A lot of people have been telling me they don't get the Korean writing system so I put together this guide.
Some notes:
-Korean does not use Chinese characters (hanja) in common writing. I only see them used in dictionaries and newspapers, and only in cases where the definition needs to be clarified. In those cases they are almost always in parentheses after the proper han'geul.
-All syllables MUST start with a lead consonant. All lead consonants MUST be followed by a vowel.
-Stop consonants are referred to as "batchim" (Koreans do have stop consonants) and accent consonants are "ssang-(name of consonant)".
-Korean does have spaces between words. They do however use particles; they are attached to the word before. (For instance, "나는 수희다", in which 는 and 다 are particles.)
-Korean emoticons are awesome. ㅇㅈㅇ
So my name is 문수희, romanized "Moon Suhui" and pronounced "mun suhi". Hana's name is 강히나, "gang hana". Got it?
Some notes:
-Korean does not use Chinese characters (hanja) in common writing. I only see them used in dictionaries and newspapers, and only in cases where the definition needs to be clarified. In those cases they are almost always in parentheses after the proper han'geul.
-All syllables MUST start with a lead consonant. All lead consonants MUST be followed by a vowel.
-Stop consonants are referred to as "batchim" (Koreans do have stop consonants) and accent consonants are "ssang-(name of consonant)".
-Korean does have spaces between words. They do however use particles; they are attached to the word before. (For instance, "나는 수희다", in which 는 and 다 are particles.)
-Korean emoticons are awesome. ㅇㅈㅇ
- Lead consonants:
Consonants are the same as their Japanese counterpart unless noted.
ㄱ - g (a soft g, not the Japanese g)
ㄴ - n
ㄷ - d (a soft d)
ㄹ - r
ㅁ - m
ㅂ - b (soft b)
ㅅ - s
ㅇ - silent
ㅈ - j (soft j)
ㅊ - ch (soft ch)
ㅋ - k (soft k)
ㅌ - t (soft t)
ㅍ - p (soft p)
ㅎ - h
- Accent/"ssang" consonants:
ㄲ - kk (This is the Japanese k/g.)
ㄸ - tt (This is the Japanese t/d.)
ㅃ - pp/bb (This is the Japanese b/p.)
ㅆ - ss
ㅉ - tj/jj (This is the Japanese j/ch.)
- Stop consonants/"batchim":
- ]
Any lead consonant can be a batchim, but some of them have different pronunciations when put at the end of a syllable. I have only listed the changed ones.
ㄱ - k
ㄹ - l
ㅅ, ㅈ, ㅊ - t (and yes this baffles me too)
- Vowels:
I have attached ㅇ to all of the vowels to show how they are used. Vowels alone are wrong.
아 - a
야 - ya
어 - eo (pronounced "uh")
여 - yeo (pronounce "yuh")
오 - o
요 - yo
우 - u
유 - yu
으 - eu (A guttural u, like the "eu" you make when you are disgusted)
이 - i
- Dipthongs:
Unlike Japanese, Korean can combine vowels. Once again I have affixed ㅇ to them. Sometimes they are pronounced differently than written so I have included guides.
애 - written "a-i", romanized as ae (pronounced "e")
얘 - written "ya-i", romanized as yae (pronounced "ye")
에 - written "eo-i", romanized as e (pronounced "e")
예 - written "yeo-i", romanized as ye (pronounced "ye")
와 - written "o-a", romanized and pronounced as wa
워 - written "u-eo", romanized as weo (pronounced "wuh")
외 - written "o-i", romanized as oi (pronounced "eue" - don't ask)
위 - written "u-i", romanized and pronounced as we
의 - written "eu-i", romanized as "ui" (pronounced "i") (note that Kaneyama Shou uses "eui")
- Minor nitpicks:
-If a syllable ends with a ㄹ batchim and the next syllable begins with ㄹ, it is best to make it "ll" (몰라 = "molla")
-If a syllable ends with a ㄴ and the next syllable starts with a ㄹ, treat the ㄴ like a ㄹ (신라 = shilla).
-시 is pronounced more like "shi"; 쇼, 샤, 셰, 섀 likewise are "sh".
-Koreans have a tendency to get lazy (often they pronounce 만화 as "manha" and 만원 as "maneon". Whether they do this or not in songs depends on how fast the song is.
-If the batchim syllable is next to a syllable starting with ㅇ, the consonant "carries over". So once again 만원 is "maneon", not "man-weon" or "ma-nweon" - the syllables are squished together. (When using UTAU though it is more accurate to do "ma-nweon", however.) In the case of a consonant that changes pronunciation, it takes up the lead consonant pronunciation (so 꽃이 is "kkochi", not "kkot-i" or "kko-chi".)
-It is possible for there to be two batchim; however usually it is next to a syllable with ㅇ and it is likely to have been adapted to a more "modern" writing in the 1980 revision. 앉어 ("anjeo") was thus modified to 안저 ("an-jeo").
-Koreans still stubbornly stick to old romanization for surnames (e.g. my surname is 문 and always written Moon not Mun, and kimchi is rarely written as "gimchi" in romana unless you're KBS).
So my name is 문수희, romanized "Moon Suhui" and pronounced "mun suhi". Hana's name is 강히나, "gang hana". Got it?