[KS] Romanization systems

Jim Hoare jim at jhoare10.fsnet.co.uk
Tue May 31 18:37:52 EDT 2005


Dear Colleagues

Mr Driscoll has a fair point, made in the past by others. But for all those 
who intend only to use Korean, there are an awful lot of us who need to 
refer to Korean places, people and publications (etc), in a non-Korean 
context. For that, there must be an adequate system of representing the 
Korean sounds/words in such a way that others using what we write, in 
particular, can understand what we are intending. Personally, I found the 
modified - if unacknowledged - M-R system as used in the DPRK to be quite 
satisfactory, but I know that others prefer to have the diacritics etc.

Indeed, it seems to me a great pity that the ROK has gone off on its own on 
romanization, rather than co-operating with its brethren to the North and 
its spiritual brethren all about, but that is another thread.

Jim Hoare

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "lawrence driscoll" <lawdri at hotmail.com
To: <Koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws>
Sent: Tuesday, May 31, 2005 4:27 PM
Subject: Re: [KS] Romanization systems


> Dear List:
> This thread is very interesting, but to the uninitiated Korean language 
> learner it must be very intimidating. Granted romanization is a necessary 
> evil, but to anyone seriously interested in taking up Spoken Korean, 
> reliance on romanization is self-defeating. I say this because, thanks to 
> the benevolent King Sejong, learning hangul is quite easy, just as he 
> intended. Yes, even for the foreigner.
> Do yourselves a favor and learn Hangul from the start. If one relies on 
> romanization at the start, then a lot of time will wasted later in 
> remediation of poor pronunciation. Basically 10 vowels and 14 consonants, 
> and a measure of dipthongs, are not hard to learn. Before you know it 
> those "°¡³ª´Ù" (or "ga na da", whoops...see I'm a casualty of romanization 
> too) symbols will become inscribed in your psyche.
> That it's a tough language can't be denied, but for those willing to try, 
> the rewards are great indeed.
> Best of luck,
> Lawrence Driscoll
>
>
>
>>From: "Susana Luengo" <susanaluengo at hotmail.com>
>>Reply-To: Korean Studies Discussion List <Koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws>
>>To: annehilton at gmail.com, Koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws
>>Subject: Re: [KS] Romanization systems
>>Date: Mon, 30 May 2005 02:18:10 +0000
>>
>
>
>
> 





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