How to learn Korean. languages ​​of south korea

The Korean language is one of the oldest languages ​​of the world, which, despite centuries of Chinese cultural influence, Japanese military occupation and American presence since the end of World War II, has managed to retain its originality and originality, reflecting the national character, centuries-old traditions and inner world every Korean, and the Korean people as a whole.

According to many scholars - linguists, the Korean language belongs to the family of Altaic languages, which appeared in northern Asia. It is noted that although historically the relationship between Korean and Japanese has not been established, both of these languages ​​have strikingly similar grammatical structures.

There is a hypothesis that Korea and Japan were at the end of two routes of global movement of peoples: the northern route from Inner Asia, and the southern route from southern China or South-East Asia. At the same time, the movement from Inner Asia had a disproportionately greater impact on the Korean language than Japanese. Chinese culture, Confucianism, Chinese writing, Chinese words, and Buddhist written texts reached Japan after they were absorbed by Korea. All this is reflected in the fact that the Korean and Japanese languages ​​have some common features.

The most significant of them is that which allows us to refer these two languages ​​to the so-called "polite, courteous" language. That is, to a language that uses different styles of oral and written communication with the interlocutor, depending on his age, degree of kinship, social status in society, etc. etc. These communication styles differ in the use of certain words and expressions.

Two people who meet for the first time will use a formal style of communication, but when they become friends they will switch to a less formal style. Young people invariably use a formal-official style of communication when addressing elders, while older people use a more informal style in relation to those who are younger than them, or who are on a lower social level.

Usage various styles communication is a reflection of the nature of Koreans, who are very sensitive to the nuances in human relationships. In styles of politeness, Confucian ethical rules of social and moral relations, enshrined in the grammar of the language, find their expression. Knowing and properly using these styles in oral and written communication is an extremely complex and delicate matter.

It is not clear to what extent the "polite" language and its grammatical forms are preserved in the North of Korea. We only note that Kim Il Sung demanded that the people use a special, very polite and respectful system of communication in relation to him and his family. In "Our Party Language Policy", published in Pyongyang in 1976, rules were formulated that determined the norms of linguistic communication in the DPRK based on the style of speech and writing of Kim Il Sung.

Inconvenience is the mother of invention. Until the middle of the 15th century, the Korean language had a script using Chinese characters - Hanja. That is, Korean sounds were written in Chinese characters. This was, however, inconvenient for two reasons: First, the types of sounds used in both languages ​​differ significantly. This is partly a reflection of their different origins. As a result, it proved impossible to write "pure Korean sounds" in Chinese characters. Secondly, the Chinese writing system is not phonetic, which made it difficult to study.

In the early 1440s, King Sejong (1418-1450) commissioned a group of Korean scholars to develop a writing system that would be suitable for displaying phonetic features. Korean language and easy to learn.

In the course of their phonological research, Korean scientists studied the languages ​​and scripts of neighboring countries: Japan, Mongolia, Manchuria and China. They also studied Buddhist texts and probably Indian phonetic scripts. As a result, the alphabet system “Hongmin jongum” (“Correct sounds for teaching the people”) was invented, which included 28 letters 2 . This alphabetic system followed the principle: one letter, one phoneme. Two, three, four letters form syllables that are grouped in the form of a hieroglyph. In turn, one syllable, or more, form a word. Each syllable begins with a consonant followed by a vowel. Syllables may end with one or two consonants. Diphthongs can also be built using a combination of two vowels. These features have determined different approaches to learning and using the alphabet over the more than 500 year history of its existence.

A few years after its creation, the teaching of the alphabet, as an independent one, was rarely carried out. It was taught exclusively as part of the study of the Hanj in order to take into account the sounds of the letters of the alphabet and their written meanings. In the 19th century, women, children, workers and peasants learned the alphabet through the use of special tables that showed syllable diagrams. These tables were hung on the walls of schools, houses, etc.

During the period of the Japanese occupation and during the Second World War, the teaching of the alphabet, even as part of the study of the Hanja, was practically absent. After the Second World War, the teaching of the alphabet resumed. Children first memorized individual letters of the alphabet and their phonemes, and then learned how to make syllabic blocks out of them. However, such teaching method, aimed at the study by children of sound units - phonemes, and requiring them to have a certain ability to analyze and synthesize sounds, turned out to be difficult for children's perception and understanding.

In 1948, a different methodology was laid as the basis for teaching: from the phoneme - letters to the sentence. However, the construction of syllables, the study of the composition of syllables and words, was not affected by this technique. Only in the 1960s did the use of syllables, the construction of the syllable and syllabic blocks, become the main object of teaching. Special diagrams of the composition of the syllable, the construction of syllabic blocks were developed. These diagrams were placed at the beginning of school textbooks, hung out in classrooms, in the rooms of school and student dormitories, in apartments, etc.

Nowadays, the syllable block has become the main element of the learning process. In Korean, the syllable is more significant than the phoneme. Often a single syllable itself represents a morpheme or a single word.

Chinese character writing - Hanja has always been used and continues to be used in the Korean language. Korean scholars, adherents of Confucianism, created Hanja prestige, which he continues to enjoy today in various circles of modern Korean society. But at the same time in Korea (Republic of Korea), especially after the colonial Japanese domination, a movement developed for the exclusive use of the Korean alphabetic system - Hangul, as a national script. The use of Hanja has been criticized by nationalist linguists and educators, but defended by cultural conservatives who fear that the loss of knowledge of Chinese character writing will deprive future generations of Koreans of an important part cultural heritage nation. As a result, despite the fact that Hangul is approved as the official national script, and despite the fact that the study of Hanja has been removed from school plans, Chinese characters (at least 1000, called “Jeon cha moon“) are still taught in schools. Moreover, Hanja continues to be used in newspapers and when writing scientific articles.

In light of this problem, we note the position of the Korean Hangul Study Society: “Sayings about the limited use of Hanja is a great harm to the use of Hangul, and, on the contrary, the absolute use of Hangul is an enemy to effective reading, while the limited use of Hanja is a friend to him” 3 .

Unlike Chinese, Korean does not contain dialects that are mutually unintelligible (with the exception of the dialect spoken by the people of Jeju Island). There are, however, regional differences in the words used and in their pronunciation.

Despite the fact that the Republic of Korea has a system of universal general education, there are clear differences in the pronunciation of educated people and residents from working and agricultural areas. For example, the so-called “Standard Language (Pyojun-o)” owes its origin to the people of Seoul and the areas surrounding the city.

The beauty of Hangul is that the language learner does not need to memorize 2,000 unrelated graphs for 2,000 syllables. The student simply has to learn the 24 letters and the rules for building them into syllabic blocks. They are easy to memorize thanks to intuition, special instructions and the practice of building them.

Once a language learner realizes that he has learned to recognize and build syllable blocks, he will have only one difficulty - to choose the right one among the known, the unknown, or just nonsense. And he does not need to communicate with the dictionary when pronouncing or writing a syllable and a word.

The origin of the Korean language is still the subject of heated debate and heated debate among all linguists. This question was first raised in the 19th century. Western scientists when the first contacts between Korea and other countries began. Western. Then various theories appeared, according to which the Korean language was related to the Ural-Altaic, Japanese, Tibetan, Tungus-Manchu and other languages. The most popular among linguists involved in comparative linguistics was the theory of genetic relationship between the Korean language and the Altaic family of languages ​​(this family includes the Turkic, Mongolian and Tungus-Manchu languages). Most likely, the supporters of this theory were attracted by the fact that both Korean and Altaic languages ​​are agglutinative languages. With agglutination, derivative words and grammatical forms are formed by attaching affixes (prefixes, infixes, suffixes) to the root, which conjugate with each other without undergoing significant sound changes. In agglutination, each affix has only one grammatical meaning, for example, numbers or cases, as in Kazakh: at - horse, attar - horses, atta - on a horse. The most important common features of the Korean and Altaic languages ​​are further the euphony of vowels, the absence relative pronouns and unions, lack of alternation of consonants and vowels, restriction of consonantism at the beginning of a word (when certain consonants cannot be at the beginning of a word, for example, initially Korean and Altaic languages ​​did not have words starting with "r", "b", etc.

The theory of the common origin of the Korean and Japanese languages ​​arose at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. due to attempts to find out the genealogy of the latter. Kit common features Korean with Altaic languages ​​is also valid for Japanese, with the exception of the sign of euphony of vowels. The structural similarity of the Korean and Japanese languages ​​is more than obvious, which cannot be said in any way in the lexical and grammatical terms. A well-known researcher of the history of the Korean language, Lee Ki-moon, notes that linguists have counted only about 200 words and 15 endings that are very similar in both languages.

Thus, most modern linguists recognize a distant rather than a close relationship between the Korean and Altaic languages. In contrast, among them the theory of close ties between three language groups is very common: Turkic, Mongolian and Tungus. It can be assumed that they branched off from one common parent language (Altaic). Now it is still difficult to answer the question: what kind of connection existed between the language that preceded Korean (Puesko-Khan parent language) and Old Altai. It is possible that Puyo-Khan is a branch of the Altaic proto-language or that both of them go back to an older one. common language.

Old Korean language broad sense divided into two groups: the northern - "Puyeo" and the southern "Khan". The language of the first group was spoken by the tribes living in Manchuria, North Korea, namely in the states of Buyeo, Koguryeo, Okcho and E, of which the Goguryeo tribes occupied the leading role. the language "han" was spoken by South Korean tribes who founded three khan states: Chin-han, Mahan and Pyohan.Chinhan - the most powerful of these three states, founded the kingdom of Silla, which, in alliance with Tang China, subjugated the state of Baekche to itself in 660 southwest and in 668 Goguryeo in the north.The creation of a unified state of Silla was a major event in the history of Korea.In the 7th-8th centuries, Silla turned into a powerful centralized state.It was headed by a wang (king), based on an administrative apparatus that included the central departments in the capital and the bureaucratic network of the country, divided into 9 regions and 400 districts.Silla successfully developed agriculture - the basis of the economic system, as well as crafts and trade. Much progress has been made in science, education and culture. Oral folk art became widespread, classical fiction, especially lyric poetry. As a result, the linguistic unity of the country was achieved on the basis of the Silla language.

At the end of the 7th-beginning of the 9th centuries. the state of Silla is gradually declining. The country is shaken by peasant uprisings and internecine strife. The new unification of the country was carried out by the famous commander Van Gong, who proclaimed himself in 918. the king of the state of Korea, from which the modern name of Korea came from. Political and cultural center of the new public education was moved to the city of Kaesong, located in the middle of the peninsula. Thus, the Kaesong dialect became the norm of the country's unified national language.

In 1392 The well-known military leader and politician Lee Song-gye overthrew the last king of the state of Korea and proclaimed himself the king of a new dynasty that ruled Korea until 1910. The capital of the Joseon state, named in memory of the ancient Joseon, was moved to Small town Hanseong, later renamed Seoul. Since the new capital was geographically located near Kaesong, the formation of the Korean language continued its further development.

The genesis of the Korean language cannot be understood without taking into account China's long and sometimes powerful political and cultural influence, as both written and spoken Korean clearly demonstrate. Many researchers tend to believe that over 60% of Korean words are of Chinese origin. They also note that Japan's 25-year colonial rule, a violent assimilation policy that went as far as caning repression for the use of mother tongue, did not leave a clearly tangible "Japanese trace" in the Korean language, although, of course, they largely restrained the development of a single literary language.

After the Second World War, the formation of two Korean states with different political regimes, fratricidal bloody war and the split of the country inevitably led to different ways of language construction. Since vocabulary is the most variable in the language, today there is a significant difference in the vocabulary, especially neologisms, terms, and above all socio-political ones. It is not difficult to guess that the South Korean press and literature, and over time, a lot of borrowings from in English and Americanisms. In North Korea, presumably, they also used not only Soviet material and financial assistance, but also the experience of socialist construction, which, of course, required appropriate ideologized terms - borrowings from the Russian language. The foregoing fully applies to German in the former GDR and the FRG, but in the separate German states there has always been (with only an insignificant difference) a single spelling and writing system, which cannot be said about the states separated by the 38th parallel. While the "reactionary, anti-popular" hieroglyph has been completely abandoned in North Korea, it continues to be widely used in the South. To see the huge difference between the two Korean states, it is enough to look not only at the shop windows, but also at their signs, that is, what is written and how.

The modern Korean alphabet consists of 40 letters - 24 main and 16 compound. Of them 19 - consonants and 21 vowels.
There are 14 simple letters and 5 compound letters in Korean. consonants sounds. Among vowels There are 10 simple letters and 11 compound letters in Korean.
Total:
consonants - 19 (14 main and 5 composite).
Vowels - 21 (10 basic and 11 diphthongs).

자음
The basis for the creation of consonants included 5 initial letters:
ㄱ (to- at first / G
ㄴ (n )
ㅁ (m )
ㅅ (with )
ㅇ (not at the beginning / ynn- in the middle or at the end of a syllable)
Then the rest of the consonants were formed:
ㄷ (t- at the beginning of a syllable / d- in the middle or at the end of a syllable)
ㄹ (R- at the beginning of a syllable / l- in the middle or at the end of a syllable)
ㅂ (P- at the beginning of a syllable / b- in the middle or at the end of a syllable)
ㅈ (zh )
ㅊ (h )
ㅋ (kx )
ㅌ (mx )
ㅍ (ph )
ㅎ (X )
These were 5 main consonants and 9 consonants formed from them, but there are also 5 double consonants:
ㄲ (ky )
ㄸ (you )
ㅃ (py )
ㅆ (ss )
ㅉ (tsy )
As we can see, each double consonant is formed from two basic consonants. The pronunciation of these consonants is very short but stronger than that of ordinary consonants. In total, we got 19 consonants, 14 main and 5 double.
모음

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The basis for the creation of vowels included 2 letters:
ㅡ (s )
ㅣ (and )
Then the rest of the main vowels were formed:
ㅗ (oo )
ㅛ (yo )
ㅜ (at )
ㅠ (Yu )
ㅏ (a )
ㅑ (I )
ㅓ (about )
ㅕ (yo )
These are basic vowels. There are also so-called diffthongs, these are complex vowels:
ㅐ (uh )
ㅒ (ye )
ㅔ (e )
ㅖ (ye )
ㅢ (th )
ㅚ (oh )
ㅘ (oa )
ㅙ (oh )
ㅟ (ui )
ㅝ (wow )
ㅞ (ye )

Everything is simple here, diphthongs are formed in the same way as double consonants. So, in total we got 21 vowels, of which 10 are basic and 11 are diphthongs.

ATTENTION: Before moving on to the next lesson, learn Korean alphabet. It can be downloaded and printed at . Work out in writing letters. A simple 5 minute workout will help you master reading in Korean.

P.S. The Korean language learning materials on this site are written by one of our users who is studying in a Korean school. Since such lessons were created by an unprofessional teacher, they may contain errors (typos in Russian) and inconsistencies (in the rules of the Korean language, such as: "zh" and "j" or "wa" or "wa"). We ask you to treat such materials as an additional tool to test your knowledge. Basically, these lessons are published on the site for users who cannot attend Korean courses in their hometown.

In South and North Korea, as well as in the territory of the Chinese Autonomy of Yanban, the official language is Korean. Also, this language is alive within various other countries: from Kyrgyzstan to Canada and Japan. After all, a huge Korean diaspora lives on their territories, which has preserved its traditions.

In order to travel to a foreign country, you need to familiarize yourself with all the details that will be needed during your stay. Learning Korean from scratch will be useful topics who plans to move permanently to the corresponding country (or just visit it as a tourist), get acquainted with the culture and way of life, and it will also be useful for polyglots who are eager to learn a new foreign language. To speak this amazing dialect, you must follow simple rules and learn step by step.

First step

To begin with, as in the study of other languages, you need to learn the alphabet. It is essential for reading and writing. Learning Korean from scratch on your own can cause some difficulties at the first stage, but as soon as they are overcome, the language itself will attract the student.

It is worth talking a little about the alphabet. For people who use it in their speech, it will seem a little strange. However, among the trio of Asian languages ​​- Japanese, Chinese and Descriptive - it is the easiest. Korean invented in 1443. And since then it has 24 letters, 10 of them are vowels. In the early stages, this knowledge will be enough to master the basic language.

Korean has diphthongs, and hancha. There are 16 of the first two. Accordingly, the complete alphabet consists of 40 different letters. What is khancha? A few centuries ago, when the formation of the Korean language was going on, many Chinese words began to come into it, which have not found analogues in the described structure to this day. Therefore, the average Korean knows about 3 thousand. And if in Japanese words of a foreign pronunciation have moved into everyday conversations, then Korean keeps a distance - they are used only in official letters, texts on religious topics, dictionaries and classical works. It should be noted that khanch is not used on the territory.

Why is the alphabet so easy? Knowledge basic information, of course, will help with such a laborious process as learning Korean from scratch on your own. Unlike Japanese and Chinese, which use hieroglyphs, its words are made up of letters. And the individual characters that make up the alphabet mean only one (sometimes two, if we are talking about a pair of voiced-deaf) letters.

step two

Having mastered the alphabet, you should begin to study the numerals. The main thing here is to immediately understand the difference when the Korean calculus is used, and when the Chinese one. The first, as a rule, is necessary for counting from 1 to 99 and when indicating the age of any matter. For example, one is “khana”, two are “tul”, three are “set”. The second is used by the population when counting after 100, in the names of streets, houses, dates, money and phone numbers. For example, one is “il”, two are “and”, three are “self”. At the same time, letters are used in their writing, and it may not seem complicated either, but it’s even more difficult, and without mastering this, it will be very difficult to develop further. After all, such a task as learning the Korean language from scratch cannot be compared with trying to master some Slavic system native to Russian.

step three

Step three involves learning small phrases and a few dozen basic words. You just have to start and it will immediately be noticeable how Korean combinations themselves begin to crawl into your head.

Be sure to have a small notebook with you, where you can write down how to pronounce certain words. A great way to learn Korean from scratch is to stick stickers with phrases in prominent places. So the brain will better absorb new information.

The most important process in the third step is to learn not only Korean-Russian translation, but also Russian-Korean. So after all, it will be possible to learn to speak the language, and not just understand it.

step four

When learning Korean from scratch on your own, don't forget about basic words like "hello" or "bye". They are necessary even for the most uneducated polyglots and will always help out when talking with a native speaker. Among the standard words, the following can be distinguished: yes (“ne”), no (“ani”), thank you (“kamsamnida”), hello (“annen”).

step five

There is a clear division in Korean culture into an official and an unofficial form of the language. Which one to use in communication with a certain person should be clarified from the following factors: the age of the interlocutor, his profession and achievements, social status. Formality in dialogue has three stages:

• Official. Used to talk with elders, boss and unfamiliar people.
• Unofficial. More suitable if the opponent is a close friend, relative or younger in age.
• Respectful. It is not used in everyday speech, but can often be heard on television in scientific and news programs, as well as in the army.

For those who are learning Korean from scratch, this division is important to understand. Those who do not adhere to formalities are considered impolite, and thus the person himself spoils relations with others.

step six

Now you need to master the grammar. It is difficult in only one way - in a huge amount. various forms the same verb. And they all need to be known.

Among the most common grammar rules are the following:

1. The verb in the sentence is placed at the very last place.
2. The subject is used only if it is impossible to understand from the context or from the previous sentence what or who is being discussed.

step seven

Practice is an important step. How more people speaks and writes, the better his skills become.

Don't be afraid to start learning Korean from scratch. It is morally difficult, although technically easy. The main thing is desire and perseverance. Good luck!

Features of the Korean language

Korean is one of the world's most idiosyncratic languages, with about 60 million speakers.

The Korean language has been written in written form since ancient times. The Korean alphabet ZS±S (Hangul) is unique and it is also an aspect of Korean culture. ZS±Y (Hangul) was created by a group of Korean scientists in 1443 or 1444 by order of the fourth king of the Joseon Dynasty, Sejong the Great (јјBѕґlїХ). It was from this time that Koreans began to use perfect phonetic writing for writing. Prior to this, Korea used Chinese characters They just pronounced them differently. The reason for creating their own alphabet was that the use of Chinese characters is very difficult to learn. ordinary people, and only nobles were taught to read and write at that time, and in order to combat the illiteracy of the population and raise its cultural level, ZS ± Y (Hangul) was created.

At present, Hangul firmly holds the position of the Korean national script, the scope of its use is extremely wide. Newspapers and magazines are printed in Hangul (although Chinese characters are still found in newspapers), poems and prose works are written, various special literature is published, government decrees and documents are published on it.

The modern Korean alphabet consists of 40 letters - 24 basic and 16 compound. Of these, 19 are consonants and 21 are vowels.

In Korean, there are 14 simple and 5 compound letters for consonants. There are 10 simple and 11 compound vowels in Korean.

The graphic outline of letters is very simple, while the outline of consonants differs sharply from the outline of vowels. characteristic feature Hangul is that individual letters are formed into syllabics. One syllable sign can have from two to four letters.

Currently, Koreans write in the same way as we do - in a line from left to right. However, back in the middle of the last century, a spelling similar to Japanese was used - in a column from right to left.

The basis for the creation of consonants included 5 initial letters:

The basis for the creation of vowels included 2 letters:

The outline of vowels consists of three elements:

A horizontal line symbolizing the Earth as the beginning of all things.

A dot symbolizing the Sun, otherwise - energy (later the dot, when drawn with a brush, turned into a short line).

A vertical line symbolizing a person as an entity located between the Earth and the Sky.

Korean is a language where the verb always comes at the end of the sentence. The other members of the sentence, besides the verb, can be relatively freely interchanged, although the usual and preferred word order is subject-object-verb. In sentences, the noun takes on one or more different auxiliary morphemes, but attached endings to the verb great amount, and all these endings carry important grammatical functions. Endings indicate time, or indicate whether interrogative, affirmative or imperative sentence. Other endings determine the merge of speech, appropriate in a given situation and the personality of the interlocutor.

In the Korean tradition, a polite communication style is of great importance - it is customary to talk in a polite style, for example, with parents, teachers or with interlocutors who are only 2-3 years older, and at the same time, the interlocutor can answer in familiar style, since you are younger than him and this is acceptable. Unlike the Russian language, which has only two levels of politeness - "you" and "you", in Korean the range of such levels is much wider - polite and familiar styles are further divided into a number of sublevels. An incorrectly chosen verb ending can lead to serious misunderstandings.

In Korean, adjectives also take endings, that is, in fact, the functions of adjectives almost completely coincide with the functions of verbs.

Nouns are rich case forms, grammatical category of refinement, lack of grammatical gender.

In the morphological structure of a word, there may be a root, stem, affixes (prefixes are only word-forming, suffixes are also inflectional), a connecting morpheme and inflections (in predicatives).

Names (nouns, pronouns, numerals) do not have a category of grammatical gender. The category of animateness/inanimateness intersects with the category of person/non-person.

Pronunciation in Korean is one of the most difficult aspects for foreigners.

• 1) the presence of such vowel phonemes as va, ve, vo (woo), wi, which are not in the Russian language
• 2) the absence of whistling and hissing sounds (w, h, w, u, s, h) and sound combinations with them
• 3) the presence of one two-faced consonant phoneme, which is something in between between IL.

The Korean language has a rich composition of vowels and consonants, including ten simple vowels and three series of stop consonants and affricates: simple, aspirated, and glottalized.

Such a variety of sounds creates difficulties for foreigners who begin to learn Korean.

The phonemes of the simple stop series are realized at the beginning of a word as voiceless, in the intervocalic position (in a position between a sonorant and a vowel) as voiced and as implosive sounds (not leading to an explosion) at the end of a word. For example, "cap" [cap] - "box" and "cap-e" [kabe] - "in the box". A fluent phoneme is realized as "r" in intervocalic position and as "l" at the end of a word. For example, "tar" [tal] - "moon" and "tar-e" [tar] - "by the moon".

Another feature of modern Korean is that it does not allow consonant clusters or a smooth consonant at the beginning of a word. Therefore, Koreans pronounce the word "stop" in two syllables as sy-thop and replace "l" and "r" in foreign words with "n". However, in recent times there has been a tendency to pronounce a smooth sound at the beginning of words borrowed from Western languages.

There are many features that significantly distinguish the Korean language from other languages. But lately, words borrowed from European languages, mainly from English, more and more penetrate into the Korean language.

korean alphabet hangul language grammatical