letters and use a ...
- 7,412
18
votes
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Should I learn Hangul as soon as I start learning Korean?
My experience is that learning to read Korean is easier than learning to read English. You will be severely limited in what you can learn if you never learn Hangul.
Picture trying to learn English ...
- 3,934
14
votes
Accepted
How does 15th Century Hangul writing/type differ from modern Hangul?
What direction is the text supposed to be read in?
Until recently, Korean text was written in columns going down, reading the right-most column first and proceeding leftward.
Why are some of the ...
- 6,004
13
votes
Accepted
How was the obsolete character ㅿ pronounced?
We can't tell for sure, but Wikipedia puts it at either [z] (like in 'zoo'), or [ʝ̃], which would be a nasal version of [ʝ].
To pronounce [ʝ̃], say [j] like at the beginning of 여기 (or English 'yes'), ...
- 404
13
votes
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Is there any word that varies in length when written in hanja or hangul?
TL;DR version: While Japanese kanji can be be represented by any number of syllables, Korean hanja always represents a single syllable. Korean words of Chinese origin that have had some sound changes ...
- 308
12
votes
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Do the shapes of Hangul characters have any significance?
The shapes of Hangul consonants were derived from shapes of tongue, throat and mouth when they were spoken. I found a good image explaining it!
- 1,658
11
votes
Hangul -- printed vs handwritten
When hangul is handwritten, rather flowery, it is referred to as 흘림체 or "cursive". Here is an example of a mild 흘림체 vs its typewritten counterpart:
In paraphrase of this article note the ...
- 3,285
10
votes
Are there any online tools available for entering Korean text?
To start entering Hanguel in a Windows computer, we first need to get the Microsoft Korean IME
A good step-by-step guide to installing the IME is here:
http://www.declan-software.com/korean_ime/...
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10
votes
Should I learn Hangul as soon as I start learning Korean?
Learning Hangul is the absolute easiest thing about learning Korean.
I learned in a couple of hours in a cafe in Guatemala with a Korean backpacker girl over a decade ago and never forgot it.
...
- 262
10
votes
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When did writing Hangul left-to-right become more common?
Around the time Korea got colonized by Japan, the 한글 맞춤법 통일안 (Unified Hangul Grammar Rules) were written by the 조선어 학회 (Korean Language Society). The first appearance of something related to ...
- 271
10
votes
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Is there any tradition of writing Korean in a linear fashion, outside of syllable blocks?
Writing hangul in syllable block form has been the norm since its invention, so in terms of tradition, there is very little drive for it to ever appear in linear form.
That is, until the first modern ...
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8
votes
Should I learn Hangul as soon as I start learning Korean?
If you want to know and understand Korean, you need to learn the Korean writing system.
There are a few important reasons.
The Korean language uses a syllable-block system with several pronunciation ...
- 181
8
votes
Hangul -- printed vs handwritten
There is a standard way of handwriting hangul. All stroke orders follow this guideline:
top -> bottom
left -> right
Although, in terms of writing a "cursive" hangul, everyone kind of does their own ...
- 999
8
votes
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Why does Google ask me if I meant "South Korea" (*in Korean*) when searching for "eogksalsrnr"?
The correspondence between "eogksalsrnr" and "대한민국" is based on the standard Korean keyboard layout. E is on the same key as ㄷ, O is on the same key as ㅐ, etc.
(source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/...
- 196
8
votes
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Basic steps to take when learning Korean
Learning any language can be difficult. That being said, Korean can be quite a challenge if you are only used to reading romanized characters. Learning the Korean alphabet would be the first step ...
- 321
8
votes
Why is 한국어 not spelled as 한구거?
I think you mean 한국어. And yes, it is indeed because there's a morpheme boundary between 국 and 어.
Almost all morpheme boundaries that are recognizable by native speakers are treated this way, except ...
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7
votes
How exactly is "ㄱ" pronounced/romanized?
Word initial it is unvoiced, hence [k]. In medial positions, it becomes voiced, hence [g]. This is a regular phonological process, so native speakers without linguistic training are typically unaware ...
- 435
7
votes
Is there any word that varies in length when written in hanja or hangul?
Every hanja is exactly one syllable, no exceptions. No sound change made hanja pronunciation vary in syllable length since when hanja came to Korea (which was a looong time ago).
- 7,412
7
votes
When should I use Hanja instead of Hangul?
I can imagine only these situations...
If you want to be a lawyer in Korea. Some law terms are written in ancient Korean (and getting replaced with Hangul representation)
If you want to study ancient ...
- 226
7
votes
Accepted
Maximum number of characters in a syllable block
Old Hangul (옛한글) apparently allowed up to 9 jamo in a single block. I am not sure if this was "proper" use or abuse of Hangul at the time... I managed to find a reference to one of these "in the wild:"...
- 2,023
7
votes
Accepted
Is there a concept of letter names in Korean?
What a fun question! The consonants DO have names and can be used in spelling:
ㄱ = 기역 (giyeok)
ㄴ = 니은 (nieun)
ㄷ = 디귿 (digeut)
ㄹ = 리을 (rieul)
ㅁ = 미음 (mieum)
ㅂ = 비읍 (bieup)
ㅅ = 시옷 (siot)
ㅇ = 이응 (ieung)
...
- 3,285
7
votes
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Is there a pronunciation difference between ᄉᅻᆯ and 서울?
No, ᄉᅻᆯ would not be equivalent to 서울 even if it somehow was used in modern Hangul. ᄉᅻᆯ is one syllable, 서울 is two. Korean is a syllable-timed language, so a single syllable and two syllables are ...
- 7,412
7
votes
How can I include Hangul and Hanja in a website?
Korean (Chinese, Japanese) characters are multibyte. Whenever dealing with multibyte characters, the recommendation is for your site encoding to use UTF-8.
<!DOCTYPE HTML>
<html>
<...
- 3,285
7
votes
Accepted
Equivalent to "The Quick Brown Fox...."
I enjoyed the link that @Display-name left in his/her answer, but I thought I would go ahead and display from that large page of Korean what I believe to be the one passage that (is a pangram that can ...
- 3,285
7
votes
Accepted
Accurate quote of 훈민정음 Hunminjeongeum
First, don't trust Google Translate, especially if you're learning Korean.
Also, keep in mind that the modern Korean sentences you see are already a translation of the original middle Korean, so ...
- 7,352
6
votes
When should I use Hanja instead of Hangul?
One example of where Hanja might be used is to disambiguate homonyms. For example, 사과 can mean an apology, or an apple. The Hanja - 謝過, or 沙果 - might be used to clarify which is meant.
- 13.5k
6
votes
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Korean hangul with voiced, unvoiced and aspirated or not aspirated
I can tell you right now.
(Always) Voiced: all vowels, ㄴ, ㅁ, ㅇ(final), ㄹ
(Conditionally) Voiceless: ㄱ, ㄲ, ㄷ, ㄸ, ㅂ, ㅃ, ㅅ, ㅆ, ㅈ, ㅉ, ㅊ, ㅋ, ㅌ, ㅍ, ㅎ
(Strongly) Aspirated: ㅋ, ㅌ, ㅍ, ㅅ, ㅊ, ㅎ
Not (strongly)...
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