Belajar Tulisan Korea (Hangul)

Ketika kita ingin belajar bahasa Korea, langkah pertama yang harus dilakukan adalah belajar membaca tulisan Hangul (Han-geul / 한글).

Sekadar info, pada zaman dulu, rakyat Korea menggunakan tulisan Hanja, yang mana identik dengan tulisan Cina kuno. Tulisan Hanja itu termasuk logograf (ideograf), yang mana tiap hurufnya melambangkan suatu kata atau morfem. Untuk fasih membaca dan menulis tulisan Hanja, rakyat Korea perlu menghafal banyak sekali bentuk huruf, akibatnya hanya kaum terpelajar saja yang melek huruf.

Lalu, pada pertengahan abad ke-15, Sejong The Great (세종대왕), raja yang memerintah dinasti Joseon di Korea saat itu, memiliki ide bagaimana meningkatkan tingkat literasi rakyat Korea, yaitu dengan cara menciptakan featural alphabet yang mudah dipelajari, Hangul.


Berikut ini saya mau membagikan cara praktis mempelajari tulisan Korea (aksara Hangul). Sebuah karakter Hangul disusun dari 2 atau lebih unit. Unit tersebut terdiri dari beberapa konsonan dan vokal, yaitu:

14 konsonan dasar + 5 konsonan ganda

ㄱ ㄴ ㄷ ㄹ ㅁ ㅂ ㅅ ㅇ ㅈ ㅊ ㅋ ㅌ ㅍ ㅎ
g n d r m b s - j ch k t p h
ㄲ ㄸ ㅃ ㅆ ㅉ
kk tt pp ss jj

6 vokal dasar + 15 turunannya (+i, +y, +w)

ㅏ ㅓ ㅗ ㅜ ㅡ ㅣ ㅐ ㅔ ㅚ ㅟ ㅢ
a eo o u eu i ae e oe wi ui
ㅑ ㅕ ㅛ ㅠ ㅒ ㅖ
ya yeo yo yu yae ye
ㅘ ㅝ ㅙ ㅞ
wa wo wae we
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Places to Visit in South Korea

안녕하세요! Hello there.. Thank God, I had few occasions to do business trip in South Korea. My first business trip was in autumn 2010. I enjoyed three months there in a chilly weather. Then, my second one was a short biztrip in February 2011. It was only 10 days because the schedule was so tight.

Lucky me, in the midst of busy work there (in my company, working until midnight or working in weekend is an ordinary thing), I had several times taken time to travel around Korea, especially around Gyeonggi-do province. So in this blog post, I want to share places I have visited during my time in Korea, and I think those are recommended places to visit if someday you visit this country. I will share my short story in every place I ever visited in Korea. Here we go... *warning: this will be a long long blog post ^^*

AMUSEMENT PARK

1. Everland
Everland Resort (에버랜드 리조트) is the largest theme park in South Korea. It is located in Yongin city, about 40km from Suwon. I visited this amusement park at Chuseok (추석) holiday this year. FYI, Chuseok is a three-days holiday for Korean; actually it is a harvest festival. I went there on September with my college friends who are doing post grad study in Korea. Although it was flooded due to the heavy rain that day, surely it was an amazing experience. And who knows you will be trapped in flood in the developed country such as South Korea, haha :)).

At Everland (Halloween season) with KAIST-ers

For you, roller coaster lovers, there are some roller coasters there, including the T Express. One of the most must-do in Korea is riding T-Express, which is the steepest wooden roller coaster in the world!! 77 degrees, w00t!! :) Click here for Youtube video made by American tourist about T-Express.

Background: T-Express wooden roller coaster, Everland
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Biztrip to South Korea

안녕하세요 ^_^

Gratefully, I find myself in Suwon, South Korea at the moment :). It's been quite the journey since my arrival in September 2010, and my stay here extends until the end of November 2010 due to a business assignment. Being in Korea for the first time feels nothing short of amazing.

A quick rewind to the third week of August 2010: my supervisors surprised me by reassigning me to a new team and informing me of our upcoming projects at the Headquarter. It caught me off guard, especially amidst preparations for DVD-P 2011 development with my former colleagues. After careful consideration, I embraced the opportunity and transitioned to the BD-P software developer team.

Excitement brims within me as I delve into this new project, eager to acquire fresh knowledge and experiences. Working with a different product and chipset presents its challenges in embedded software development, demanding swift adaptation to new source code architectures. Transitioning from C to C++ programming and from Windows to Linux development environment adds to the learning curve, but the journey thus far has been rewarding.

Life in South Korea? It's been a delight! The Korean people exude kindness and diligence, and I must confess, many Korean girls are charming haha.. perhaps I've indulged a bit too much in SNSD and Wonder Girls' video clips XD. The transportation infrastructure here surpasses that of Indonesia, and the Internet connection is top-notch. As for the food, well, let's just say I'm still acquiring the taste for kimchi :p hehe. On weekends, I seize the opportunity to explore Gyeonggi-do, with hopes of sharing my adventures in an upcoming blog post.

Just a brief update for now. May I excel in my duties here, and may weekends bring a well-deserved respite (although, as fate would have it, I just received an email from my boss summoning me to the office tomorrow – on a Sunday! Life's unpredictability keeps things interesting! =)

Yeouido Park, South Korea

좋은 하루 되세요!