Hey guys,
We’re doing introductions all day, so here’s mine: I’m Alex and I’m the founder of this blog. I started this tumblr when someone asked me to on my personal account and it gained a lot more momentum than I expected.
I’m a second generation Korean-American from Northern California and speak English as my first language. I went to Korean language schools since I was about five, and attended them all the way through high school. Unfortunately, I never really paid much attention during those classes, so my working knowledge of Korean is pretty limited. I can help with basic grammar and maybe pronunciation, and pretty much elementary topics like colors and directions and stuff like that. If you’re interested at all, I can also answer questions about my experiences as a Korean-American, like how my family celebrates holidays or how we use the language.
If you want to learn more about me, just ask me over on my personal tumblr, otherwise I look forward to answering any questions you might have on Korean!
AnonymousMuch more concrete than the explanation I gave. Thanks Anon!
If you don’t know what assimilation is as it pertains to linguistics, check out the Wikipedia article.
I’ve been trying to think of a linguistic or formulaic reason why ㅂ is pronounced with a ‘m’ sound for a while and can’t think of any better reason than it’s easier to say. Like other languages, Koreans like to change and morph the language in order to make things easier to pronounce or simply because tastes change.
To answer your question more specifically, there are a few consonants that do this in addition to ㅂ. The consonants ㄱ,ㄷ,ㅇ, and ㅊ come to mind first. These consonants (with the exception of ㅇ) have a harder sound that wouldn’t really work at the end of a character. So to solve this, they are usually turned into plosives, changing their sounds a bit, depending on the consonant. ㅇ typically has no sound as the first consonant, but is pronounced with a ‘ng’ plosive sound as the second. All this turns into a sort of slurring or running words together, changing the sound almost entirely. For example, in 감사합니다, the ‘b’ sound is pronounced as an ‘m’ because it flows better. If you pronounce it slower, each sound is more emphasized, but if you start saying it faster and faster, your brain just kind of automatically starts making that change.
I’ve never really thought of about this phenomenon, so I don’t have a better answer. I can’t remember if this happens with any other consonants except these hard ones, so I think this might be it for special pronunciations. Let us know if we need to do a better job explaining it.
Ack! Sorry for taking to long to answer your question! It’s just a very hard question to answer.
When you say “ㅐ”, it comes from the top of the throat, towards the front. It has more of a rounded sound and is higher in terms of pitch. To me, it sounds more like an “a”, but the difference in pronunciation is minimal.
“ㅔ” is much lower and comes from the bottom of the throat and towards the back. The way I pronounce it is a little more monotone than “ㅐ”, to help make it sound deeper.
I’ve actually made a video to help make the difference, but not sure that it would be helpful. When I was listening back to it, I couldn’t hear any difference and I’m the one who said it, but if you want to hear it, just send us another ask and I can upload it to tumblr. Hope that was helpful, but if it wasn’t don’t hesitate to ask us again!
AnonymousThis is an excellent question, since it may help some people.
Now, if you’ve read all of my lessons - first of all, thank you - you have about as much knowledge about Korean as me. So it’s probably best I tell you guys some tricks I use to get decent translations out of Google Translate. All of these are assuming that normal sentence structure is used and not, say, internet short hand.
Sorry, but that’s not what I do on this blog.
I did not start this blog as a translation site. I’m not even that great at Korean. I started this blog as a way to help inspire myself and others to learn the language.
That all said, I’m not equipped to translate this, mainly because I suspect they’re song lyrics, seeing how 신나게 (shi-na-ge) or chorus shows up a couple times. Song lyrics use a different set of rules for conjugation, one that I’m not familiar with. There’s also a formatting issue that I can’t fix without being familiar with the song.
AnonymousSorry Anon, you’ve got the wrong guy.
Leaving the fact that I try not to make this blog about that kind of stuff, this blog is not meant to be a translator/transcriber. I can offer help in small instances like a sentence or spelling or something like that, but asking for a transcript is a little unreasonable. I’m sorry I can’t be of more help, but it’s probably best to ask a fellow fan to work it out with you.
Thanks for the kinds words and sorry again about my uselessness.
Oh wow, look at that. Answers. This is unprecedented. Okay. Uhm… I have midterms until Friday the 19th, so I won’t be able to post my lesson for a while, but rest assured, a lesson is forthcoming!
Special attention will be paid to Lee Hyori. Not really. Maybe.
Just a quick note while I’m thinking about it, but I will no longer be using formstack, formerly known as formspring for submissions. From now on, if you guys have any questions, requests, or critiques, please send it with tumblr ask.
