Newsgroups: soc.culture.korean,sci.lang
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From: deb5@ellis.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff)
Subject: Re: Is Korean Sign Language a language?
Message-ID: <1995Jan8.005620.6662@midway.uchicago.edu>
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Reply-To: deb5@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago
References: <joeclark-0201951226480001@joeclark.tor.hookup.net> <3eaffd$dje@jagalchi.cc.pusan.ac.kr> <3eatud$fqh@news.CCIT.Arizona.EDU>
Date: Sun, 8 Jan 1995 00:56:20 GMT
Lines: 52

In article <3eatud$fqh@news.CCIT.Arizona.EDU> hlu@GAS.UUG.Arizona.EDU (Hung J Lu) writes:

>Sorry for interrupting. But since we are at Korean language issues,
>may I ask people a few questions. I am very ignorant at this
>language, so my apologies go if I do make some wrong statements.

>2) Why do I see so few romanized Korean words in soc.culture.korea?
>   Is it because the oficial scheme is not well-known? 

First of all, I think there is a fair amount of romanised Korea
in s.c.k., though it's true that people tend to use their own
idiosyncratic romanisation instead of one of the accepted systems
(note that the official South Korean system is different from
both the McCune-Reischauer and Yale systems, which are the two
most commonly used in the USA).  This implies that people either
don't know the official system or don't like to use it.

>   Or is it very awkward for Koreans to communicate in romanized
>   script instead of Hangul? (I am surprised that so few Korean
>   words appear in the postings. I can understand that for
>   Chinese speakers, but Korean language is now basically detached
>   from Chinese characters, and I would imagine that Korean words
>   are easily exportable/translatable into English.)

In general, it is very awkward to communicate in a foreign script
(I know this from my own attempts to write English in the Hebrew
alphabet or Yiddish).  What surprises me is that more s.c.k. posters
don't post using one of the many Hangul programs that are available.

>3) It seems that the only decent self-teaching material for learning
>   Korean on the market (for an English speaker) is Barron's
>   Korean for Diplomats. Has anyone used this package? Should I go
>   ahead and invest the money?

Depends what you mean by "decent."  I know of at least one cassette
series out there (I can't remember the name, though) and several
textbooks.  The Yale textbook is very good except that it is written
entirely in romanisation, which is mind-bogglingly stupid.  I haven't
seen Myongdo's textbooks, but their reader is good and although I can't
recommend _Speaking Korean_ (the book used at University of Chicago)
pubished by Hollym, some of their other products (particularly their
_Guide to Hangul and Hanja_) are very useful.

I've never looked at the Barron's package, but I haven't been impressed
with their other materials.

All in all, there isn't as much decent material as there could be!

-- 
	Daniel "Da" von Brighoff (deb5@midway.uchicago.edu)  /\
	5242 S. Hyde Park Blvd., Apt. 303		    /__\
	Chicago, IL  60615				   /____\
