But, if you can already read and write, I still recommend you sign up for those videos, ’cause on the same page as the videos, at the bottom, there’ll be another video explaining how you can get the 3 classes (about 3 more hours) of the online class for free as well. And once you get those, you’ll be taken to a page that’ll have all sorts of info about the online class, including a link to register if you feel so inclined.

Hope that helps,

Cheers!

And it’s true, there’ll never be a perfect system, the languages and their sounds are just different in a lot of cases. I’m not quite sure what you mean about preserving the meaning though, in regards to the way the words are spelled in English.

Romanisation for Korean is always going to be a compromise between making the correct sound and preserving the meaning. Hangeul itself has this issue (and they’ve opted generally for the latter). I think that’s why they keep flip-flopping on romanisation systems.

Rob…

I could follow you in your message until you gave the example between ‘han’ and ‘man’. I would just like to clarify…
Here’s my question: When I pronounced ‘한’ I said it as a Jamaican would say “mon”. (I hope that example works, haha). You said that with the Romanization, people (ignorant of the true Korean spelling) would say it as ‘man” instead of something more along the lines of the correct “Hon”.
I hope that’s what you meant, ’cause if it is… I’m with you all the way.

-Galinaros

Yeah, it totally does, but when it gets written as an ‘a’, in most words that leads people to say the short ‘a’ sound as in ‘cat’ or ‘ham’. Words like father and that are kind of exceptions to the rule (as a N.American would say them). Does that make sense? So for example, the Han River. If I was to read that not knowing it was ‘한’, I would say ‘han’, rhyming with ‘man’. Where as Hon would read more accurately. I don’t know. That’s just what I think anyways.

About the revision of the Romanization of Korean letters: I completely agree. Now that I’ve picked up a good deal of Hangeul, I must say that the Romanization was nearly useless. It’s only in scenarios where they compare the sound of a well-known English word to the Hangeul sound that I had the easiest time.
I tried using the IPA for Korean a few days ago to help me out, and (of course) it had all sorts of strange symbols to represent sounds. Unless you’re a schooled linguist, there’s no way you would use that to learn a language.

Oh, yes. I disagree with one of your suggestions: I’ve always thought that “ㅏ” sounded like “ah” (as the ‘a’ from the word father) or ‘ah’ in the popular sound “ah-ha!”. Please, tell me if this sound is wrong.

-Galinaros

I don’t have it organized yet, but if you haven’t learned how to read in a few weeks, I should have a (totally free) package put together which is exactly for someone in your situation.