Why I Think Korean Learners Shouldn’t Use Romanization
When learning Korean (and this goes for other languages too), often times you will come across something like this:
If you answered about anything to do with what is in the parentheses, you are correct.
Romanization is a tool developed for English speakers who are learning Korean so that way they can learn to pronounce things through the sounds in English using English letters.
There are many things wrong with that
Korean sounds and English sounds sound different
The sounds spoken in English are much different than those in Korean. Would you use French sounding letters to speak Swedish? No! It would sound unnatural, you could end up saying a different word than you meant (or a completely made up one) and people who speak Swedish with the Swedish alphabet wouldn’t be able to understand you because they aren’t used to hearing French letters in the Swedish language. The same goes for Korean and English. The only way to be able to sound like a native in a language is to learn how the alphabet/letters are pronounced by the natives. Romanization simply does not meet the authenticity of how the language is natively spoken.
Relying on romanization causes you to rely mainly on it, because that’s what you’re eyes are used to, and then you end up having trouble reading things without it
The concept explained here correlates with watching K-Dramas with English subtitles. You will drown out the Korean and read the subtitles because that is what you are used to. When you do that your brain doesn’t make those connections between the words said and read. Same with romanization. Because you are used to seeing letters of the English alphabet, you end up only reading those, and you eventually ignore the Korean. Then, when you either go to Korea, or try to read a Korean book, you will have more trouble because of your reliance on romanization
They don’t write in romanization in Korea
In Korea, they write in 한글. That is the alphabet that they have learned and spoken for their whole lives. They aren’t going to change that for people who are too lazy to learn 한글, or who rely mainly on romanization. In fact, a lot of Koreans didn’t even know about romanization, so good luck trying to read a menu.
한글 was created when Korea spoke Chinese. People of lower classes were illiterate because Chinese was simply too hard. Because of that, King 세종 (Sejong if you aren’t already convinced to not use romanization) had a much easier and logical alphabet created so that way Korea could become literate and stronger. It was made to be easy, and it is.
These are some of the reasons of why using romanization is not good. Please know that if you are an absolute beginner, it is okay to use the romanizations at first when you are learning 한글, but only so you can get the basis of what it sounds like. As you go on, try to stay away from it as much as you can, and try to refine your pronunciation by listening to Korean music, TV shows, podcasts, etc.
If you are just starting to learn Korean, here is a guide I made to 한글, the alphabet.
I hope you learned something!
stormborns
turnnoffyourmind
romaincrisis
titsay
origamiaround
snowghoul
izzy806
vaporwave
