Korean

How difficult is Korean? Is it a regular language? Are all these suffixes really as hard to master as they seem to be? Anyone learning Chinese and Korean simultanously - do you often confuse those pairs of words like "xiandai"/"hyundai"?

Other urls found in this thread:

translate.naver.com/
dongsa.net/
sites.google.com/site/newhanja/hanja-level-8
myredditnudes.com/
twitter.com/SFWRedditVideos

현대= modern

Yes, I know, just like Chinese 现代. That is my point - Korean seem to have many Chinese-like words and it looks confusing if you learn both languages. But I'm not sure, maybe it's only my impression, I only know some Chinese.

>Korean seem
seems*

kek

It is pretty regular, most verbs seem to be regular and I think even if you mess up people will understand what you meant.

Verbs endings are difficult at first because they are not taught very well by most resources I have encountered. I ended up finally just finding a list of several of them and learning several at once; most lessons mix them in with postpositions and unrelated stuff that makes their grammatical rules/properties unclear.

I think something like 60% of the vocab is derived from Chinese. If you know some Chinese it will be an advantage to you because you can learn "Hanja words", there are many 2 syllable words that are comprised of 2 pieces of Hanja and you can memorize them quickly when you know what Hanja meaning the syllabes usually correspond to. Even knowing just this small group's meaning + pronunciation will be really helpful for memorization even though you will rarely see them written as the actual character

korean is standard enough in terms of grammar and syntax if you already speak another agglutinative language. for speakers of fusional languages (english, polish), this is difficult at first. (chinese is synthetic, different again, although synthetic grammar is easy imo since it doesn't inflect). phonemically it has some similarity with chinese, although it supposedly developed in isolation

Thanks. And what resources do you use?

finnish is agglutinative right? will it be easy for me?

yes finnish is agglutinative (adds suffixes rather than inflecting). I don't know if finnish also has declension like korean though (identifiers attached to nouns to indicate subject/object)

even if they are morphologically similar, they are lexically very different languages

Talk to me in Korean - Randomly selected grammar points and vocabulary to introduce you to Korean. Podcast + Youtube

Spongemind - Long talks about language topics in both English and Korean Podcast + YouTube, good for listening practice

Dictionary: Daum at first but I switched to Naver

Translator: Naver translate.naver.com/

Learning basic verb conjugations: dongsa.net/

Lessons: How To Study Korean website. This author gets on my nerves a little bit but s/he has a shit ton of content

Book: Korean Made Simple - Go! Billy Korean (I used other books but in restrospect I think this one would have been better)

TV: EBS, EBS 다큐 (various documentaries), 글로벌 가족 (light family documentary), 런닝맨 (comedy game show), Viki for dramas

Hanja: How to Study Korean, Naver, sites.google.com/site/newhanja/hanja-level-8

Yes, it's one of the best examples, actually.
I'm not sure, but if Finnish works like Hungarian (since they both belong to the same Ugro-Finnic group), then they have some kind of declesion, something like "I bus-by go", "You house-in live".

Oh, thanks again, that's a lot to study.

Whoops

What are some good reasons to learn Korean that have nothing to do with K-pop or Drama?

The wages seem to be pretty low and everyone says they have an extreme hatred of foreigners and bully mix raced children so I wonder why anyone even bothers with this place.

TTMIK makes good books, I have the starter 한글마스터 and 2 동사 books. I also play Overwatch etc. in it and have google/steam on it to help me learn basic words and keep up in my retention

Get slang, numbers, and just use/learn them daily

Korean comics are good too

movies, history, travel..

Thinking this way one can say that learning anything outside of English is useless. For example Germany has one of the most powerful economies, they are close to us geographically and about 20% of our export goes there, but you can make all your deals with them using English, that's how we deal with them in my family's firm.

There are people learning Maori or Welsh. Korean is much more useful than either

Aren't you that massive Koreaboo Polish poster?
I bet you can answer to your question by yourself.

>"I really love Korea. I can drink three bottles of soju in one sitting and even love kimchi stew. Korea's a great country to live in because there's so much to love and it's safe. However, when I'm on the subway and it's empty, no one will sit next to me even if the seats are empty. People initially think I'm from America but once they find out I'm from Kenya, they'll start to look down on me. I was shocked once when an ajumma randomly touched my skin."

>His Korean friend: "People also think that he can't understand Korean so they'll put down his looks. It angers me to hear them say things that would obviously hurt him."

>This Korean man was born with natural blonde hair. He's felt embarrassed about it all his life because people who meet him for the first time will demand to see his leg hair - even pubic hair - to prove that it's natural. Then they'll call him a freak or an alien. When he went to public bath houses, people would accuse him of dyeing his pubic hair too.

:(

Nope, he is a namefag - "Koreaboo", he always uses it. If you meet him in some thread then don't forget to write "TAŃCZ KURWO" - it's a kind of warm greeting in Polish.

what the is meaning of 총각 here? is it just another way to say 'guy'?

>history
kek
Korean history depends on Japanese and Chinese history.

It's more of bachelor

kek not even NZers learn teo reo maori

given recent demographic changes, korean will be more widely spoken here anyway

no country's history exists in a vacuum

I see. thanks

>recent demographic changes
I thought Maori are polynesians and so have high fertility rate

Original meaning is a virgin but these days it means young male adult.

they are being bred out by whites, I'm pretty sure there are actually no full blood maori left anymore, we are heading in a brownish half cast direction at an alarming rate. by recent demographic changes I mean a large influx of chinese and korean immigrants. also only something like 2% of maori (could be completely wrong number, but it's really low anyway) can fluently speak their own language. this is partly due to white repression of their language a few decades ago

...

thank you

can I use it as the male version of 아가씨?

>no one will sit next to me
The Koreans are just using their right of proactive self-defence.

>아가씨
>총각
If you use either, you would sound like some old folk.

Just one remark, this picture you posted seems to confirm my first impression that learning Korean and Chinese my by confusing:
English=Korean/Chinese
one=il/yi
four=sa/si
fire=hua/huo
metal=gim/jin
earth=tho/tu
mountain=san/shan
middle=zhung/zhong
woman=nyo/nv
father=bu/fu
mother=mo/mu
east=tong/dong (or maybe initial T isn't voiceless in Korean, then it would be the same)
door=mun/men

almost all words you posted here are like that

I'm getting there. In English I do call little kids "Young lady" and "Young man" sometimes (even though they are like 10)

I just wondered if they are used for about the same age and in the same situation enough that they can be a pair like 아줌마/아저씨, 할머니/할아버지 etc.

The fact is my Korean speaking friend and I were wondering a few days ago if there was a male version of 아가씨 and couldnt think of one

If Koreans want to address some random people, they use phrases like '저기요 (you there)' '아 저기 (hey there)' or something.

I think over time you will get used to it though. You just have to become familiar with Korean phonology and I think you will gradually be able to remember which one of the pair you should be using. If you use English loan words in Polish you probably say them with a Polish-ized pronuncation but when speaking English you probably use the English pronunciation for the same word instead of accidentaly the Polish pronunciation, right?

Personally I don't say anything to anyone because I am too autist and noob at Korean...But yeah I would use 저기요 if I had to talk to someone

I was just curious of that word since i am constantly trying to learn vocabulary

Go on VOIP and talk in autistic korean, it's another key part of familiarizing yourself with the language. If you only know it on paper, and in your head, you have zero practice speaking it to another person

Have you got any job in SK btwn? For foreigners in work, other than 'English teachers', I have seen some Indian engineers at Samsung and some executives for non-Korean companies but other than that don't know how job market works for non-nationals there.

Yea, you are right.
BTW, why are you learning Korean? Did you pass any TOPIK (Test of Proficiency in Korean)?

movies, pic related. If you haven't seen it, drop everything and watch this first.

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance>>>The Handmaiden, desu

The only real human bean I use it with is my best friend but he's stuck doing his military service right now so our contact is limited...I have talked to some random people on language exchange over Skype but it feels very awkward because they are 2normie4me. In Korea I ordered a coffee one time and was very nervous and could barely speak... I definitely agree with you but I fail alot when it comes to overcoming the shyness and fear of mistakes. I know I have to get past that, though.

Why...At first just to solve boredom and make my life feel less empty and miserable, then I made a Korean friend and we became instant best friends and travelled to see each other in our countries.

I'm gonna get a degree and teach English, maybe over there but either way now I have been studying for a year so I don't want to give up until I can read a book and have a fairly normal conversation.

I have done practice TOPIK tests online, just the lowest level ones and I can understand the questions okay but not enough to get a perfect score.

Just gonna be a plebian English teacher tbqh but it's better than my life now

Hes an misunderstood super sayan

Sorry for my incompetence, but what's wrong with being an Englich teacher in East Asia? This type of job is often ridiculed here. Their wages are so low or something like that?

임금 왕

>hatred of foreigners
That's a meme as long as you're white

I'm not

There's nothing wrong with it. Most of the "hate" you'll see for it comes from other expats in those countries, which of course are the same people on Sup Forums.

>an Englich teacher in East Asia
Well it's kinda meme actually. There are quality English teachers teaching SAT and APs (some random tests to go to American uni) as well (I have seen some of them being graduates (undergrad) of Yale or Penn)
If I have time, I kinda want to help you out in terms of practice
T. Korean

Ah, well then yeah you're fucked.

I think it just has a connotation of failure. You failed so hard that the only thing you can do for a job is teach your native language, which (supposedly) requires no skill or effort. I think if you are a man it also implies that you have yellow fever.

I have worked in education before and I have always been interested in languages and travel so it seems like a sensible job choice for me, but I can see how it would make me look pretty pathetic. Still, I hope I'll be a good teacher and really help some kids learn and enjoy school.

I want to say that korean historical sauces and researching are poor.

like I said before, it's mostly from expats with different jobs. You don't get treated badly from Koreans or Japanese if you teach English there, most of them are just excited to meet a foreigner in the first place.

t. user thinking about teaching in japan who's talked to a lot of english teachers there

Don't worry, we Slavs also aren't white, just squat with you friends and drink some vodka together.

Kuuki Yome Asupe

the EPIK program (employed by korean government) pays about $22,000 USD per year + free apartment for a new English teacher (bachelor's + ESL cert, no teaching experience). this is not exactly a high salary

>you friends
your*

>If I have time, I kinda want to help you out in terms of practice

That's pretty nice of you, user.

Not sure where/how we would start with that.

As someone who loves travelling South Korea was always somewhere I wanted to visit and I admired South Korean technological success. Not now.

After reading the very honest and frank comments from South Koreans themselves I would never go. As an Afro Caribbean and as a professional an educated and open minded person I would find it … and I am sorry to have to say this …. an intolerable, backward, alien and miserable experience.

It has shattered my view of S. Koreans as bright, forward thinking people, I’ve even watched Korean films and they were really enrertaining. Now I know the truth, once I need to upgrade my smartphone I will ditch my Samsung too and get an iphone. Why would I support people who hold such terrible views?

Love and peace.

I only write the truth so I don't think historical poor is bad.
You have to calm down.

>$22,000 USD per year + free apartment
Kek, having this salary you would have top-tier life here.

yeah I suppose you have to factor in cost of living. the salary cap for EPIK english teachers in korea is roughly equivalent to the starting salary of a regular high school teacher here in NZ. (I am a high school teacher)

You won't be discriminated if you have British passport, just saying.

>$22,000 USD per year
>this is not exactly a high salary

For me it is

lol. what do you expect. They only started interacting with foreigners in their home soil a little more than a decade ago.

SK has a bad economy and just in general bad work-life balance along with very poor social security for elders, but that doesn't mean you should hate it, Koreans are very apathetic, it's a product of living in a crowded Asian country with a poor economy and terrible politics, doesn't mean the country is not worth visiting. The diaspora in America are plentiful and knowing the language comes in handy, I don't learn a language for business I learn it for pleasure

If you think of Korean culture as dramas you're just stupid, it's like thinking Japan is all about anime. It's unrealistic

Is there a chatroom with voice? Not 1:1 but many people doing language exchange?

>yeah I suppose you have to factor in cost of living.
yep, I checked, that's extremely surprising, if this chart is accurate, of course

I think you're going to find people who are ignorant and react poorly based on your race almost anywhere. Defintely some places more than others of course...But I don't think Korea or any country is totally lacking in people who are open-minded. Human beings are inherently curious and we are group-based animals who have not only an instinct to protect our own group, but also an instinct to connect and communicate with other humans. I think you're not gonna find any country that is just a solid wall of hatred for outsiders.

It's your life and what you are comfortable with doing but I think maybe you idolized Korea which made it fall down that much further in your eyes when you saw it's just a regular country that is pretty ethnically homogenous (and thus people are likely to be ignorant/uninformed about race)...Maybe eventually this disappointment will wear off and you can go there accepting the good and the bad. Again not trying to tell you what to do but it sucks that you were really into it and now feel almost the opposite.

>Not 1:1 but many people doing language exchange?

I would really like to find that.

I feel a little irony.

yeah seems like CPI in Seoul is only marginally lower than here in NZ, so teaching English there would be a pretty poor decision from a purely financial standpoint for me.

Look what I found
tinychat com/learnkorean

Seoul is like you have to spend at least USD 500/month for a good studio (one without roach and own bathroom). There are 100-150 square feet places in Seoul that costs like less than USD 150-200/month but you can barely sleep there and bathroom is shared

>theres only gonna be like 2 or 3 people there

interestingly rents in Seoul appear to be cheaper than here, although property value is higher (mitigated by lower interest rates though)

I think the EPIK program puts you up in an apartment though anyway

Well, East Asian countries (excluding Japan) has much cheaper rent compared to property price.

If rent isn't much cheaper, then most Chinese people in Beijing or Shanghai will be homeless

(Beijing's real estate twice as expensive than Seoul's most well-off neighborhood (Gangnam) despite the fact that Beijing people's average earning will be less than 1/2 of what average Seoulites would make)

Seoul's (and SK's) real estate is fairly cheap compared to other East Asian countries actually. Even Taiwan has more expensive real estate market than SK

how do landlords make a profit if the rent they charge is such a fraction of what they pay for the property? sounds like the definition of a real estate speculation bubble to me

>landlords make a profit if the rent they charge is such a fraction of what they pay for the property
They buy properties with expectation that the price will go up. They still do rent cuz it's better than leaving it empty and it has better profit that putting their $$ on bank or doing stock investment.
>Bubble
You are prob right. Good that my family (I am Korean) already have some asset in the US

>They buy properties with expectation that the price will go up
kek this is exactly what happened in the US before '07. if they go into a construction boom and build property fast enough to equalise with demand, prices will go down, leaving new borrowers with debt worth more than the property secured against it

Chinese properties are very overpriced actually. I just can't see how cities like Guangzhou has propery price same as Seoul or even higher and Shanghai can be more expensive than San Francisco or New York

It is the most problem that korean government intervenes private business.

I joined for 30 seconds and got scared and left when someone said something

that was me

I am We're fugged

kek

...

That's interesting. The JET program in Japan is around 31k a year.

Oh I'm laffin

just like with my last gf, haha

현대=횬대=혀언대=현데=현대애=현뎨
Seem like same sound

Written langauge is easy.
Spoken language is hard.