[KS] Re: Romanisation

rupert rupert at aks.ac.kr
Thu Jun 2 21:19:07 EDT 2005


I have been following the romanisation debate for a while. For the last four years, one of my first English classes of the semester covers romanisation - showing Korean students how to write their language in English (it can be quite fun - honest!). I give them MR, New 2000, and Yale and we go through them and write various words using each system in turn - thier own names, place names, whatever. They have to figure it out, which creates a little natural communication. They are quite keen to do it and regard it as something they should have known yet canot tell me why they do not know it. Anyway, as far as I can tell, very few of them have ever done this, except for their names (which they often find, interestingly, do not conform to any of the systems). Finally, when put to a vote at the end of the class they have been 100% unanimous in choosing 'New 2000', the latest system. My guess is they like it because it is easy, not for any 'Made in Korea' reasons.

Rupert Atkinson


More information about the Koreanstudies mailing list