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Introduction lesson: Korean

1 Grammar Points


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Grammar Points

All About #1 -Introduction lesson

History of Korean

LinguisticsThere are many different theories as to what language fam ily Korean comes from. The mostwidely-believed theory is that Korean came from the Altaic language group, and Korean isrelated to Mongolian, Turkish, and Japanese. Although Korean shares its origin in languagefam ily with these languages, it has its un ique, independent writing system, called Hangeul.

The history of spoken Korean goes back a long time. The Korean peninsula has seen the riseand fall of many dynasties for the course of time, but the oldest version of Korean languagethat is sim ilar to the current form is believed to be approximately 2,000 years old.The writing system of the Korean language is called (Hangeul), and this writing systemwas invented and announced to the public in 1446 by King (Sejong), who was the 4thking of the (Joseon) dynasty. Before King Sejong invented the writing system, Koreanspeakers used the letters from Ch inese to express the sounds of Korean by adapting lettersthat sound sim ilar in Korean. (Hangeul) is now considered to be one of the mostscientific writing systems in the world that can express the widest range of sounds.Korean has approximately 78 mill ion speakers, mostly in Korea, but the population of Korean

speakers outside Korea is also continuing to grow.About country of origin

Korea is a country of rich culture and long history. The first kingdom in the Korean peninsula, (Gojoseon) was established over 4,000 years ago. The Korean peninsula is situatedbetween China, Russia, and Japan, and due to its location, Korea has interacted withdifferent cultures throughout many millenia. While interacting with many different countries,however, Korea has developed its unique culture in many aspects. The uniquecharacteristics of the Korean culture are reflected in many Korean TV dramas and movies,which are also very popular outside Korea, setting the trend called The Korean Wave(Hallyu).Korea is also well-known for having one of the fastest growing econom ies in the world. Sincethe 1960s, the Korean economy has grown by over 450 times. The population of SouthKorea now is about 48 m illion, and there are 1 m illion non-Korean people living in Korea.Why it is important

1. Korea is a great place to live, travel, and work. You can enjoy the rich culture, the beautifulnature, the convenient facilities of the cities and all the great Korean dishes in Korea evenwithout speaking any Korean, but your experiences in Korea will get so much richer if youknow the Korean Language.

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2. A lot of Korean companies are expanding and operating overseas, so you can find careeropportunities using your Korean language skills. This will be a great add to your entire career.3. Do you enjoy watching Korean movies and TV dramas? You can enjoy your favorite

Korean movies and TV shows by reading the subtitles, but after learning Korean, you will beable to understand the movies and dramas on a different level and depth.4. Korean is easy to read and write. You can literally master how to read and write in Koreanwithin days. While traveling or living in Korea, you will be able to understand a lot of writtenwords just by knowing how to read Korean.5. If you know Korean, it becomes much easier to learn Japanese, because the Japanesegrammar is almost identical to the Korean grammar, and Chinese, because Chinese andKorean share so many similar words.

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