After all this time, it seems to me that for Korean pronunciation, the expresssion of "what you see is what you hear" does not really fit. I can give the exact pronunciation for a Chinese word by looking at its Hanyu Pinyin but I cannot say the same for 한글.
I may have learnt the speech sound for the 21 vowels (모음) and 19 consonants (자음) in the Korean language but I am still not too sure if I am going to pronounce the next Korean word correctly. I think that there may be a "price" to pay for adopting lesser vowels and consonants. The Chinese language with its 35 vowels, 21 consonants and 5 tones is able to produce the fluency in speech without much need to modify the sound of each word during speech. With its limited range of speech sound, Korean langauge will have to resort to other means to produce the same level of speech fluency.
The first technique I learnt about Hangul's pronunciation is to carry over the ending consonant of the preceding word to the next word if the next word starts with "ㅇ" or "ㅎ". Example, 읽어요 (read) is pronounced like 일거요. 기억해요 (remember) is pronounced like 기어개요. 일요일에 (on Sunday) is pronounced as 이료이레.
But thing starts to get tricky when the ending consonant does not sound like itself after being carried over to the next word. Example, 같이 (together) is pronounced like 가치 and not 가티. 못 해요 (cannot do) is pronounced as 모태요 and not 모새요. 많지 is pronounced as 만치 and not 만지. It also does not help when 설탕 (sugar) is pronounced like 살탕 or the famous Mt. Sorak, written as 설악산 but pronounced more like 살악산. Not to mention that 한국말 is pronounced like 한궁말 or 박물관 as 방물관.
All said, I am not about to throw in my white towel. 한국말이 어렵지만 정말 재미있어요. I think it's only a matter time before I get used to the uniqueness of the Korean language.
I may have learnt the speech sound for the 21 vowels (모음) and 19 consonants (자음) in the Korean language but I am still not too sure if I am going to pronounce the next Korean word correctly. I think that there may be a "price" to pay for adopting lesser vowels and consonants. The Chinese language with its 35 vowels, 21 consonants and 5 tones is able to produce the fluency in speech without much need to modify the sound of each word during speech. With its limited range of speech sound, Korean langauge will have to resort to other means to produce the same level of speech fluency.
The first technique I learnt about Hangul's pronunciation is to carry over the ending consonant of the preceding word to the next word if the next word starts with "ㅇ" or "ㅎ". Example, 읽어요 (read) is pronounced like 일거요. 기억해요 (remember) is pronounced like 기어개요. 일요일에 (on Sunday) is pronounced as 이료이레.
But thing starts to get tricky when the ending consonant does not sound like itself after being carried over to the next word. Example, 같이 (together) is pronounced like 가치 and not 가티. 못 해요 (cannot do) is pronounced as 모태요 and not 모새요. 많지 is pronounced as 만치 and not 만지. It also does not help when 설탕 (sugar) is pronounced like 살탕 or the famous Mt. Sorak, written as 설악산 but pronounced more like 살악산. Not to mention that 한국말 is pronounced like 한궁말 or 박물관 as 방물관.
All said, I am not about to throw in my white towel. 한국말이 어렵지만 정말 재미있어요. I think it's only a matter time before I get used to the uniqueness of the Korean language.
Please keep writing articles like this one. It's very useful for me to find out what kind of difficulties foreigners have while learning Korean.
ReplyDelete알겠어요. If I keep writing articles like this, I am unlikely to run out of blog ideas for months. ^^
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