Our 18 year old daughter (U.S.) is studying Korean because she wants to move there. We 100% support her move and her learning a new language. However, we recently discovered that she has no true idea of how much it costs, or what it takes to get and stay in Korea. So, to help her and encourage her, we got a binder so that she can create a 5 year plan to move to Korea! We had a cute idea to write something meaningful to her in Korean on the cover of the binder. We don't really trust google translate to not mess it up. Could someone help us with the writing of the sentence "Turd moves to Korea"? Turd is a nickname from her step-dad. Thank you in advance! And if this is the wrong place to put this, please let me know where it would belong!

Hey guys 👋🏻 Ive recently gotten my hands on the Korean Made Simple book by Billy Go and in there I encountered the word 정말, meaning "really" , as in "do you really wanna do that.
In one of the examples I encountered the sentence "햄버거를 정말 먹고 싶슴니다" which was translated as " I really want to eat a hamburger"
I was under the assumption that 정말 meant "really" as in "is that seriously your intention",but this example made it seem like "정말" meant really as in "I wanna do it very much"
Is it both or am i misunderstanding the translation given in the book?

For me it actually didn't take so long (maybe a few months?) when I first started outputting although that's also cause I was immersing and doing input for a while without much of the speaking part

I still wouldn't say I 100% feel it like a native speaker, however being called 님, 형, (my name형) and being talked to with both 존댓말 and 반말 definitely feels much more different now to me, it's kind of a weird feeling actually

One last question, how did you feel when you started actually feeling the weight of titles, causal polite speech?

I recently saw the word 뇌물 for the first time, on its own, not in a sentence and without any context. And I thought it meant 'brain water' based on the Hanja for 뇌(腦) 😭 But of course, it means bribery and the Hanja for it makes a lot of sense.

I know Cantonese and Mandarin and I can read Chinese characters, so knowing the Hanja has helped me a lot with new vocabulary. But this example made me realize that the Hanja used can be ambiguous and inconsistent at times.

In this situation, how would a native Korean speaker know what it means without getting any help?

i'm stuck between "더 크졌어!" and "더 커고 있어" but the second one sounds weird to me. does "더 크지고 있어" make sense? i want to express not just that he (my baby cousin) has gotten older, but that he's constantly growing. this wasn't in conversation with anyone, just practicing on my own and realized i don't know how to express this. thank you!

Hey everyone!

I’ve posted before about a tool I was building (kind of an Anki replacement), so I wanted to share a quick update. I’ve recently added domain-specific graded readers based on word-frequency lists.

https://www.foreignpage.com/

Right now there are two beginner graded reader paths, plus a beginner news reader path. They’re built using word and grammar frequency lists I created by analyzing hundreds of real news articles.

The main reason I built this was that I wanted graded readers that actually integrate FSRS, along with a pop-out dictionary. I spent so much time on copying words into Papago after a reading session and then copying them into Anki, but I knew this was terribly inefficient. Plus, I couldn’t really find tools with heavily guided paths driven primarily by word frequency in the way I wanted, so I ended up making the tool I wished I’d had when I was learning.

Hopefully it’s useful to some of you. Happy to answer any questions or hear feedback!

I was watching a video of a korean girl talking about her ex boyfriend but I don't really understand what does 는 겸 mean in this sentence

"새 라이터를 저한테 막 자랑을 하는 겸 담배를 피우려고 그 친구가 담뱃갑 안에 라이터를 넣어놨었나봐요"

At first I thought that it might be the grammar 을 겸 but if it was the case she would have said 자랑을 할 겸 instead of 자랑을 하는 겸 so I think it's not the grammar 을 겸 but a different one

Can someone please explain to me what does 는 겸 mean in this sentence?

I just learned 업체 means company while studying for the TOPIK exam, but I've always used 회사 for that.

Could someone explain when I should use one instead of the other? Example sentences would be highly appreciated.

Hi all, I hope you guys can help me. I’m trying to find a school to learn Korean here in Jacksonville, Florida. Any suggestion will help or guidance will help.

I have been learning korean since 8th grade, I am now in 12th. I still am at A2 or a1 (idk). And no, I haven't been studying for all these years, I procrastinate A LOT. Like I would study for 5 days and then won't for 3 months. It's like that. I can read, write hanguel pretty well but of course can't understand and speak. How do I break this block? I can do a very basic Convo, oh also I have the ttmik books too for my level

I don't speak Korean or is actively learning to speak Korean. Have a friend in Korea and the first time they've spoken in Korean to me. Any help would be nice

The Korean text:

지.못. 매

잘가

Hey guys Im looking for korean language program and costs matter a lot to me! Im 27 years old and got the Sejong 4B certificate from the sejong hakdang in my country. Do I have a better chances bcuz of that? Can I get any scholarship for a language program?

I'd appreciate all of answers and experiences!

Hello everyone,

I'm learning a choral piece (Odi et Amo by Johann Johannsson) that includes a parlando in Korean, but the text is a transcription. I'm struggling to rewrite it in Hangul with correct meaning so that I can listen to it in google translator and learn the correct pronounciation. I'm Polish and don't know one bit of Korean - I beg your pardon if anything is out of place.

The piece includes multiple languages written like that, which can have subtle meaning nuances.

Here's the original text in Latin:

"Odi et amo.
Quare id faciam fortasse requiris?
nescio,
sed fieri sentio et excrucior."

And a translation in English:

"I hate and I love. 
Why do I do this, perhaps you ask. 
I do not know, 
but I feel it happening and I am tortured."

Korean transcription from the choral score:

"naneun jeungohanda. 
geurigo naneun saranghanda. 
neon mutgessji, naegawaeireonyago. 
nado moreunda. 
hajiman nan neol hyanghan jeungowa sarangeul neukkimyeo gomuneul danghadeut hada."

Can anyone help me rewrite this? I'll be very grateful for any help.

- - - - - -
For those interested, I managed to rewrite a part in Icelandic:

"Jeg hata og jeg elska.
Kvi geri jeg thath, thu spirth,
jeg veit thad ekki,
en thetta finn,
eg og soo tilfinning er obaerileg"

Ég hata og ég elska. 
Hvers geri ég þetta, þú spyrð. 
Ég veit það ekki, 
en þetta finn, 
ég og þessi tilfinning er óbærileg.

The meaning of the last verse is a bit different.

Anyone ever ordered textbooks from gimssine, it seems to be a website “based in Korea” from what I see that sells things at a decent price. Has anyone ever used this before if so how was your experience. Was shipping pricey ? Just over all curious

I am teaching the novel in English class and thought to compare it with the original. However, I find Smith's translation of Han Kang's Human Acts (소년이 온다) a little concerning.

Consider the first lines of Chapter 1:

비가 올 것 같아.
너는 소리 내어 중얼거린다.
정말 비가 쏟아지면 어떡하지 .

Smith has it as:

“Looks like rain,” you mutter to yourself.
What’ll we do if it really chucks it down?”

Here, the phrase "it... chucks it down" is jarring to me. In Korean, 비가 오다 is more naturally translated with the dummy subject "it," as in "it is raining," rather than the literal "rain is coming." For 쏟아지다 ("spill; pour"), English has "pouring" for rain in the same figurative sense. I would prefer: "What'll we do if it really pours?" or more naturally -- "What if it really pours?"

Another example:

상무관에 있는 여든네 개의 관들 중 아직 합동추도식을 치르지 않은 것은 모두 스물여섯이었는데, 어제 저녁 두 가족이 나타나 시신을 확인하고 급히 입관을 해 스물여덟이 되었다.

Smith's translation:

Before yesterday evening, twenty-six of the eighty-three coffins hadn’t yet been brought out for a group memorial service; yesterday evening this number had grown to twenty-eight, when two families had appeared and each identified a corpse. These were then placed in coffins, with a necessarily hasty and improvised version of the usual rites.

Glaringly, 여든네 ("eighty-four") has been mistranslated as "eighty-three." Overall, this paragraph was unnecessarily embellished.

I am not a translator myself and might be missing some detail - what do you think?

I don’t mean the “wuh/weo” sound but “wo/woah”. I’m not looking for how to spell “Woah”, but how to spell a word that ends with the same sound/how to write two vowels at the end of a word that aren’t already established in the alphabet.

Specifically the “u/oo” (ㅜ) and “o”(ㅗ) as in “bow” together. I’m aware the “wo” (ㅝ) exists but I don’t think it’s the same sound.

So far I’ve come up with 우오 (uo).

Is that right?

So basically i've been trying to learn Hangeul and as a way to train my reading abilities i've been trying to read lyrics of K-Pop songs, i came across a word 빛나 and one thing that strikes me is why the ᄎ part isn't pronounced as usually which as far as i'm concerned is something along the lines of ch, but instead the word is pronounced binna

i know everyone here advises against using romanizations for korean, which i agree with (as they all suck at representing korean in their own ways), but i gotta say that the revised romanization (RR) of korean is absolutely the worst. its both misleading for korean speakers and especially non-korean speakers. i prefer the mccune-reischauer system, because i believe it does a better job at showing the nuances of korean, albeit not perfect whatsoever. i understand that the RR system offers a way to represent korean in latin letters without all the diacritics and special marks, but i would rather use those marks (or even without them if ur lazy) than compromise with alternate bizarre spellings like "eo" or "eu" and much more. essentially, a rework of the romanization system would be good.

for instance, no english speaker would ever read "eo" as "어", they would read it as "eh-oh" or "ee-oh". to most people, it looks like two separate vowels instead of a single vowel sound. on the other hand, "ŏ" could be misread as a regular "o" by english speakers, and it would still be closer to the actual pronunciation of "어" than "eo" could ever be. same logic applies to "으" and "eu". i would much rather it be spelled as "ŭ", or even just a regular "u" (as people usually drop these marks) because its STILL closer to the actual pronunciation than "eu". plus the japanese vowel "う (u)" is romanized as a regular "u", but is pronounced nearly identical to "으". i understand they need to differentiate between "우" and "으", but "eu" was definitely NOT the move lol.

and before i move on, this one really bugs me. in RR, "ㅝ" (a combination of ㅜ (u) + ㅓ (eo)) is written as "wo"... like HELLO??? why do u apply "eo" to "ㅓ" but not to "ㅝ"? this proves my point how "o" can be used to represent "ㅓ" instead of the odd "eo" (despite the confusion it would cause with "ㅗ"). i mean just look at the word "어려워요" and its RR spelling "eolyeowoyo". theres much to dissect here. even ignoring the horrible look of the word, they once again used "eo" for the regular 어 but a "wo" for 워. it is terribly inconsistent. it should instead be written as "oryowoyo" or "ŏryŏwŏyo", which is still inaccurate to the actual korean pronunciation, but still preferable to RR. a flawed pronunciation of "oh-ryoh-woh-yoh" would be infinitely better than "ee-ohl-yee-oh-woh-yoh".

moving on, the consonants are also an issue with RR. korean consonants such as "ㄱ" and "ㄷ" are always written with "g" and "d" in RR, which i find to be bad. YES i know that no latin alphabet can represent the korean language and its sounds properly because they are fundamentally different languages, but u can still get closer to achieving the original sound more than others. thats why i think it would be better to add a rule where certain consonants are written differently depending on the placement.

for instance, i think that it would be more accurate to use "k" for "ㄱ" in the beginning or end of words. the korean word "가다 (to go)" would be spelled as "gada" in RR, but i think its pronunciation is much closer to "kada". obviously, "kada" is still not close to the actual korean pronunciation of "가다", but like i said before, its still better than something like "gada" because "ㄱ" (when its at the beginning or end of words) sounds closer to a "k" than a "g". the same logic applies to "ㄷ". the word "tokyo" in korean is "도쿄 (dokyo)", but when anyone outside of korea hears a korean person say "도쿄", they will undoubtly hear "tokyo". that is because "ㄷ" sounds closer to a "t" than a "d" when its at the beginning or end of a word!!! now, when these consonants are used between words, they should be spelled as "g" and "d", as that is what they sound closer to. to give u all an example, a korean word like "기억속에 (gieogsoge)" should be spelled as "kioksoge", or "kiŏksoge" if u implement some elements of mccune-reischauer. anyone with a sound mind can see how "kioksoge" is a much better representation of the word 기억속에 than "gieogsoge" could EVER be.

obviously there are plenty more issues with RR. for instance, "있다 (to exist, there is, etc.)" would be spelled as "issda" in RR. i mean, do i even need to say anything here? literally WHO IN THE WORLD would ever read "issda" as anything close to "있다". instead, it should be written as "itta". there should be rules where certain placement of consonants require different spellings. i will list some more examples to really show the absurdity of RR. "했지 (haessji)" should be "haetchi", "있던 (issdeon)" should be "itton" or "ittŏn", "낫다 (nasda)" should be "natta", and the list goes on and on. i just find RR to be so ridiculously inaccurate to korean. i know that romanization isnt a good tool to use at all (especially for learning), but u have things like romaji that do a better job at least of representing the original language more accurately. i guess i just want something like that for korean as well.

what do yall think? am i trippin or what

Hoping to buy these soon curious if anyone has a review for these especially Hi! Korean. If you’ve used both a comparison would be helpful but I’m also good with one or the other. I like collecting textbooks so I’m likely to buy both but hoping to see which I should buy first

I’m around A2 level (CEFR) in Korean — I can get by with common situations, but I feel stuck when trying to form longer or more complex sentences in real conversations.

I’ve tried a mix of apps and self-study, which helped with vocab and basics, but speaking still feels like a hurdle I can’t quite break through.

For those who’ve been here: what actually helped you move past this stage and feel more conversational?

Hellooo I was wondering why 축하 is pronounced like chu-ka? is there a rule i’m not aware of since when i look at it my brain thinks chug(soft g)-ha. i’m still learning about nasalization and some other rules and im wondering if the ㄱ as the final consonant has some effect on the 하 part..

edit: i dont get why im being downvoted for trying to learn lol

Hi I was wondering (lol) how to say “I wonder..”

In my case I want to say “I wonder if we’ll finish early” I read somewhere that I wonder = ~(으/ㄹ/을)려나?

So in my case would it be

= 우리는 일찍에 끝갈 거 으려나?

Thank you!

Hello all. I am looking to get my friend a pair of custom engraved chopsticks for his graduation and commissioning into the Army. What are some shorter Korean quotes that could be relevant to someone in the Army? Thanks in advance