Skip to content

Category Archives: Language

Beginners’ Korean at the KCC - Season 2

02-Sep-08

Beginners’ Korean at the KCC - Season 2

The KCC has just opened registration for the next round of Korean language classes for beginners. The first season was two times oversubscribed, so here's the opportunity for those who missed out last time round. In the second season, the beginners' classes are Saturday mornings at 11am. Those who are currently in the beginners' class can, if they want, graduate on to the next set of classes, keeping the Wednesday 6:30pm slot. From the KCC Website: The Korean Cultural Centre UK continues its Korean Language Course. The Sejong Institute is kindly supported by the National Institute of the Korean Language in Korea. • Beginners 1 - A new Beginners 1 course will start on 27th September 2008 and run every Saturday from 11 ...
Also filed in Events news | | Comments (0) »

Honorifics at the KCC

15-Aug-08

Honorifics at the KCC

Lucien Brown has been leading the beginners' Korean Language class at the KCC with infinite patience and good humour for the past eight weeks. Some of us are still struggling with telling the time in Korean but we still come back for more. We’ll be getting an extra dose of our favourite 선생님 next week: he will be lecturing at the KCC on Tuesday evening on the subject of Korean Honorifics – a topic which justifies its own entry in wikipedia. Here's his own introduction to his talk In this lecture, after describing the linguistic forms of Korean honorifics, I investigate two patterns of honorifics use in modern Korean society (normative use and strategic use). "Honorifics" are linguistic resources that speakers use to express ...
Also filed in Events news, KCCUK | | Comments (2) »

Linguistics conference at SOAS

05-Aug-08
A bargain three-day conference begins at SOAS this Thursday. Full details here. A bit beyond me I'm afraid. I'm still struggling with my counting words. Related posts:Call for Papers: ISKS conference, SOAS, Aug 2007 제8차 코리아학국제학술토론회 The 8th ISKS International Conference of Korean Studies...SOAS - AKS Postgraduate Bursary SOAS is pleased to announce a second postgraduate Korean Studies...Sochon Foundation Scholarship at SOAS Recently received from SOAS. The School of Oriental and African... Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
Also filed in SOAS | | Comments (0) »

Korean language classes at the KCC

04-Jun-08
A good-value way to start learning Korean: The Korean Cultural Centre UK embarks on its first Korean language programme for beginners on Wednesday 25 June in the Centre. This course is a social education facility that teaches the language and culture of Korea to people in the UK and overseas Koreans who wish to learn the language. Aiming for the practical learning of Korean helps people find the joy of learning by the system supported by the National Institute of the Korean Language. The beginners’ course will run every Wednesday from 6.30 to 8.30 in the evening for 11 weeks in the Seminar room at the Centre. The students will receive 4 course books designed to develop writing, listening, speaking, and reading skills. ...
Also filed in KCCUK | | Comments (1) »

Hangeul: the amazing Korean alphabet

08-Apr-08
Courtesy of Arirang TV, here's a 20 minute video about Korea's unique script. [flv]http://londonkoreanlinks.net/wp-content/uploads/video/Hangul.flv[/flv] This is my first experiment with self-hosted video. Please leave a comment below if you are unable to view this properly, saying which browser (and version) you are using. Related posts:Amazing photos of early 20th century Korea I paste below the text of an email just received...WordPress 2.1.3 upgrade Sorry for the brief hiatus this afternoon as I upgraded...How to transcribe Hangeul I just came across an interesting thread at the koreanfilm.org... Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
Also filed in LKL.tv | | Comments (0) »

Korean language meet-ups

07-Apr-07
The eagle-eyed among you will have noticed a new type of event at the bottom of my "April Events" post. It's a Korean language meet-up. It seems there's a group of like-minded people -- some native Korean speakers and some learners -- who meet up once a month in the West End somewhere, and, (I'm taking an educated guess here) speak Korean to each other. And maybe a few beers are drunk. I just happened across this group while aimlessly googling the other day. I know there are some would-be Korean speakers out there, and this could be a good opportunity to practice your skills in a stress-free environment. Does anyone feel like going along and reporting on this April's event? Links: Korean Language meet-up ...
Also filed in Events news | | Comments (3) »

How to transcribe Hangeul

27-Mar-07
I just came across an interesting thread at the koreanfilm.org forum. It started off simply linking to an interesting interview with Bong Joon-ho in Cineaste magazine (well worth a look). It then, via questioning a typo in the article (involving the proper spelling of Bae Doo-na's name), morphed into a discussion of the McCune-Reischauer system and the newer Ministry of Culture and Tourism system (launched in 2000). The whole thread is worth a read. As most of you will know, individual Koreans have pretty much a free hand in how they want their names to be romanized (How do you get, using any standard transcription system, from 이재용 to EJ Yong, which seems to be that director's preferred Western name?). I ...
Also filed in Film | | Comments (0) »

Loanwords in twentieth century Korean literature

01-Mar-07

Loanwords in twentieth century Korean literature

The chosen specialist subject of Antonetta Bruno, from La Sapienza in Rome, is Korean shamanism. But she has an interesting sideline in linguistics. Her theme at SOAS's Centre for Korean Studies last Friday evening (23 Feb) was the extent to which Korean has borrowed words from foreign languages, particularly in the first half of the twentieth century. Before the twentieth century, Korea's first stock of loanwords (외래어) came from Chinese, or via China, reflecting Korea's diplomatic status relative to China. The words in general related to topics such as geography or science which were outside of Korea's range of experience. In the colonial period, clearly it is difficult to disentangle the study of Japanese loanwords from the compulsory Japanisation of Korea. However, ...
Also filed in Conference reports, SOAS | Tagged | Comments (2) »