In recent years, there’s been an exponential surge of Korean culture, also known as the ‘Korean Wave’ or Hallyu, sweeping across the Western world. As a result, it comes as no surprise that Korean is rapidly becoming one of the most popular languages to learn nowadays. Unlike any other language in the world, Korean is a fascinatingly unique language that modern day linguists keep raving about and it’s easy to see why. In this blog, we will teach you 5 interesting facts about the Korean language and show you why it’s one of the hottest languages to learn in 2023.
Did you know that Korean…
…is a language isolate (almost).
…has one of the youngest alphabets in the world.
Amazingly, the Korean alphabet, Hangul, is one of youngest in the world. Hangul was invented in the 15th century by King Sejong the Great (seen in the image below) to help reduce the alarmingly high illiteracy rates. The previous alphabet, Hanja, was based off Chinese characters and was incredibly difficult to learn, which is why so few could read or write. Made up of 14 consonants and 10 vowels, which when grouped together form syllable blocks of 2-5 characters, Hangul is not an ideographic system as the characters are designed in the shape of a tongue and teeth to help readers pronounce and enunciate correctly… how amazing is that? No wonder renowned linguists refer to it as the most perfectly phonetical alphabet! In fact, there’s even a national holiday in both North and South Korean to celebrate the creation of Hangul and how it forms a pivotal part of both their histories.
…has a complex system of ‘honorifics’.
Verb endings and vocabulary are altered significantly in Korean depending on your relationship with the person you are addressing. For instance, your language would change drastically if you were talking to a family member as opposed to a work colleague or random stranger. Formality, politeness and status are all important things to consider when speaking Korean, so make sure to do your homework!
…mostly uses communal pronouns.
In English, most of the time we use more personal pronouns, like ‘me’ or ‘I’, but surprisingly this isn’t really the case in Korea. Instead, communal pronouns, like ‘we’ or ‘us’, are more commonly used, which is an interesting reflection of the communal nature of Korean society and shows the vast cultural differences in comparison to the UK.
…has two different types of counting systems.
This is where things can get a little confusing… There are in fact two different counting systems in Korean. The first involves numbers up to 99, which are used for general counting or expressing time, distance, dates and age. However, from 100 onwards numbers originate from Chinese and the pattern is not the same at all.
Feel inspired to take on the Korean language? Find out more and sign up to one of our upcoming online or face-to-face Korean classes here.