Korean Studies
한국학
About this Site
This website showcases the Korean linguistic and cultural studies of a lifelong student born and raised in the United States of America.
Honorific (formal) conversational Korean is used, whenever possible, to keep its content consistent and concise as possible. As an aside, alternate (informal) forms are included for the reader to use (e.g., among peers). Like other world languages, speech level, intonation, situational context and setting factor into native communication. Fortunately for the foreign learner, the Korean language is pretty straightforward in terms of its grammar and pronunciation.
Originally, the honorifics expressed the differences in social status between speakers. In contemporary Korean culture, honorifics are used to differentiate between formal and informal speech based on the level of familiarity between the speaker and the listener.
Wikipedia contributors. "Korean honorifics." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 2 Aug. 2018. Web. 16 Aug. 2018.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License . Comments, corrections, suggestions and feedback are welcome.
How to Use
Korean writing, hangul, is used throughout this site. Written Korean is alphabet-based and was designed to be learned easily . Many of the words and phrases presented throughout this site include Romanized representations for English readers.
The pages throughout this site contain word lists for vocabulary building and phrase dictionaries for grammar and usage.
A word list pairs an English word with its respective word in Korean.
For long lists, a search box (not shown) can be used to filter through the list.
Clicking a column heading will sort that column alphabetically.
Example Word List (simplified)
| English | Korean |
|---|---|
| Welcome | 환영 |
| World | 세계 |
| Internet | 인터넷 |
| Website | 웹 사이트 |
| Homepage | 홈페이지 |
Word lists branch from phrase dictionaries and are organized by category (e.g. mealtime phrases » names of foods | mealtime phrases » names of utensils, etc.) Shorter word lists may be combined into a single list, sortable by category instead.
A phrase dictionary contains entries of related expressions or sayings[1].
An entry is divided into components:
- Known
- Romanized
- Literal
- Honorific
- Reference
- Related
The toolbar[5] below the hangul phrase box[4] links to relevant, online resources:
- context
- opens dialogue
- copy
- copies to clipboard
- search
- queries Google Search
- translate
- queries Google Translate
- view
- opens media
Example Phrase Dictionary (entry)
[1] Hello.
| [2] annyeonghaseyo. |
[3] May peace be with you. |
|---|---|
| 안녕 | peace |
| 하세요 | please [have] |
see also: 안녕하십니까?Not all entries have an attached context dialogue or a media source available on the toolbar. Please forward additions (text, URL/hyperlinks) for review and inclusion to the webmaster.
Contextual dialogues depict the usage of speech levels between younger and older speakers, for a particular phrase or expression.
Example Context Dialogue
I represent a younger person. I use the honorific form of a given phrase. It appears here.
I represent an older person. I use the informal form of a given phrase. It appears here.
Requirements
Take a look at the two columns below.
Both columns display the word 한글 in Korean script. The left column (1) uses plain text. The right column (2) uses an image.
Most web browsers can display the image in the second column. However, if the first column appears blank or is missing text, Korean language support might not be currently installed on the viewer’s operating system.
1. Text
한글
2. Image
Changelog
- November 2018 → Recent Posts created.
- October 2018 → Installed Shaarli
- July 2018 → Installed Completely CSS: Tabs
- August 2018 → Installed Modal plugin written in pure JavaScript
- August 2018 → Installed Pure CSS speech bubbles
- August 2018 → Installed Table plug-in for jQuery