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A rare example of a useful Wikipedia article, "Hangul," https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangul https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangul fills in many of the details
by tokenadult 13y ago
A rare example of a useful Wikipedia article, "Hangul,"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangul https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangul
fills in many of the details about the elegant alphabetic writing system used in Korea since about the same year that moveable-type printing began in Europe. The development of this writing system was a great advance over the former use of Chinese characters to write Korean (which is NOT a language cognate with Chinese). The simplicity and consistency (even with five centuries of subsequent sound change) of hangul spelling for learning to read Korean helps school pupils in Korea learn more in fewer total hours of schooling than is possible in Chinese-speaking countries.
- atlanticus 13y agoWhy the hate for Wikipedia? In my humble opinion it is the clearest embodiment of internet ideals.
- tokenadult 13y agoI'm a Wikipedian, and between posting my first comment here and replying to yours, I was just posting to a talk page of a biography article on yet another pseudoscientist who has too many credulous followers on Wikipedia. I like Wikipedia well enough to roll up my sleeves to try to make it better, but I dearly wish that more Wikipedians knew more about how to look up reliable sources before adding edits to the encyclopedia that any bozo can edit.
- atlanticus 13y agoI know the editing wars take a toll on Wikipedians(thanks for being one) but I still have to take issue with the idea that useful articles on Wikipedia are rare. As for being the encyclopedia that any bozo can edit, that is true, but unavoidable. Think how much worse off HN would be if it disallowed comments by any bozo(looking in mirror).
- rmc 13y agoThe opposite problem can happen. I've had a problem with the page for my local hackerspace. Someone nominated it for deletion. I found numerous legit sources, which the deltionist did no research and dismissed with bogus arguments the source (a government funded technology incubator was dismissed as "only a blog"). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/TOG_(hackerspace) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion...
- mathattack 13y agoI've had people tell me that Korean is much easier to learn than Japanese and Mandarin. Perhaps this is why.
- w1ntermute 13y agoThe writing system is easier to learn. But the pronunciation is a lot harder to learn than Japanese, and the grammar harder to learn than Mandarin. There's also the fact that Mandarin has a lot of non-native speakers who are Chinese. I believe 400 million in the PRC, or 1/3rd of the population, only have a basic grasp of the language. Even a lot of the fluent speakers have thick accents. So the Chinese are used to speaking in Mandarin with non-native speakers, something that the Japanese and Koreans aren't as accustomed to.
- b6 13y agoI agree 100%. This is, I think, and underappreciated aspect of language study. Chinese people speak Mandarin with accents, so they're not irritated to hear my accent.
- wonderzombie 13y agoKorean is easier to learn to read and write, but much as w1ntermute says upthread it is harder to pronounce. Mandarin is quite regular & systematic in pronunciation; the tone just becomes part of the pronunciation. Grammar is relatively simple compared to Korean. This is an imprecise metric but it also seems to me that Korean has way more syllables for the same words, if nothing else because of all the particles and politeness levels. But Mandarin reading & writing is punishingly hard. I studied Mandarin for a few years and although I could have some really basic conversations, I never learned to read or write. Korean has felt more rewarding in this regard-- I enjoy sounding out the words and delight in the occasional loanword.
- failrate 13y agoI find Korean easier to speak and be understood. I know some Mandarin, but native speakers don't even know what I'm trying to say to them when I attempt it.
- nerfhammer 13y agoreading it looks efficient but what about hand writing it?
- newsoundwave 13y agoAs someone who is Korean, I don't find it all that more efficient or less efficient than Latin characters. I also speak Mandarin, however, and I do appreciate Hangul's terseness. I wrote my name in Hangul and it came out to 16 "strokes", in English I approximated about 18 strokes (things like m/n I'm not quite sure how to calculate in strokes, so I counted both as a single stroke). Meanwhile my Chinese name is a whopping 52 strokes. I hate writing my Chinese name.
- guard-of-terra 13y agoLatin alphabet's main problem is that it doesn't have any fricative consonants (sh ch j...) so every language has to roll out their own in incompatible fashion leading to confusion. Languages using alphabets specially tailored for them have much more consistent spelling.
- nerfhammer 13y agoalso long and short vowels
- guard-of-terra 13y agoLatin actually had them I think, they just got lost because romance languages didn't have much use for them, and english famously went proprietary with its great vowel shift.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- ineedtosleep 13y agoAs someone who took 5+ years of college-level Japanese and majored in (applied) Linguistics, recently learning Korean in my free time has made me appreciate the simplicity of the writing system. In Japanese, a (non-native) reader can go from understanding one sentence to not even being able to read the next. Sure, there are instances where one may be able to _understand_ a sentence you can't read through inferring meaning from the kanji -- if one couldn't read [水力], but knew both characters (water and power), one could infer that it's "water power" or something hydroelectric. It's a slight advantage to have meaning inside of the characters, however, it's a wonder if the Japanese writing system is too information dense. Now Korean (and my limited knowledge of it) seems, to me, that it might be the sweet spot. It's relatively information dense (takes less room than just writing things in Japanese kana[1], or hell, even just regular Latin alphabet), but it's quicker to read (and write). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kana
- Jtsummers 13y agoWhat resources are you using to learn Korean? I spent a few years there as a kid, but on a military base, so my exposure was limited. Outside a handful of expressions I've almost completely forgotten it at this point (certainly the script). I've spent the last couple years around a lot of native Spanish speakers so I've been relearning that, and it rekindled my interest in languages so now seems like a good time to start on something new.
- yebyen 13y agoOne site is: http://koreanclass101.com http://koreanclass101.com I am not a subscriber or even a speaker of Korean, but I did learn the alphabet in College and if I ever had time, I feel like I could learn Korean at this site.
- Jtsummers 13y agoThanks, I'll check it out later.
- ineedtosleep 13y ago
- ianb 13y agoI'd be curious if a strongly phonetic alphabet/writing leads to less changes in the sounds in the language...?
- jessaustin 13y agoISTM this would be difficult to study for periods that predate the phonograph? I guess one could look at rhyming poetry, but it's not clear how much that would help.
- Avshalom 13y agoRhymes, common misspellings, and often just primary texts talking about how words or letters sound.