[KS] Translation query

Kaliher, Kenneth L. KaliherK at usfk.korea.army.mil
Fri Mar 1 08:45:38 EST 2002


   Excellent decision to go with the "Olympic" system for the LP phrasebook,
I believe.  Not only is the SHI variation from M-R's SI eminently sensible,
it also has precedent in the already established M-R use of SH in SHWI.
(Sorry I don't have Han'gul capability on this computer.)  And the SHI
variant even has the bonus advantage of having little impact on
alphabetization, at least among Romanized names/words.  
   You make one error, however, in reference to the double consonants.  The
M-R rendering is not JJ as you showed, but TCH -- properly UN-voiced, and
not as tongue-tying for the uninitiated as JJ would be, especially if
they've heard of Tchaikovsky.  

Ken Kaliher
Seoul

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		-----Original Message-----
		From: T.N. Park [mailto:tnpark at mac.com]
		Sent: Friday, March 01, 2002 10:18 AM
		To: Koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws
		Subject: Re: [KS] Translation query
		. . .
		A small company run by my cousins, for which I prepare
educational
		materials, took on the contract for the third edition of
Lonely Planet's
		Korean phrasebook. Since the goal of the Romanisation system
in that
		publication is to give the readers as clear pronunciation as
possible, we
		struggled with how best to represent it. Although we have
concerns that
		certain aspects of M-R (as we call it in shorthand) can lead
to confusion
		about actual pronunciation (most notably writing ? as 'si'
instead of as
		'shi'; and the double consonants ?, ?, ?, and ? at the
beginning of a
		word as kk, tt, pp, and jj, respectively, which even the
'initiated' would
		find misleading).





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