Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
perfectly encapsulating all the sounds used in Korean and simple enough for most to master
in just a few days. It consists of 24 letters that are arranged in syllabic blocks, resembling
Chinese characters to some extent but nowhere near as complex. Learning hangul should be
considered the first step in any effort to study the Korean language; it's not at all difficult
and will prove invaluable in perfecting pronunciation and decoding timetables or restaurant
menus.
Not surprisingly, despite some resistance from the aristocracy, the use of hangul spread
like wildfire, but the status attached to
hanja
meant they continued to dominate the written
language until the early 20th century. Since the 1950s the use of
hanja
has declined
markedly, and Korean is now written almost entirely in the native script, which is all that
most foreign students will ever have to learn. That being said, Chinese characters continue
to be taught in schools, and there's still a certain amount of credibility associated with
hanja
fluency, especially in academia and the arts. Chinese characters also make regular appear-
ances in instances where visual impact, brevity, or clarification may be required, since so
many words are written and pronounced identically in Korean. Examples include advertise-
ments, newspaper articles, and name cards. When Chinese characters are used, they appear
in the traditional forms still used in Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, and with some exceptions
Japan, rather than the simplified versions adopted in mainland China and Singapore.
Romanization—the use of Latin letters to represent Korean—is a common but still con-
troversial affair. In 2000 the government introduced a new official romanization system that
was designed to address some of the inconsistencies of the McCune-Reischauer standard
commonly used until then by permanently assigning corresponding Latin letters to Korean
consonants and vowel combinations. While the system has definitely gained a foothold,
some find it awkward and have steadfastly refused to fall into line, meaning that many
Korean words, especially people's names and place-names, can and often are romanized
in several different ways. A couple of common examples are Lee/Yi/Rhee, Park/Bak/Baek,
and Pusan/Busan. Learning hangul is the best way to avoid confusion.
