The Korean script is actually extremely simple. You could teach yourself to read it in just a few minutes. It won’t help you understand the meaning of the words, but you can at least know the sounds. Here’s a pretty good guide. Personally, having lived in Korea for a few years, I take issue with some of it. For example it’s generally more useful to think of ㄹ as L in all cases, not only when it’s a syllable coda, and some of the vowel sounds are especially poor (particularly ㅡ, which I think is better approximated for the average English speaker as a stronger version of the hidden vowel between the th and m in rhythm). But for the most part it’s very good.
But the main point is, even if you don’t learn to read the script properly, just spending a few minutes skimming through that guide should stick enough in your head to be able to easily and instantly recognise Korean as Korean.
The tricky one for me is Chinese and Japanese, if the Japanese text is heavy in kanji. Incidentally, Korean has its own equivalent of kanji. It’s called hanja (the regular Korean text is hangul). It used to be used in much the same way kanji is, but has largely died out over the last century or so.
That was an interesting read. So Korean has 23 fundamental sounds in it, if I’m extrapolating correctly? Compared to the (iirc) 28 fundamental sounds of English
The “y” sound from adding a second dash on a vowel.
The “w” sound from putting two vowels next to each other.
But amusingly, the way I was taught, ㅐ and ㅔ are pronounced the same. I dunno if that’s a difference between Seoul and Busan accents, or my teacher just oversimplifying for our sake because they are at least similar (one’s close-mid, the other open-mid, but both are front unrounded vowels, according to the phonemes Wikipedia says they make, and Wikipedia even suggests "bed as examples of both for Australian English pronunciation). So if you do take it that way, it does become 23. But I’m guessing when you said 23 you were forgetting ㅇ makes an “ng” when it’s a syllable coda? Or maybe forgetting the “w”?
I mis-mathed o. When I mentally corrected the number of sounds, I accidentally subtracted one rather than noting 0 additional sounds from o. Still, it’s interesting that it’s so many fewer sounds. It also sent me down a bit of a phonology rabbit hole, where I learned that Korean was likely used as the basis for the written script in “Tunic.”
It’s not perfect, but I’ve found Chinese to be ‘boxier’. Please don’t ask me how I define that exactly but I’d put identifications at about 70-80% accuracy as someone who can’t read kanji.
The Korean script is actually extremely simple. You could teach yourself to read it in just a few minutes. It won’t help you understand the meaning of the words, but you can at least know the sounds. Here’s a pretty good guide. Personally, having lived in Korea for a few years, I take issue with some of it. For example it’s generally more useful to think of ㄹ as L in all cases, not only when it’s a syllable coda, and some of the vowel sounds are especially poor (particularly ㅡ, which I think is better approximated for the average English speaker as a stronger version of the hidden vowel between the th and m in rhythm). But for the most part it’s very good.
But the main point is, even if you don’t learn to read the script properly, just spending a few minutes skimming through that guide should stick enough in your head to be able to easily and instantly recognise Korean as Korean.
The tricky one for me is Chinese and Japanese, if the Japanese text is heavy in kanji. Incidentally, Korean has its own equivalent of kanji. It’s called hanja (the regular Korean text is hangul). It used to be used in much the same way kanji is, but has largely died out over the last century or so.
That was an interesting read. So Korean has 23 fundamental sounds in it, if I’m extrapolating correctly? Compared to the (iirc) 28 fundamental sounds of English
I would say 24 based on that guide.
14 consonants with their own characters.
8 vowels.
The “y” sound from adding a second dash on a vowel.
The “w” sound from putting two vowels next to each other.
But amusingly, the way I was taught, ㅐ and ㅔ are pronounced the same. I dunno if that’s a difference between Seoul and Busan accents, or my teacher just oversimplifying for our sake because they are at least similar (one’s close-mid, the other open-mid, but both are front unrounded vowels, according to the phonemes Wikipedia says they make, and Wikipedia even suggests "bed as examples of both for Australian English pronunciation). So if you do take it that way, it does become 23. But I’m guessing when you said 23 you were forgetting ㅇ makes an “ng” when it’s a syllable coda? Or maybe forgetting the “w”?
I mis-mathed o. When I mentally corrected the number of sounds, I accidentally subtracted one rather than noting 0 additional sounds from o. Still, it’s interesting that it’s so many fewer sounds. It also sent me down a bit of a phonology rabbit hole, where I learned that Korean was likely used as the basis for the written script in “Tunic.”
It’s not perfect, but I’ve found Chinese to be ‘boxier’. Please don’t ask me how I define that exactly but I’d put identifications at about 70-80% accuracy as someone who can’t read kanji.