Ask A Waeguk, Vol. 1

Today's question comes from Dave in Georgina, who wants to know how waeguk is spelled. He's also interested in learning more about written Korean in general.

The Waeguk Responds

I'm glad you asked, Dave. As you are no doubt aware, the word waeguk as you see it before you here is a rendering of the Korean alphabet known as hangeul. According to legend (and my Lonely Planet guide), hangeul was invented in the 15th century under the reign of King Sejong. It's a phonetic alphabet, and is widely admired for the simplicity and elegance of its system.

Unlike the Roman alphabet, which uses a strictly linear left-to-right placing of characters, hangeul characters are generally arranged in syllabic groupings, with up to three characters grouped together to be read in a clockwise fashion. For further information on how to read Korean, I suggest you to turn to Google and search for websites written by people who are far more apt at describing it than I am. I recommend Radio Korea's guide to learning the language. For the Korean spelling of waeguk, however, you've come to the right place...

외 국 There, isn't that cool?

The first grouping forms the "wae" sound, while the second composes the "guk."

The system really is very straightforward, and I need to sit down at some point and devote a couple of hours to it.

At this point I'm largely illiterate in hangeul, but I am slowly improving. I'm able to pick out certain menu items, and I can recognize a few other words as well. I'm slowed down considerably, however, by my inability to self-correct when reading. If I'm reading in one of the languages I do speak, for example, even if I come across an unfamiliar word I can be reasonably confident in my ability to read it correctly, be it in French, Spanish, English or even German. If it sounds strange when I read it I can reread it and ascertain whether I've made a mistake or whether the word is incorrectly or unusually spelled. Given the modicum of Korean under my belt, however, I have no way of checking whether I'm even ascribing the proper phonetics to the characters as I read them.

Many of my students are at the level where they mix up "chicken" and "kitchen." I'm still at the level where I mix up "chicken" and "hydrangea."