So… you want to learn Korean?
Have you downloaded language apps or watched Korean 101 Youtube videos? Learned some phrases already? They all have merit but if you try to go further without knowing how to read Hangeul, chances are you will become frustrated with romanized English spellings. 한글(Han-geul), the Korean Alphabet is the first thing you should learn. The reason I am writing about the necessity of learning Han-geul is that I’ve seen a handful of learners who tried to proceed without memorizing it and wrote down romanized spellings next to almost every sentence(and they struggle!): 안녕하세요? 저는 민수예요(An-nyoung-ha-se-yo? Cheo-nen-Minsoo-ye-yo). Do you see how confusing it can be? If you are not yet convinced, I will explain 3 main reasons why you should learn and memorize it before going further.
Reason 1. You will probably read words incorrectly with your “own phonetic symbols”.
The first vowel that you might learn is ‘ㅏ’ which is pronounced ‘ah’, like you say in a dentist’ office. This is fairly easy to remember but I’ve seen learners writing down ‘a’, ‘aa’, ‘ah’ and even ‘a’ with a small dot on it to make their own phonetic symbols. I am okay with it as long as you remember your symbol and it helps you practice better. Unfortunately a lot of them pronounce it wrong the very next time.
Reason 2. Romanized Korean spelling is a huge mess.
Unlike Mandarin and Japanese, romanized Korean spelling is complicated, difficult to read, and most importantly not unified. Even Hangeul can be written in a different way, Hangul. You will probably see at least 5 different ways of writing 1 Korean sentence in a romanized way. I will not bore you with the long history here but some names that were romanized a long time ago, are not even pronounced that way by Koreans. That’s why a lot of non Koreans get surprised when they come to Korea and find out that a few of the most common last names ‘Park’, ‘Choi’ are not even close to how Koreans pronounce them.
Reason 3. It’s quite easy!
I have met enough people who told me that Hangeul is probably the easiest alphabet to learn(I am sure you have heard of it as well). Okay, I admit it. The language is not necessarily the easiest especially to westerners but Hangeul IS! I would say, vowels are rather similar to that of Spanish. What I mean by this is, unlike English(‘a’ in English words can be pronounced many ways), one vowel stands for one sound. There are some phonetic rules to follow in regards to consonants when being placed in certain words but even those were made for easier pronunciation.
Conclusion
Are you still reading the mind-numbing, long romanized spelling in your textbook? jal-ji-nae-sheot-sseo-yo?(honestly, I don’t even know how to read it and I am Korean!) I assure you that learning how to read Hangeul will improve not only your pronunciation but accelerate your reading and speaking as well. Go for it! I am sure you can learn it in a couple of days, even in a day with a few hours of focused practice.