#iampolyglotting

[iampolyglotting]

Korean Speech Levels

한국어의 어역 (문체)

Korea retained much of Ancient China’s customs and culture. When addressing people of a higher, lower or equivalent status, a different speech level should be used, i.e. a different set of conjugations. These speech levels are referred to as 어역・語域 or 문체・文體. There are, in fact, 7 distinct speech levels in Korean. The most elevated one, 하소서체, became obsolete in real life, since it’s only used when addressing the Emperor, royal family members and important governors.

Source can be found here.

[iampolyglotting]

Korean Vocab: Time and Date

한국어의 단어: 시간과 날씨

If you haven’t notice, I use blue to write in Korean (both 고유어・固有語 and 한자어・漢字語) and black for all other languages (Japanese and English in this case). Red is used for emphasis or small titles sometimes. It’s interesting to see how the 2 languages adopt Chinese vocabularies differently. A few Korean vocabs here are Sino-Korean ones, while many of the Japanese ones are written in Kanji (漢字・かんじ) but have a non-Chinese-derived reading  (訓読み・くんよみ).

I want to give a shoutout to @korean-net for the great infographics on Korean vocab, as well as @studiousbees for this post explaining the differences between 지금 and 이제.

[iampolyglotting]

Korean Vowel Contraction and Irregularities

This was one of the major barriers I’ve had when I first learnt Korean. I studied Japanese for a year before starting Korean, but I’d say it’s more difficult to tell what verb it is in Korean, due to its complicated inflections and lack of Chinese characters (한자・漢字). Japanese inflections are usually quite neat with a change in the vowel in the last Kana (仮名・かな) of the dictionary form, and an attached conjugation at the end. But Korean inflections involve vowel contractions if the stem ends with a vowel and the conjugation starts with a vowel. Verbs and Adjectives also have irregularities if they have specific consonant endings.

I’d like to thank @19tc for the this post and this post.

[iampolyglotting]

Japanese Grammar

日本語文法：（名詞）の方が（名詞）より（形容詞）

Whenever Japanese people complement on my language skills, I always make use of this grammar to say “いいえ〜（名前）さんの英語が僕の日本語よりぺらぺらです。” (Noo~ Your English is much more fluent than my Japanese). This page of note is copied from this lesson by Tae Kim’s Guide to Learning Japanese.

[iampolyglotting]

German Orthography and Phonology Charts

This is my first actual post! The first thing I’d like to get myself familiar with when learning a new language are its orthography and phonology. Ever since my speech science major roommate showed me how limitless the IPA (International Phonetical Alphabet), I have fallen in love with it! My grade 7 English teacher was the first one to introduce me to IPA but I wasn’t bothered to learn it. 

[iampolyglotting]

Japanese Grammar

日本語文法：（過去式動詞）ことがありますか？

This is a very useful grammar when it comes to casual chatting in Japanese. When “こと” is attached to the end of a verb, it functions like a noun. Remember you need to inflect the verb in past tense before adding “ こと “. You can use it to ask your friend whether they have done something or been to somewhere or not. Since this grammar is quite easy, there’s nothing much I can take notes for. So I decided to practice my handwriting by copying 2 short example paragraphs from this lesson by Tae Kim's Guide to Learning Japanese.

[iampolyglotting]

Greetings!

English: Hello everyone! I’m Marcus!

中文: 大家好！我叫雋傑。

العربية: السلام عليكم إسم مركس

日本語: 皆さんこんにちは! マーカスです!

한국어: 안녕하세요! 저는 준걸입니다.

Deutsch: Guten Tag! Ich bin Marcus.

Dansk: Hej! Jeg er Marcus.

Welcome to my Langblr/ Studyblr/ Mapblr! That was my attempt to greet you in 7 foreign languages in the order that I’ve learnt them. I’m a university student, a map addict, language enthusiast and somewhat a polyglot I guess? I learnt 10 languages, some of which I studied for 15 years at school, others are purely languages that I learnt for fun for a few months. Do I have to be fluent in all those languages to be considered a polyglot? I seriously have no answer. Anyway, the point of creating this langblr/ studyblr/ mapblr is to find people who have the same passion as me, and share original content like my language study notes, tips for language learning, and maps I’ve drawn (labelled in foreign languages of course).