Timeboxing for Fun and For Profit

Posted: February 22, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: General, Japanese, JLPT, Korean, Language | Leave a comment »

As I mentioned in my last post, I am great a devising projects, and terrible at follow through. This includes blogging, language studies (Japanese and Korean), Buddhist practice (e.g. nembutsu, meditation, etc), among many other things. The problem is always the same: at the end of the day, I never feel like I have enough time to finish things, so I inevitably sacrifice all or some of my projects and get frustrated. I am a real type-A personality sometimes. ;-p

But then recently, I read on AJATT’s website a simple concept called timeboxing. AJATT didn’t invent this, it’s a well-known subject, but AJATT is very effective at bringing such useful bits of advice to a broader audience.

The idea, as I understand it, works like so: if you have an activity you want to do, it’s better to do it in small units of time, even daily. The amount of time you put into it depends on the activity, but it should short enough that you’re practically guaranteed to have time for it. Having a timer helps too.

For example, for my Anki flashcards, which I do on my iPhone using AnkiMobile, I set a timebox for both Japanese and Korean decks to be 5 minutes. Five minutes is short, and may not cover all cards due, but I can definitely spare 5 minutes for each deck. Anki is nice enough to warn me that the time is up too so I don’t forget.

As AJATT writes in another article, smaller blocks of time “invite action” rather than procrastination. If I did 20-minutes blocks of time on Anki, I could accomplish more per block, but I am also more likely to hesitate and procrastinate, rather than do something. The point of all this is to just keep doing something routinely, rather than not doing it at all.

So, I also started trying this for Buddhist practice too. Being perfectionist, I spend more time worrying about what is the right practice, whether I am doing it enough, or is it working, etc., than actually doing it. So, I decided to time-box this as well. I “boxed” my Buddhist practice to just reciting the nembutsu 10 times a day. If I stick within my time-box daily, this takes about 30 seconds a day. Pretty easy.

You can do this with exercise too. I started experimenting with exercising for 1 minute a day. One minute may seem like much, but that’s still more than I did all last week. I found 1 minute of push-ups and sit-ups was still a good workout, and I am less likely to procrastinate over a 1 minute task, than a 30 minute task.

So easy, a caveman can do it!

But sometimes 5 minutes is not enough. For example, blogging a post on average takes me 1-2 hours (like I said, I am a perfectionist), so here 5 minutes is simply too little. Instead, I can time-box to something smaller like 20-30 minutes, and simply finish the next day rather than spending hours and not getting other things done. ;p

But for longer blocks it helps to subdivide them into smaller tasks and timeboxes. Timeboxes within timeboxes in other words. I’m doing that right now with this blog post. ;-p

Or, for my Korean studies, I listen to podcasts that take about 10-15 minutes on average. I also need a little time at the end to put new vocabulary into Anki. So here, the timebox might be 20 minutes, but I can divide that into 15 minutes for listening and 5 for inputting new vocab.

I am still working out the details of particular timeboxes, but having projects and hobbies put into smaller, more manageable chunks of time has helped immensely already. I feel like I am getting a lot more done, and not so flustered like before. To my surprise, I feel satisfied just getting even a little bit done a day, rather than doing it in big, big chunks that took too long.

Amazing what 5 minutes can do for one’s life. :-)

You Reap What You Sow

Posted: February 16, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Buddhism, Japanese, Korean, KPop, Language, Music, Religion | Leave a comment »

I wasn’t planning on posting this at first, but I really liked this one KPop video by a lesser-known artist by Red Roc. It’s dark and intense, features the awesome T.O.P. from Big Bang, and has a surprise ending:

If you notice at the end, the girl in the photos is someone different. Truly, you reap what you sow. Speaking of which, there is a yojijukugo in Japanese, 自業自得 (jigō jitoku) that means the same thing, and in Korean they have the phrase 자업자득 (saeob sadeug) which seems equivalent. It’s likely both phrases are derived from the same Chinese source, though I am speculating.

Anyhow, I’ve known people in real life who have have been in mutually destructive relationships like this (minus the baseball bat). It’s really sad to watch because it also hurts those around them too. And in the end it doesn’t bring any satisfaction; it just makes the wounds bleed worse and longer to heal.

P.S. Credit goes to Eat Your Kimchi for finding this song. :-)

Sound Shifts in Korean Language

Posted: January 25, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Japanese, Korean, Language | Tags: | Leave a comment »

Since I started studying Korean alongside Japanese, I noticed some similarities. However, I’ve also noticed some differences. One of them is sound-shifts. Japanese has comparatively few, while Korean has a lot, and it affects how words are read. This is a little reference post I wrote to remind myself and other language students of the sound shifts, using a Japanese-langauge textbook on Korean I bought a few weeks ago. As I write in the conclusion, it seems to explain things a lot more easily than trying to explain it in English because the languages are similar.

Anyhow, for example, the formal polite word for “to be” is 입니다. If you read it literally, it looks like ipnida, but in fact it’s read and pronounced as imnida (an ‘m’ sound, not a ‘p’). This is due to the complex way the different Korean letters affect each other, and how sounds have evolved over time in Korean language, while keeping their original spelling. Thankfully though the rules are pretty consistent. This post is to cover the common rules so that Korean can be read more easily. If you’re not comfortable with Hangeul, the Korean alphabet, this page is a good primer.

Hangeul Structure

Hangeul letters have consonants and vowels like English. For folks who studied Japanese previously,1 these are called ko-on 子音 and bo-on 母音 respectively.

Anyway, Hangeul uses the consonants and vowels to create “blocks” of sound called jamo (자모) like 마 (“ma” or “m” + “a”), 도 (“do” or “d” + “o”) and so on. Many jamo will also have a final consonant too called the batchim (받침) or pacchimu (パッチム) in Japanese-language texts on Korean. For the jamo above, adding ㄴ (called “nieun” but acts like “n”), you can make jamo like 만 (“man”, m + a + n) and 돈 (“don”, d + o + n). This point is really important.

Also, there is a placeholder letter called ㅇ which is silent at the beginning or “ng” if the final consonant. It’s needed because all jamo have to start with a consonant, so it helps keep this rule consistent. So, you can make a jamo like 안 (“an”) and although the ㅇ isn’t pronounced, the structure stays consistent with the rules of Hangeul.

Sound Shifts in Korean

Here are 7 rules for sound-shifts in Korean:

Rule 1: softened sounds

Many consonants will soften their sound if they’re inside a word, as opposed to the beginning or end (batchim). In the revised-romanization system, the letter is still written the same, but pronunciation softens:

  • ㄱ has a “k” sound at the beginning or end of the word, and “g” sound in the middle.
  • ㅂ has a “p” sound at the beginning or end of the word, and “b” sound in the middle.
  • ㄷ has a “t” sound at the beginning or end of the word, and “d” sound in the middle.
  • ㅈ has a “ch” sound at the beginning or end of the word, and “j” sound in the middle.

The example used in my Japanese textbook is that 주소 or “address” is pronounced like chuso while 소주 or “Korean liquor” is pronounced like soju.

Rule 2: Hidden Pauses

If a jamo ends with the batchim ㄱ,ㅂ, ㅈ or ㄷ, and the next jamo starts with a regular consonant, the consonants sound will change to a double-consonant and you’ll hear a slight pause in pronunciation like in the English word bookkeeping.

Case in point: the word for school is 학교 has a ㄱ for batchim and a consonant (another ㄱ) after it, so the second consonant becomes ㄲ and the word sounds like 학꾜. Another word, 학생 (student) sounds more like 학쌩, while the word for magazine 잡지 sounds like 잡찌.

Rule 3: Filling in the blanks

If a jamo ends with a batchim and the next jamo starts with the “filler” letter ㅇ, the batchim letter “shifts” its sound to the next jamo, replacing the filler letter. The word for Korean language is 한국어 but the ㄱ shifts to the next jamo and sounds like 한구거. Naturally, in the process, it softens as well (see Rule 1). The word for Japanese language is 일본어 sounds more like 일보너.

Rule 4: The missing H

The letter ㅎ (h) tends to disappear in a lot of words. For example, the word for phone is 전화 but is pronounced more like 저놔. In other words, if the batchim ㄴ, ㅁ, ㅇ or ㄹ comes before the letter ㅎ, then ㅎ disappears. Likewise if ㅎ is the batchim itself, it’s pronunciation will disappear if the next letter is the filler ㅇ followed by a vowel (the vowel sound obscures it).

Rule 5: Smoothing things out

This one is kind of tricky to explain. If a certain jamo begins with either ㅁ (m) or ㄴ (n) and the previous jamo has a batchim of ㄱ,ㄷ, or ㅂ then that batchim’s sound will kind of smooth out like so:

  • Batchim ㄱ (g) will sound like ㅇ (ng)
  • Batchim ㄷ (d) will sound like ㄴ (n)
  • Batchim ㅂ (b) will sound like ㅁ (m)

So, going back to the beginning of the post, the formal-polite word “to be” is written as 입니다, but because the middle jamo starts with ㄴ, the previous batchim (ㅂ) sounds like ㅁ. Another example in the book is the phrase “ten years” or 십년 which sounds more like 심년 (p -> m), or the phrase for a plant (e.g. a flower or fern), 식물 will sound 싱물.

Rule 6: H finally makes a comeback

Unlike Rule 4, ㅎ sometimes also makes sounds stronger, more aspirated. If the batchim before is ㄱ, ㅂ or ㄷ (or if ㅎ is the batchim and the next letter is one of these three), then it becomes the aspirated version: ㅋ, ㅍ and ㅌ respectively and ㅎ sort of disappears (actually it fuses with the other letter in a way). So, the word for express is 급행 sounds more like 그팽 because of the way the ‘p’ and ‘h’ sounds fuse.

Rule 7: The double-R one-two punch

The last rule listed in the Japanese textbook I have is for cases when ㄹ and ㄴ are next to each other, regardless of which one is a batchim and which one starts a new jamo. Either way, if they’re side by side each other, the ㄴ becomes an ㄹ, creating 2 ㄹ’s. A great example of this less common rule is none other than Korean New Year, which is 설날 but is really pronounced as 설랄.

Conclusion

This is a brief look at sound shifts in Korean language. It’s an interesting look at how complex sound arrangements kind of naturally “smooth themselves out” in day to day speech. Such things happen in all languages, some more than others, but Korean seems a little more tricky. Also, pronunciation guides in English about Korean seem to struggle to explain this easily, so I was surprised to see how easy it was to understand once I studied it in a language that was closer to Korean (e.g. Japanese). I guess it’s a good lesson in the ladder approach mentioned by AJATT. :)

All you language students out there, good luck!

P.S. Blog misfire again. :)

1 I doubt a lot of people are doing this, but as I studied Japanese for years and now started on Korean, I am trying to leverage Japanese resources where I can. I found studying Korean through Japanese is a lot easier than through English because there’s more material, and the languages are more similar than English, so things like pronunciation can be more easily explained because I already know one language. Also it’s like studying two languages at once, because of the reading practice, etc. :)

Exploring Kim Jong-Il’s death through language

Posted: December 21, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Language | Tags: , | Leave a comment »

Kim Jong-Il from Team America

Reader “Jonathan”, an old friend, linguist and blog reader, emailed me this article recently.

The article shows how newspaper headlines in Taiwan, Japan and South Korea all announced Kim Jong-Il’s death using different Chinese characters, or Chinese-based words.1 In the photo shown, the top photo is of a news show from Taiwan (台湾), the middle photo is Japan (日本) and the bottom photo is South Korea (韓国). North Korea uses the more archaic name 朝鮮, by the way.

As noted in the excellent article, the Taiwanese news used more indirect, polite words like “passing away” (病逝), or “departed from this world” (去世). Meanwhile mainland China used terms (逝世) to describe Kim Jong-Il’s death as they would use to describe Chairman Mao’s passing, giving more respect to Kim. This makes sense given that China and North Korea are close allies.

Meanwhile, Japan and South Korea were more direct, less polite. In the case of South Korea, newspapers used the term samang (사망, 死亡) which is a Chinese-derived word meaning “demise or death”, rather the more poetic and respectful seogeo (서거, 逝去). The native word, chukda was avoided as well as it simply means “to die” and perhaps is too rude.

In Japan’s case, they also took a middle-route like South Korea. Instead of using the native word like shinu (死ぬ), the went with the bland, formal word shibō (死亡) mostly. Speaking from limited experience in watching Japanese news, usually 死亡 is used when talking about tragedies like fires or train crashes were people have died. It’s just bland and matter of fact, but not particularly respectful either. For example if the Emperor passes away, they might say hōgyo (崩御), which is far more poetic and respectful.

Interestingly, I checked out English-language newspapers and there’s less variation:

  • The BBC simply said “Kim Jong-Il Dead”.
  • The Irish Independent, my favorite paper from Ireland, said “North Korea’s ‘Dear Leader’ Kim Jong-il dies on train leaving nuclear nation in consternation” which sounded a little more polite, less blunt.
  • Fox News and Yahoo News both said, “North Korea’s Kim Jong Il Dies at 69

I think this may be more cultural than any limitation of English. Neither the US, nor Britain and Ireland were particularly friendly with North Korea, of course. But also, in my opinion, English tends to express death more directly anyway. I think if a respected US president were to die, the news headlines would be similar. That’s just a guess though.

Anyway, interesting stuff. Thanks Jonathan!

P.S. On a side-note, I often read the blog “Kim Jong-Il Looking At Things“, and I thought the December 19th entry was very clever. :) He also changed the text from “the dear leader likes to look at things” to “the dear leader liked to look at things”.

P.P.S. I love getting suggestions and articles from people. It helps me write about subjects people are genuinely interested in. I can’t promise to do them all, but I certainly try my best. :)

1 Chinese characters, or hanja, are used in Korean language very sparingly. Most Koreans I’ve met tell me they know maybe 50-300 characters at most, compared to Japanese which has a bare minimum 2000 characters required for basic fluency (though usually more are required). However, as explained before, a lot of Korean words are inherited from Chinese culture as compound words, or sometimes more recently from the Empire of Japan as Japanese-produced Chinese compound words (e.g. medical words, political words, etc). If you’re curious, Kim Jong-Il’s name in Hanja is 金正日 by the way.

A Tale of Two Numbers

Posted: December 18, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Language, Latin, Vietnamese | 14 Comments »

While learning both Japanese and Korean, I have noticed an interesting tendency to have two different number systems: a “native” number system and a Chinese-imported one. In some contexts the native system is used, and in some contexts the Chinese-imported one is used. For example for Japanese, the numbers are like so from 1 to 3:

Sino-Japanese Native Japanese
Ichi　いち Hito　ひと
Ni　に Futa　ふた
San　さん Mitsu　みつ

While in Korean:

Sino-Korean Native Korean
Il 일 Hana 하나
I 이 Dul 둘
Sam 삼 Set 셋

In Japanese, the Sino-Japanese words tend to get used for most things, but you might use the native Japanese numbers for things like counting one or two people (hitori, futari respectively) or counting “generic” things (hitotsu, futatsu, mittsu, etc) up to ten. In Korean, Sino-Korean numbers are used for phone numbers or telling minutes of time, but native Korean numbers are used for things like age, number of people or telling the hour of time. The native Korean numbers are also often attached to counting words.

In other words, there’s no real logic or clear-cut rule about when to use Chinese-imported numbers and when to use native numbers. Sometimes one system is used. Sometimes the other system is used. The Chinese-imported numbers are usually more commonly seen because they tend to be very logical and easy to pick up, while the native counting systems in Japanese and Korean are somewhat harder and less intuitive.1 For example in Japanese, the native Japanese words are often used up to 3 or maybe even 2 and never beyond 10. Meanwhile, in Korean, most young people tell their age with Sino-Korean numbers rather than the native numbers because it’s hard to remember how to say numbers like 40 (maheun, 마흔) and 50 (swin, 쉰). Older Koreans will still use the native numbers for age, but you hear that less and less.

This may sound somewhat strange to have two number systems, but English is vaguely similar. A lot of words in English are imported from Latin and Greek (mostly through medieval French). So, we say “light”, but when used as a compound word, we say “phot-” as in “photography”, “photosynthesis”, etc. English has only one number system, but in other contexts, we do have a combination of “native” words and “imported” words for the same thing. Knowing when to use either one is something you just learn.

Languages in general are messy and dynamic. There’s a lot of history behind words and rules that the average person may not be aware of, and it’s not really necessary for day to day life. But for nerds like me, it is fun. :)

1 I think I remember that Vietnamese is the same way, but I can’t quite remember (I studied it 10 years ago). If I recall right, the usual numbers in Vietnamese are of Chinese origin, while the native system is obscure and mostly used in old literature, but I could be wrong.

A Brief Look at the Jeju Dialect in Korea

Posted: November 14, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Korean, Language | Tags: , | Leave a comment »

Jeju Island 제주도

Speaking of languages, I found this article on the Yonhap News Agency about the danger of losing the famous Jeju Dialect in Korea. Jeju Island (jejudo 제주도) is a big island at the very southern tip of Korea and somewhat removed. Because of its isolation, it’s developed a distinctive culture and dialect apart from the mainland.

The Korean Peninsula as a whole tends to have a fairly consistent language,1 so dialects like the Jeju Dialect are not so common. This website provides a nice summary of the differences between Jeju Dialect and standard Korean, which include:

  • Different vocabulary:
    • “man” in standard Korean is namja (남자, a Sino-Korean word) and sonai in Jeju Dialect (손아이). The native standard Korean word is similar though: sanai (사나이).
    • “woman” is yeoja (여자) in standard Korean, and jijibae in Jeju Dialect (지지배). As with “man”, the standard Korean word is a Sino-Korean word, with the native word being gyeojipae (계집애)
    • The standard greeting in Korean is annyeonghaseyo (안녕하세요), while Jeju Dialect says ban-gapsio (반갑시오).
  • Present tense of verbs adds -msuda to the end, and -msugwa when asking a question (variations in pronunciation exist too). Contrast this to formal-polite Korean which adds -mnida and -mnikka respectively.
  • Past tense is similar in that Jeju Dialect ends verbs with -atsuda or -eotsuda and -atsugwa/-eotsugwa or questions. Compare with standard Korean’s -seupnida and -seupnikka respectively.

In some ways, its analogous to the Aomori dialect in Japan: remote part of the country, lack of formal speech, etc. Jeju Island, being somewhat removed from Korea, also boasts a unique culture as well. It’s on my list of places I’d like to visit if I had time and money.2

Interestingly though, the article mentions that one of the largest groups of Jeju Dialect speakers is not on Jeju Island or even Korea. The largest group of speakers is in Osaka, Japan, which has a large, historical Korean community. Another article I found in a Japanese newspaper coincidentally mentioned the Jeju Island connection too.

So chances are if you visit Osaka and in particular the Koreatown there, you might hear Jeju Dialect spoken among older Koreans there and might not even know it. Or, you could visit Jeju Island itself and see if you can pick up any.

I know a few readers have lived and taught in Korea, so I’d love to hear your experiences about Jeju Island, Jeju Dialect, and so on.

1 I have learned that North Korean language tends to sound harsher and louder than South Korean, and North Korea now intentionally discourages the use of foreign loan-words, but otherwise they’re still pretty similar. North Koreans who defect to South Korea seem to face discrimination based, among other things, on how they talk.

2 Other places include Greenland, the Temple of Confucius at Qufu, the remote Pacific Islands, the 4 Pilgrimage Sites of the Buddha in India, and Okinawa.

JLPT: Total Immersion or Else!

Posted: November 13, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Japanese, JLPT, Korean, Language | 2 Comments »

In the recent past, I mentioned a blog/website called All Japanese All The Time (AJATT for short) that proposes studying language through a combination of total immersion (even if you don’t live in Japan), and willingness to fail and try again ad infinitum. I found the idea intriguing, but still resisted a bit, until I saw another blog written by someone else who did the same trick to learn Chinese, and regretted not doing it sooner.

I tend to be skeptical of people’s advice until I hear a second person say it, so that was enough for me. I decided to start trying a more total immersion approach to Japanese, so I did a few things:

  • Switched my iPhone to display Japanese, not English. Most of the apps work, a few still show English, oh well.
  • Switched my computer at home (a Mac mini) to be all Japanese. Same results.
  • I deleted my old Japanese-English dictionary from my bookmarks, and use a good online Japanese dictionary.1
  • Per AJATT’s advice, I wiped out my existing Anki deck full of vocab words, and started populating it with sentences I encounter instead. This is a bit more time consuming than I first thought, but is helping.

It took a few days to get used to all this. On the first few days, I struggled to send email, or find the settings, but I started to pickup words I saw frequently. Interestingly, many of these words were vocabulary words for the JLPT N2 and I memorized previously, but forgot most of them. Why? Because I learned Japanese in isolation. As AJATT points out, it’s not enough to learn words, and learn grammar. You also have to learn usage, which is often vague and hard to explain. Words + grammar + usage = correct senteces.

Clearly, memorization and flashcards have limitations if you don’t get enough practical exposure. It really surprised me how poorly I understood the vocabulary I had spent months studying for the JLPT N2, and how hard it was to read simple things.

Coincidentally, I set my computer at work to also use Japanese only, and this led to an interesting situation. Readers will recall I work in the Big Ol’ IT Company (BOITC for short) and I work as a computer engineer in some critical parts of Infrastructure. It keeps me busy, but I like my job. :) Anyhow, recently I was trying to solve a problem at work, and I looked up some information on Google, but since my computer and browser both default to Japanese, the Google search results were in Japanese. Thus, I had to lookup the answer to my technical problem in Japanese. But it worked! I struggled a bit at first, but I was able to find the answer I was looking for, and keep going.

Separately, I am also currently exploring AJATT’s advice about the “Laddering method” of learning a 3rd language. I want to keep pursuing my Korean studies at the same time as my Japanese. I don’t want to neglect either one, and luckily I found a book in my wife’s shelf on learning Korean, written in Japanese. So, I am trying to use that book to learn Korean (i.e. in Japanese). In a way it helps improve both languages as the same time. 一石二鳥 (isseki nichō), as Japanese say “One stone, two birds.”

Anyhow, the JLPT is officially 3 weeks away, and I do feel more confident about it than I did at the beginning of the year. But I don’t want to take any risks, and I definitely don’t want to retake the test again next year. I wish I had started the total immersion method a lot sooner, but I am glad I started now at least.

P.S. Another 5-post week again. Hold on to your hats!

1 If you’re looking for a good online Korean dictionary, by the way, I highly recommend this one.

Why Pronunciation Matters in Learning a Foreign Language

Posted: October 23, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Japanese, Korean, Language, Vietnamese | 4 Comments »

I found this video on Youtube a few weeks ago, while trying to fix my own pronunciation of Japanese. My wife has repeatedly told me that if I pronounced Japanese better, I could speak Japanese well. I understand what she’s talking about, I can hear the difference between a native Japanese accent and an American one. However it’s hard for me to know when I am doing it right, and when I am not. Frankly, sometimes I am also just tired or lazy, and don’t try. That’s my fault of course.

Watching this video reminds me why pronunciation is so important. I don’t know if this video is intended to be serious or not, but it shows how Japanese people sound when speaking English. A native English speaker can understand it most of the time (the word “either” was hard to understand), but a native listener has to spend more mental energy than usual. It causes friction and makes the listener tired.

So, if you think about it, this what you as a Westerner might sound like when you speak Japanese or other Asian languages!

When I was in college, I studied Vietnamese for 2 years before studying in Hanoi. My teacher in college was pretty strict about pronunciation because Vietnamese has a lot of sounds that don’t exist in English, and also she explained that if you really focus on your accent, native speakers will think your language skills are better and are more willing to talk to you.

This advice really helped because when I was in Hanoi, I studied with students from other colleges in the US. Some had come from pretty elite universities, but their Vietnamese was terrible. They knew a lot of words and grammar, but because their pronunciation was so bad, I could see their instructors cringing a little trying to understand what they said without being rude. I was fortunate that my teacher had been really strict about pronunciation.

So it’s important to develop correct pronunciation habits as soon as possible. Bad habits take more effort to fix later. This is one reason why I started learning Korean: I wanted to experiment and see if I can learn to pronounce a language early on and does it help? We’ll see. :)

Anyway, if you listen to Japanese speakers, TV or podcasts carefully, they sounds very flat and monotone. Every syllable is pronounced pretty evenly. So, recently I try to imitate this monotone “accent” when I speak Japanese and I noticed that it seems to be more effective. The trouble is that when I am excited or nervous,1 I forget to pay attention. This takes time and investment, but I really do want to improve my communication skills, so I have to do it until it becomes natural.

Good luck to everyone else doing the same thing! :)

1 I often get nervous or self-conscious when speaking to Japanese people I just met. My wife notes that I actually tend to over-compensate by being too polite (too much keigo, etc), so it doesn’t really sound natural.

Happy Hangeul Day!

Posted: October 6, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Korean, Language | Tags: | 2 Comments »

October 9th is Hangeul Day in Korea, and celebrates the establishment of the Korean writing system called Hangul, or Hangeul in the new Romanization system.

So, what’s the big deal behind Hangeul? It’s just an alphabet. To understand the accomplishment, let’s look at writing systems in Asia and the influence of Chinese culture.

For centuries, if not thousands of years, Chinese culture dominated East Asia, much in the same way that Greco-Roman culture dominated European culture. China was much larger than its neighbors (Vietnam, Mongolia, Korea, Japan), and more advanced, so the smaller countries actively emulated Chinese culture as a way of progressing their own country. This included the writing system.

Chinese language uses Chinese characters, which are designed for and optomized for Chinese language. Each character usually contains one pronunciation, and one meaning. In modern Chinese, it’s preferable to combine characters into compound words (even if redundant), but each character is still a self-contained ‘word’. The trouble is that other cultures are not Chinese, and their languages didn’t resemble Chinese at all. So, using Chinese characters was an awkward fit. They had no writing system of their own, so Chinese characters were very useful, but making them work in their own language took a lot of effort.

Japan, for example had a hybrid system originally called manyōgana, the Korean kingdoms used the Idu system (later Gugyeol), and Vietnam used Chữ Nôm. All three scripts had the same approach: take existing Chinese characters, and use them like “letters” (i.e. use their phonetic pronunciation) to approximate native words.

This was a pretty convoluted system, especially for Korean/Japanese, and required a lot of training to do this right. Peasants and women usually couldn’t read. So, in time these countries developed more native systems. Japanese women developed a “short-hand” way of writing Chinese characters, and this eventually become the Kana system used today. Kana is used alongside Chinese characters (Kanji) in Japanese, so the writing system is still somewhat complicated, but the Chinese character are necessary to provide cues, since Japanese has a lot of homophones.

Vietnamese language is relatively closer to Chinese language, so they continued to use Chinese characters until the French missionaries developed a simpler, romanized writing system (called quốc ngữ) based on the Roman alphabet. The early Communists took up this system and used it to communicate more easily with the masses and effectively oppose the French. The Romanized system is still used today.

But what about Korea? During the long-lasting Joseon Dynasty, which still has a deep impact on Korean culture today, there loved a ruler named Great King Sejong (sejong daewang, 세종대왕). Only two kings in Korean history earned the name “Great King”, and Sejong was one of them. He did a lot to strengthen and vitalize Korea, but one of his most memorable contributions was his promulgation of a new, native writing system called Hangeul (한글). In Great King Sejong’s words:

The sounds of our language differ from those of China and are not easily conveyed in Chinese writing. In consequence, though one among our ignorant subjects may wish to express his mind, in many cases he after all is unable to do so. Thinking of these, my people, with compassion, We have newly devised a script of twenty-eight letters, only that it become possible for anyone to readily learn it and use it to advantage in his everyday life.

(pg. 124, “Korea Old and New, A History”)

Hangeul was a native writing system, and required no use of Chinese characters. Plus the system was logical and could be used to construct new, foreign words easily. English loan-words and names are easily adapted into Korean, for example.

Hangeul uses vowels and consonants, organized into little “blocks” containing 2-4 bits. These blocks represent syllables, the letters within them combine to make a specific sound.

So, for Hangeul itself, it is spelled like so: 한글.

In order, the letters are ㅎ(h)ㅏ(a)ㄴ(n), which combine to make “han”, and ㄱ (g/k) ㅡ (“eu” as in English “put”), ㄹ (r/l) which spells “geul”. I found a website that is a wonderful intro to reading Hangeul, which you can learn within hours. You still have to practice to read smoothly (and listen to how native Koreans pronounce it), but it’s pretty quick and easy to adopt.

Hangeul’s use has begun to spread to other, unwritten languages in Asia, such as a tribe in Indonesia.

So, Koreans are understandably proud of their writing system, and October 9th is devoted to Hangeul and Great King Sejong who helped make it happen. :)

Japanese and Korean language: a first-pass comparison

Posted: October 2, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Japanese, Korean, Language | Tags: , | 8 Comments »

Since I started learning Korean through KoreanClass101, I was surprisd almost immediately by how similar Japanese and Korean languages are. It’s something you might read about, but when you are familiar with one language, the other seems surprisingly easy in some ways. You still have to invest a lot of time and practice, but learning Korean is easier than I thought because I feel like I’ve done some of the hard work already.

By the time I started Beginner Lesson 2, I already noticed that there were strong similarities. The two languages are technically not related at all, but instead have influenced each other because they exist side-by-side. Linguists call this a sprachbund effect.

For practical purposes though, learning one definitely seems to make it easier to learn the other, based on my very, very limited experience so far. I studied Japanese for years, and speak it periodically with my wife and daughter at home, so when I started learning Korean, I was surprised to find a lot of similarities. In the past, I’ve studied Mandarin Chinese, Vietnamese (2 years in college + Vietnam) and Thai, plus Latin and German when I was younger,1 but the similarities described below are only found in Korean and Japanese as far as I know.

Particles

Both languages heavily use the same types of particles (not found in other languages I am aware of):

Topic Particle Identifyinga Particle Location or Target Particle Object Particle Possessive Particle
Japanese は wab が ga に ni を wo の no
Korean 는/은 neun/eun 이/가 i/ga 에 e 를/을 reul/eul 의 aec

Note: In Korean, some particles will change a little depending on whether the letter before it is a vowel or consonant. This helps the sound become smoother. The i/ga particle is the most noticeable and still confuses me when I hear it.

a Usually this is called the “subject particle” but Tae Kim makes a good case for why this should be called the identifier particle.

b Normally this is the letter “ha”, but is pronounced “wa” in the context of a particle.

c Normally this is pronounced as “ui” (say “oo” while grinning), but is pronounced “ae” in the context of a particle.

So, the sentence “I have a girlfriend” in both languages has a similar structure (particles and verb highlighted):

  • 僕は彼女がいます。
  • 저는여자친구가있어요.

Politeness

As both Korean and Japanese culture are influenced by Confucianism, they both place heavy emphasis on respect for one’s elders (even if they’re only a couple years older), and on protocol. So both languages have different levels of politeness.

Both languages can broadly be said to have three levels of politeness:

  • “Formal polite” speech, as KoreanClass101 calls it, used in formal occasions (e.g. business, talking to elderly, talking with heads of state, etc). This is roughly analogous to Keigo in Japanese in that it’s pretty formal and polite too. From what I can tell so far though, they’re not quite the same, but do reflect very formal, polite speech. More research needed here. :)
  • “Normal polite” speech, again as coined by KoreanClass101. This is polite speech you might use around people when exchanging small talk like your neighbors, someone you’re friendly with but not close “buddies” with. In a way, it’s the most “neutral” form to use.
  • “Informal” speech which is used with close family members and good friends. Using polite speech with good friends and family would sound strange of course. :)

This is somewhat related to the “social concentric circles” related to social “in-groups” and “out-groups”.

Chinese Loan Words

Again, both languages inherited quite a bit from China, and thus there are a lot of imported Chinese words. Unlike the native Korean or Japanese words, which sounds very different from one another, the Chinese loan words are recognizable in both languages. Many of these words can also become verbs by adding at the end する (suru) in Japanese or 하다 (hada) in Korean.

To complicate matters though, Meiji Period Japan also coined a lot of new phrases using old Chinese words in new, modern contexts (e.g. political terms, scientific terms, etc). These words, in turned, became part of Korean language due to its annexation by Japan. So, while there are many Chinese loan-words in both languages, not all of the words are necessarily of Chinese origin.

Some examples:

  • 約束 (yakusoku) and 약속 (yaksok), which both mean “promise”.
  • 木星 (mokusei) and 목성 (mokseong), which both mean “Jupiter”.
  • 時代 (jidai) and 시대 (shidae), which both mean “generation, period of time”.

Both languages also have “native” ways of counting and Sinified (Chinese) ways of counting. In some cases you use the native counting method, and in some circumstances you use the Chinese-style numbers.

When I studied Vietnamese in college, there were also many Chinese-imported words similar to above, as well as two different counting systems. Clearly China dominated East Asian culture, the same way Greco-Roman culture dominated the West.

But in spite of the similarities, there are notable differences between the two languages, making both a challenge.

Writing System

Japanese and Korean writing systems are pretty different. Japanese has two different syllabary (Hiragana and Katakana), plus Chinese characters (Kanji) mixed in to help identify nouns, verbs, etc. Even if you learn the kana, you still have to invest a lot of time learning Kanji as well. It’s quite complicated and time-consuming

Korean on the other hand uses only one system: Hangeul. Hangeul is more complicated up-front than Hiragana and Katakana, plus there are more sound changes, shifts, etc. So, you have to invest more time learning hangeul than you would Kana. Despite this, I still make frequent typos. On the other hand, Chinese characters (hanja) are used quite infrequently, and most Koreans know 50-300 only, so once you master Hangeul, that’s all you have to do.

Pronunciation

Japanese pronunciation is noticeably simpler than Korean. It has a very limited number of sounds, and there are few sound shifts, so foreigners can learn to pronounce Japanese fairly quick (not perfect, but good enough). On the other hand, Japanese has a lot of difficulty pronouncing foreign words because it has fewer sounds.

Korean language has a more complex phonology (set of sounds), this helps it to approximate foreign words more smoothly, but also means that foreigners have a harder time learning to pronounce Korean correctly. Plus, to confuse things, written Korean and spoken Korean are not always pronounced the same (as a friend warned me).

While you have to spend more time learning to read Japanese, you have to spend more time practicing listening and pronunciation of Korean.

Verbs

Some basic, fundamental verbs in Japanese and Korean are different than one another. For example Japanese has two verbs to describe existence: ある (aru) for inanimate objects and いる (iru) for living objects (e.g. People, animals). However in Korean there is only one verb, 있다 (itda). On the other hand, Korean has a separate verb for non-existence, 없다 (eoptda), while Japanese only conjugates the verbs above in the negative. Also Korean has verbs for “to be” and “not to be”, 이다 (Ida) and 아니다 (anida) respectively while Japanese uses a declarative particle, だ instead.

Conclusion

From my initial experiences, there are many things that Japanese and Korean have in common, but also key differences that make studying both fun and challenging. I hope to write more as time goes on. :-)

P.S. Finally back on schedule after two weeks of non-standard posts, misfires, and so on. :p

1 Based on my limited experience, every language you study makes it easier to learn additional languages. Why? Because even if the languages are totally different, the same concepts, pronunciations and such will often reappear. I had given serious thought to getting a degree in Linguistics when I was in college, but I chose a slightly different degree. Maybe I should go back though and get a Masters degree someday though when life slows down. :)

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