Improving Korean romanization
hunj opened this issue · comments
The current Korean romanization standard is still confusing for non-Korean native speakers (e.g. "Gangnam style" is often mispronounced as "Gyang-nehm style"). Perhaps simply adding a dash in between syllables might solve the problem?
Adding a dash is definitely an important step.
But by itself, will "Gang-nam" fix all pronunciation problems?
I think the added element is making vowels more intuitive, for instance:
한글 Old New
=== === ===
아 a ah
어 eo uh
오 o oh
우 u oo
으 eu u
이 i ee
Also, I've created some documentation of the history of Romanization and coded a simple prototype in Java that converts the lyrics of "Gangnam Style" on my personal Github repo
this project looks simple but very useful to all foreigners!
@dragonCrane I liked your page on the subject.
Not every sound exist in every language, and english is missing a few: 어 or 으 I think (so tricky)
Obviously ae and eo don't make much sense when you read it, but I'm not sure about a few changes:
- 어 -> uh , 서 would be written suh, but it is pronounce soo in english
- 으 -> u , same here 스 as su, would read soo in english (but eu would read 으 in French :p )
- 애 -> eh and 에 -> ay, I would actually reverse them, tone wise 얘 is more high pitched so more of a ay while 에 is low pitch so a eh
Some of the new case you mentioned are often already used in names like 이문수 being written Lee Moon Soo. Like you said, romanization lack consistency.
forked repository is here : https://github.com/codeforseoul/hangul