Thank you for your enormously insightful post and additional clips. They made me understand my problem, namely why am i having such a tough time memorizing the Korean alphabet and some diphthongs. I couldn't figure it out because there weren't all that many Korean characters to learn. My problem was that some were shown in the English translation in a vague, non-unique manner, such as g/k, k, kk.
I can hear the difference when you say k and kk. But that's probably only because you said those words in isolation. If, in a few months, someone were to speak Korean to me i would be overjoyed if i could pick up a word here and there, let alone worry about double consonants.
In your clip of differences in English k, i agree with you on sKy and AlasKa.
But how about:
Kate and skate
kit and skit?
I may be dead wrong but to me they are all the same k in these two examples. The k in skate and skit appear to sound "stronger" (for lack of a better word) because they come after a very long, drawn-out hissing s. ???
Anyway, i do hope that people starting to learn Korean and the Korean alphabet will see your post with the additional clips as they are extremely helpful.
I have listened to these double consonants several times today. When they are doubled they seem to be pronounced louder and more aggressively. But otherwise i hear no difference. Perhaps there will be clear differences when they are used in words???
A question, if i may: I saw elsewhere the word for chicken that had the romanization dak and in Korean it was rendered as
닭. I wondered why the romanization wouldn't be dark or dalk. So, i took it to the converter and it immediately converted it to 닥 ! Was 닭 a typo??? (Hmm, i tried to copy a big font for the Korean script but it comes out as barely readable script. Sorry)
Not trying to be a horrible nitpicker but am still feeling my way in the dark reading Korean one character at the time.
I don't know how to explain this linguistically but actually there is difference between single and double consonants to native speaker's ear. It is similar to the difference between English 'C' and Spanish 'C' when you pronounce Carlos. To me the Spanish one sounds closer to Korean double consonant.
About the romanization.. it just never work perfectly. I have a lenghy opinion but to make it short, as you might agree some Korean has a strong accent in his/her English. It is usually because that person is trying to pronounce English using Korean alphabet. Since it is impossible to express English by using Korean alphabet the opposite case (romanization) is also impossilbe normally. I believe there are some international pronunciation symbols for academic study and I have used it when I learned English for the first time.
I made the following 3 videos long time ago and it might help you or it might confuse you more^^ Let me know.
Comments
Thank you for your enormously
Thank you for your enormously insightful post and additional clips. They made me understand my problem, namely why am i having such a tough time memorizing the Korean alphabet and some diphthongs. I couldn't figure it out because there weren't all that many Korean characters to learn. My problem was that some were shown in the English translation in a vague, non-unique manner, such as g/k, k, kk.
I can hear the difference when you say k and kk. But that's probably only because you said those words in isolation. If, in a few months, someone were to speak Korean to me i would be overjoyed if i could pick up a word here and there, let alone worry about double consonants.
In your clip of differences in English k, i agree with you on sKy and AlasKa.
But how about:
Kate and skate
kit and skit?
I may be dead wrong but to me they are all the same k in these two examples. The k in skate and skit appear to sound "stronger" (for lack of a better word) because they come after a very long, drawn-out hissing s. ???
Anyway, i do hope that people starting to learn Korean and the Korean alphabet will see your post with the additional clips as they are extremely helpful.
감사합니다
I have listened to these
I have listened to these double consonants several times today. When they are doubled they seem to be pronounced louder and more aggressively. But otherwise i hear no difference. Perhaps there will be clear differences when they are used in words???
A question, if i may: I saw elsewhere the word for chicken that had the romanization dak and in Korean it was rendered as
닭. I wondered why the romanization wouldn't be dark or dalk. So, i took it to the converter and it immediately converted it to 닥 ! Was 닭 a typo??? (Hmm, i tried to copy a big font for the Korean script but it comes out as barely readable script. Sorry)
Not trying to be a horrible nitpicker but am still feeling my way in the dark reading Korean one character at the time.
I don't know how to explain
I don't know how to explain this linguistically but actually there is difference between single and double consonants to native speaker's ear. It is similar to the difference between English 'C' and Spanish 'C' when you pronounce Carlos. To me the Spanish one sounds closer to Korean double consonant.
About the romanization.. it just never work perfectly. I have a lenghy opinion but to make it short, as you might agree some Korean has a strong accent in his/her English. It is usually because that person is trying to pronounce English using Korean alphabet. Since it is impossible to express English by using Korean alphabet the opposite case (romanization) is also impossilbe normally. I believe there are some international pronunciation symbols for academic study and I have used it when I learned English for the first time.
I made the following 3 videos long time ago and it might help you or it might confuse you more^^ Let me know.