Cléa, 16 years old, originally from France, now lives in Seoul. Here, she gives Maxime and me a small lesson in the Korean alphabet, key phrases and numbers. Surprisingly, it is less complicated than it looks. This recording was made on March 04, 2023.
Transcript
Frank So, hello everybody, welcome to Cléa’s Korean 101. And she is going to explain to us the little bits that she already has learned about speaking and learning Korean, I do want to make one little observation, which makes this particular lesson, it’s going to be a Korean lesson for Maxime and for myself. Good morning, Maxime.
Maxime Good morning.
Frank Good morning, Cléa. Hello, Cléa?
Cléa Good morning.
Frank Good morning, Oh, no, good afternoon in your case. Now, what is I think important to understand is that, Cléa, you are a French native speaker. You live in Seoul. And you are going to teach us a little bit of Korean. And you’re going to do this in English.
Cléa Yes.
Frank So I think that that is a really important thing to understand. Your first language, your native language is French. You are going to teach us a second language, and for Maxime and for me to understand it, because Maxime’s English is excellent, and my English is not so good. We’re going to do this in English. So, I think this is a really important, important thing So Miss Teacher, we bow to you. Cléa, it’s all yours. Tell us a little bit about what you know of the Korean language.
Cléa Can I share my screen?
Frank You can do that.
Cléa So at first, the basic thing of the Korean alphabet is the Hangul. So, it’s the name of the letters in the Korean letters. So, you have to know that there are two parts in the Korean language. So as in French or in any Western language, you have vowels and consonants. So, it’s not really like you don’t have to translate it as a French language or as I said, a European language, because it’s not really letters. It’s about the pronunciation and not about the letters. For example, this is just like sounds that you will make with your mouth. Like when you speak, it’s all about song. So, you have vowels and consonants, and you can make sentences or words with just these two things. So for example, you can take
Frank I have a question, Miss Teacher. Can we go back to the pronunciation? You have it in Korean characters, and then you have the Latin letters underneath. And so I would say that the first letter from an English mentality is A, and then the second letter would be A, and then the third letter would be O, and your, and O, and yo, and you. And the rest is too confusing because I see the European Union there, and that blocks me.
Cléa Okay, so this is, it’s not like this as well, because it’s Korean. So you, this is A, and ya, and this is A, yo, and ou, yo, and then ou, and yo, and here eu, and I. And so this is easy because you just have to know these letters. And when you make the second, the second trait here, it’s make like the y. So YA, and same for this, just ou, and yo, and ou, and yo, the second trait.
Frank There is logic, isn’t there? Because the first concept, the first, sorry, the first vowel, you have the line and the little line coming from the side. Then you have two lines, and then you have it in reverse, and then you have two lines in reverse. So, and then, and then you have a line at the bottom, and something poking up, and two poking up, and then you have, it is, it is logical.
Cléa Yeah, yeah, of course, as I said, like, I learned it for like two weeks, it took me two weeks to learn it, and that’s so that you can read it and maybe write it, but it’s really hard. But yeah.
Frank Okay, so, so, Maxime, can you can you please pronounce the the vowels for us?
Maxime Yes. So, it’s a little bit difficult. Yeah, oh, yo, oh, yo, oh, you, oh, he, so the E is the easier. The rest is a little bit confused.
Frank Okay. All right. How was that? Cléa, was that, was that okay, the pronunciation?
Cléa Yeah.
Frank Okay. All right. So, let’s go to the consonants.
Cléa So consonants is not that difficult, because it’s just like words, so C, M, Z, L, M, B, C, M, so this is like, it can be mute, but you can have like, M, so with like things like this here, maybe yang, and zhi, shi, ke, te, he, and it’s like H, so he.
Frank Okay, so can we, can we just, can you just go through that again, and we repeat after you, um, Cléa?
Cléa Okay. Ke.
Frank Ke.
Cléa Le.
Frank Okay, Maxine, quickly. Off you go.
Maxime I need to try. So if I understand, the pronunciation is just like the sound in French word.
Cléa Yes.
Maxime The pronunciation in Korean is the sound in French. So, yeah. Okay. So, K, N, D, U, M, B, C, and G is difficult. Can you repeat that?
Frank Can you repeat this one?
Maxime Can you repeat the H? Yes. Yes.
Cléa Okay. So with vowels and consonants, you can have a word. So for example, if you want to say America, in Korean it’s 미국. So you just have to take the M and the I. So it’s 미. It’s like this. You have to have a Q to have a good sentence. And so, 미 and then 우. So it’s 그. 우 and 그. And so it’s like this. And you have 미국.
Frank So when you actually start to learn this language, you have to take all the little lines that make up the vowels and the consonants and put them together in a little square. Yeah.
Cléa Yes.
Frank Okay.
Maxime But I have a question because the symbol is different between the, so there are two 그 in consonants. Yes. How can I choose the good one for the, for the word?
Cléa This is more 그. 그, 그. It’s like between 그 and 그. And this is more 그 like, like this. But I think you, at first you can’t really know like, you couldn’t know what to choose. You just, I think you have to read it or learn it. Maybe. I don’t know.
Frank Well, Maxime, Clea did say in two weeks we can do all of this. So I think, you know, it’s okay.
Maxime Okay.
Frank So basically learning Korean is taking the alphabet in its little components, in its little pieces and then sticking them together. So copier coller. Yes. But, but you have to learn it. You have to memorize it. That’s the difficulty.
Cléa Yes. Yeah. Okay. All right.
Frank Okay. Sounds fun. Very short alphabet. Okay. I like that. So we come back to that later. Maxime, I think this is going to be fun.
Cléa This is really important part. So this is the basic, like when you go to Korea, you will often heard about this word and to know that it’s really important to know that, yeah, you will often heard the same words because they don’t have many, many vocabulary. It’s when they speak, it looked like they’re speaking. When they speak, it looked like this, that they say it like every time the same word. And yes, there are, there are actually because it’s really a small vocabulary.
Frank Okay. So, so you look like, so, so what we see here was we have formal phrases and informal phrases. So it’s like the, in French, we have the vous and the tu.
Cléa Yes. It’s like that.
Frank It’s like that in German.
Cléa But they don’t have a subject.
Frank They don’t have a subject.
Cléa No, they speak with the name of the person.
Frank So I would say, hello Cléa. That would be the, okay. So, so I see the, so this is interesting. I can see now, because the way you showed us the alphabet, you, I can now understand that there’s lots of little pieces of lines put together. But I don’t know how to pronounce it.
Cléa Yeah. So at first there’s, I didn’t say that. So there are two parts in the Korean language, the formal phrases and informal phrases. So, because it’s really important for Korean people to have this respect when they speak to older people or someone who is higher than them in their jobs or when it’s like their boss or anything like this. So it’s really important. It’s yeah.
Frank Okay. So, so that, how do you pronounce the formal hello? Do you know how to pronounce the formal hello?
Cléa So this is Annyeong Aseyo.
Frank One more time.
Cléa This is Annyeong Aseyo. And this is Annyeong. So this is Annyeong Aseyo. Annyeong. So the Aseyo, you just add the Aseyo for making this formal. And if you don’t want to, you just Annyeong. It’s like hi.
Frank Okay. So, so how does, how does this work? I could address, if I see you and Maxime, I could say Annyeong, which is the informal way of saying hi, but you would address me, because I’m just a little bit older than you, not much. You would reply to me Han, Han-yeong Aseyo.
Cléa Yes. Okay. Han-yeong,
Frank Han-yeong Aseyo and Han-yeong.
Cléa Yes.
Frank And then I would go and I would do it like this Han-yeong, Han-yeong Cléa and Han-yeong Maxime.
Cléa Yeah.
Frank Okay. And then what would you reply, Maxime?
Maxime Han-yeong Frank and Han-yeong Cléa. Han-yeong Aseyo. I can see the, in the formal phrase that the Aseyo, so it’s the same for hello, bye, with an exclamation point. So it’s the, the, the third, the three last symbols. So the, the, the three late symbols represent the formal phrase.
Cléa Yeah. When you, yeah, it’s usually when you make Aseyo, it’s formal or Im-mi-da at the end of your phrase. So Im-mi-da or Aseyo is, for example, here is Im-mi-da.
Maxime Okay. It’s the same for different, for different sentence or different little words like goodbye, good night, good morning.
Clea Yeah.
Frank So let’s, let’s, let’s try this. I’m, I’m going to see you again next week. So I’m going to go, I see Maxime on Thursday and we have decided that we’re going to not do English because that’s boring. We’re going to do Korean. So I’m, I’m, I’m going to ask him so I’m going to speak to him and say in Korean Han-yeong and then I’m going to be, I’m going to ask him, how are you? How do I pronounce that? Because again, I have the, I have the, I have the, the symbols there, but I can’t read them. So how do you say, how are you?
Cléa So here it’s chal-chi-ge, but I think you can say ken-chan-wa is more of like, yeah, they always say that.
Frank So I can say chal-chi, sorry, once more. Char-il, char-il, okay.
Cléa Char-il-shi-ge.
Frank Char-il, char-il-shi-ge. That sounds good. Char-il-shi-ge. So, Han-yeong Maxim, Char-il-shi-ge.
Maxime Oh, I’m fine and you?
Frank Yeah, I’m fine. Okay. But Cléa, you said there was a second way of saying, how are you?
Cléa Yeah, ken-cha-no.
Frank One more time. Ken.
Cléa Ken-cha-no.
Maxime Ken-cha-na.
Frank Yes. No or na?
Cléa Ken-cha-na. Ken-cha-na. Ken-cha-na. It’s like in French, ç ava so you can answer it, you can question someone, ken-cha-na, and you’ll really say, oh, ken-cha-na.
Frank Okay. Let’s try it. Maxime. Han-yeong Maxime.
Maxime Han-yeong Frank.
Frank Ken-cha-na.
Maxime Ken-cha-na.
Frank Han-yeong. Han-yeong Cléa
Cléa Han-yeong. Ken-cha-na.
Frank Yes, ken-cha-na. Yes. Okay. Fascinating. Fascinating. Okay. So our homework is to learn all of these phrases by next Saturday. Writing, speaking and reading. . So what else do you have on your, in your lesson for us, Cléa? Oh, numbers. Okay.
Cléa This is the numbers part. So there are two types, two parts in the numbers. So, they’re the Korean Korean or native Korean and Sino-Korean. So, Sino-Korean is, I think it’s par, it’s part by Chinese numbers, but it don’t look like Chinese language, but, and so, yeah, so there are two ways to say in numbers. It depends on like what you want to say. So, for example, when you want to introduce your age, you have to use native Korean. And if you want, I think to say the hours, you have to use Sino-Korean, but native Korean is like the most common in Korea, the most often way to, yeah..
Frank Okay. So pronunciation is important So Cléa, can you give us a lesson on the native Korean pronunciation? How do we pronounce one to 10?
Cléa Okay. So this is Anna. This is Anna, Dool, Set, Net, Dasot, Joosot, Irkop, Yodel, Ha, Hoop, Yole.
Frank Okay. So Anna, Dool, Set, Net, Dasot, Yosot, Irkop, Yodol, Ahop and Yole.
Cléa Yes.
Frank Is that okay?
Cléa Yes. Just here, you just don’t have to say that like set.
Frank Set. Okay. You go.
Maxime Anna, Dool, Set, Net, Dasot, Yosot, Irkop, Yodel, Ha, Hoop, Yole.
Cléa Yeah. That was it. Okay.
Frank So I am 61. So I would be in native Korean. I would be Yeson, Anna. Is that correct? 60 at the bottom there. 60 is Yeson. And 61 is for soixante et un. So it would be?
Cléa Normally, yes. Normally, yes. I think, yes. For me, for example, I’m 16. So I have to say Yole, Yosot.
Frank Okay. Yole, Yosot. So Maxime would be Yole, Ahop here.
Cléa Yes.
Frank Wow. Okay. So if I want to find out how old somebody is, I would use native Korean. And if I want to know at the time of the day, what time it is, I would go to Sino-Korean.
Cléa Yeah. Yes, I think so. I know that native Korean is like for about everything and Sino-Korean is not usually used.
Frank Okay. Very strange. Okay. All right. So my age is Yeson, Anna. Hanjon, Maxime.
Maxime Hanjon, what’s that?
Frank Kenchana.
Maxime Hello. And you, Kenchana?
Frank Yes, that’s okay. We’re getting there. This is slow progress, but we’re getting there. Yes. All right. So, we looked at the alphabet. We looked at some key phrases. We looked at the numbers. We’re not quite sure why they have the two systems, but that’s not a problem. Okay. And then you wanted to show us one other thing, Cléa?
Cléa Yes, this is like the final exercise. Okay. So, this is a drink, a beverage that you will often see in Korea. It’s really common. Like every high school students take this as a snack or something. It’s a banana milk. Yeah. And so here you can see there’s some words. And so you can, do you want to try to read it or not?
Frank It looks very different. So no teacher, Cléa, I think we need your help here.
Cléa So this is b, so b. This is the a. Like this is a. So b. And here’s n, so n. Here I don’t know what is it. So it’s bana na. Oy yu
Frank The first one is very simple. Bana na. That’s like the Western word. Bana na. Oy Yu. Yeah. Okay. So Maxime, I think we will survive. We go to Seoul. We will be very polite. We can say, hello, how are you? And then we can ask for banana oy yu. And we will, we will not have a problem drinking anything. And for the rest.
Maxime We can drink water, but we can drink banana oy yu.
Frank We can drink banana oy yu. Very good. What does it taste like, Cléa? Is it, does it taste.
Cléa The taste of banana, but it’s really sweet.
Frank Do you like it?
Cléa Yeah, but not every day.
Frank Not every day. The container is very small, I think. Is it really only. Yeah. It’s just a mouthful almost. Yeah. Yes. Like this, I think. Okay. All right. So if we go back to the first page, we, we have this little at the bottom there. That word. Can we make it a little bit bigger? And okay. So this word is. What is this word?
Cléa Annyeong.
Frank Annyeong. This is hello. Yeah. Yes. So, so somehow, we need to be able to identify. So if I do this correctly, we have the first, the first letter, the circle would be the NG.
Cléa Yeah. Yeah. But this is mute because it’s at the beginning of the word.
Frank Okay. And then we have the, the second letter, which is N. So we have NGN and then we have the, that would be the consonant, the A. Yeah.
Cléa Yeah. So it’s, you have to read it like this, like this. So it’s, at first it’s A and then E and then here it’s like this.
Frank Okay. So, so we would have the, the L from the N, the K and then the NG again. Yeah.
Cléa You have two Ns. So N, N and this is.
Frank Okay.
Cléa Okay. So this is a, this is also annyeong.
Frank Okay. So can you, can you just show us where in the consonant in the alphabet each symbol is? So if we go with the first one, we start with the circle. Can you show us?
Clea This is a vowel, a mute vowel to form a Q. And this is a vowel. A. And this is a consonant N and this is a consonant is the same as N, the same as this. And this is O. So we have two traits. So it’s YO and this is NG because it’s at the end of the sentences. So it’s Nnyeong.
Frank Okay. So, so when you learn this word, do you learn it from the pronunciation or do you learn it from the writing or, or how do you, how do you learn it?
Cléa By the pronunciation? Yeah, by the, by the way, like people speak, I can hear like how to say it.
Frank Okay. Hanyong. Hanyong kenchena. Okay.
Cléa That’s kenchena. And banana oyu. Voila. Okay. Fascinating. Maxime, do you have any final questions?
Maxime Not for this word. So you have explained all the world compared to the table. So it’s good for me.
Frank So teacher Clea, what is our homework?
Cléa I don’t think you have, no, you don’t have any homework.
Maxime That’s good. I want to have more teacher like you.
Frank Cléa, thank you very, very much for this little introduction to this mysterious world of the Korean language. I have to say, I actually did really learn something from you to, and I learned how the Korean alphabet, how, how you construct the letters or the characters to give the word. I think that came across very, very clearly. So thank you very much, Cléa, for your time in showing us here in the Brida Community, this remarkable thing that you are doing, learning Korean. And we’ll come back in a year’s time and we’ll come for our second lesson, by which time you will be fluent. Yeah. You will be fluent.
Cléa I don’t think so. I don’t think so. Yeah. Okay. So Maxime, one final word from you.
Maxime Final word for me. Thank you for this Korean lesson. And so, because we discovered the all the alphabet and the symbols, etc. So that’s very interesting to know what is different between our language and the Korean language. So thank you.
Cléa You’re welcome. It was a pleasure.