Writing Your Name in Hangeul

Hello class. Last class we learned how to write two greetings in Korean. The words for “thank you” and “hello” are ‘감사합니다’ and ‘안녕하세요’. Do you remember? Because there are letters for each pronunciation, you can even express languages you don’t know with Hangeul. For example even if you don’t know French, when you hear the word ‘merci[mεʀsi] you can write it in Hangeul as ‘메르시＇. So regardless of which language you speak, you can write your own name in Hangeul. This class you will learn how to write your name. First let’s consider the English name ‘Tom.’ In America this name is pronounced [tam] and in England it is pronounced [t ɔ́m].

In Hangeul, the American pronunciation is written as ‘탐’ and the British version is written as ‘톰’. In Korea there is a loanwords orthography system for words from British English. Loanwords orthography is the way to write foreign words in Hangeul. So the English word ‘Tom’ is spelled ‘톰＇in Hangeul. Loanwords orthography explains which Hangeul characters to use to write the consonants and vowels from other languages. You can see this chart here. This time let’s look at the name ‘Sandra’. ‘Sandra’ is pronounced [sa:ndra].

Here the [sa:n] is written as ‘산’.

The [s] is written as ‘ㅅ＇, the [a:] is written as‘ㅏ＇and the [n] is written as ‘ㄴ’. [d] should be written as ‘ㄷ＇but because a consonant cannot be pronounced on its own, it is combined with ‘ㅡ＇to form ‘드＇. The [r] is written as ‘ㄹ’ with the [a] as ‘ㅏ＇to form ‘라＇. Let’s look at a boy’s name. ‘Michael’ is a name in English, French and German. In English its pronounced [maikel] , in French it is [mikael] and in German it is [micael] . The same name has different pronunciations in different languages. In Hangeul the English version is written as ‘마이클‘, the French version is ‘미카엘‘ and the German is ‘미하엘＇.

The [ma] pronunciation is written as ‘마’ and the [mi] is written as ‘미＇. The ‘클’ in the English version is ‘카엘＇in France and ‘하엘＇in Germany. This is how Hangeul can be used to write names from different countries. Is there anybody named ‘Gabriel’ taking this course? In ‘Gabriel [gabriel]’ the first syllable [ga] is written as ‘가＇, the second [b] is ‘브‘, the [ri] is written as ‘리＇and the last [el] is written as ‘엘＇. Next let’s write the name ‘Marie’ in Hangeul.

In ‘Marie[marí:]‘ the first syllable [ma] is ‘마＇and the next syllable [ri:] is written as ‘리’. Can we write all of your names in Hangeul? For example ‘Harry [haeri]-해리, Sophy [soufi]-소피, Sam [saem]-샘, Robert[ert]-로버트, Kate[keit]-케이트’. Try writing your name right now. You can see what your name looks like written in Hangeul. This is the end of the lesson. See you next time.