Japan Part 1: Tsushima Island

PREAMBLE: APOLOGY

I'm sorry that I haven't updated this blog in so long. The Mr. and I moved from Dongtan to Seoul. We now live near Sadang station in Seocho-gu. I'm sure you've never heard of Seocho. It's about 10 minutes away from Gangnam-gu, which you surely have heard of.

You know how people from suburbs tell people they're from the nearby big city? The Mr. and some of our neighbors tell people we live in Gangnam. I do not like doing that. People think it's so affluent. It's like saying you live in Beverly Hills when you really live in Culver City.

Anyways ... I'd like to write about Japan. The Mr. and I together have now been to Tsushima Island and the Osaka-Kyoto area together. This will be a two-part blog post.

Tl;dr version: The people are nice but Japan's just too expensive.

TSUSHIMA ISLAND

In May we went to Tsushima Island over a long weekend, taking a train to Busan and then a ferry to Tsushima. The ferry made me physically ill. As my husband used his conversational Korean to make friends and drink soju and eat dried squid, I quietly vomited into the available bags. Other passengers were also sick, sitting on the floor of the ferry and appearing to nurse migraines. I hate ferries.

This was our first view of Izuhara, the southern city you sail into from Busan:

Izuhara port

Tsushima was absolutely worth the sea sickness. 90% forest, Tsushima is a verdant, peaceful island with friendly people who said "Ohio gosaimas!" to everyone they pass. It is also a picturesque slice of Japan at a fraction of the cost.

Torii in Izuhara

In Izuhara, we found a gorgeous Shinto shrine. I've been to Japan three times now, and Shinto shrines are always my favorite thing about Japan. As a nature lover, I love the recognition that nature is our portal to the sacred and the sublime.

Shinto shrine in Izuhara

In Tsushima we saw the Japanese reverence for nature as well as the peculiar weirdness the Japanese are famous for. Here you see cartoon baseball players, the Fukuoka Hawks, on a large carton of sake. It's a particularly egregious form of marketing a vice to kids, like Joe Camel and Guinness's cute toucans.

"When I grow up, I'm going to drink the cartoons' sake!"

We ate at a small izakaya and watched a Hawks game on a little TV. 

This was during my husband's muttonchops phase

Rice & vegetables

That evening the Mr. and I explored the Izuhara nightlife, which is almost nonexistant. We walked down nearly abandoned streets, catching glimpses of traditionally-clad Japanese women and Tsushima cats, both of which disappeared into doorways and darknesses before I could snap a picture. 

Izuhara alley 

We stayed in a very small but comfortable hotel room. We had to wake a very old woman who had trouble walking in order to get our room. Without the Mr.'s rudimentary knowledge of Japanese we would have been lost.

The Mr. and I traveled north on the highway to Hitakatsu, the port which brings you back to Busan. The highway from the southern part of the island to the north is incredibly picturesque. 

The pristine middle part of Tsushima

In Hitakatsu, we had trouble finding a hotel room. All the rooms had already been reserved. We had a problem, but the locals were incredibly helpful. After intense discussion which the Mr. and I couldn't follow, one called her friend, Mitsugi Tsuji, and we stayed at his B&B in a tatami mat room.

Tsuji-san's house

Linguist Ashley enjoying the view from our room

We loved Tsuji-san. He entertained us, fed us, and sheltered us for 24 hours for only 10,000 yen. He took us "shopping", driving around the town to his fishermen friends and picking up fresh seafood and steaks for our yakiniku dinner. Afterwards Tsuji-san left the scraps out for the hawks to feast on.

Outdoor yakiniku

We watched sumo matches on his TV and talked as best we could (he speaks a little English) until it was time for sleep. In the morning we had one of the most delicious and filling breakfasts I've ever had in my life. 

Coffee, tofu, sausages, fish, egg, tomato, salad, miso and rice

On the second day Mitsugi Tsuji took us around the northern part of Tsushima sightseeing. We went to a lookout spot where you can see Busan on a clear day, then a forest hike, and finally to a local park where he is employed as a caretaker.

A forest path leading to a waterfall

The lookout point

Mitsugi Tsuji's B&B ranks as probably our favorite B&B ever. If you are ever in Hitakatsu ask the locals if they know his phone number. Try to stay with him. You won't be sorry.

Mitsugi Tsuji and the Mr.

The Mr. and I speak of Tsushima with reverence. We loved it. We thought that since we had such a great and affordable time in Tsushima, we would also love the rest of Japan. To be continued ...

Mitsugi Tsuji's B&B: ★★★★★

부대찌개, army stew

Today I'm going to blog about 부대찌개, Korea's famous "army stew."

During the Korean War, times were tough. Think of all the carnage of the American Civil War, but taking place in a place the size of a medium-size state (like Indiana). I mean, it was awful. People were starving.

The US army had (and still has) a very big army base in a place called 의정부 (Uijeongbu), just north of Seoul (and today lying inside the greater Seoul Metropolitan area). You may have heard of it because it's where M*A*S*H took place. The UN soldiers had plenty of canned meat. The people of 의정부 would get their hands on some spam or hot dogs and prepare it in a very Korean way. They would add water to it and simmer with whatever else they had: ramen noodles, kimchi, other vegetables, and/or spicy chili paste. They called it "army base stew." 찌개 is stew and 부대 means army base. This Korean dish, made out of leftover army rations ad created out of desperation, gained in popularity after the war.

This is a picture of the 부대찌개 served near our place in Dongtan.

부대찌개

It's good and affordable. Plus they have this sweet tree all covered in lights in the restaurant.

Sweet tree.	If you want to try 부대찌개 in 동탄, I recommend this place. It's really good.

View Budae Jjigae in Dongtan in a larger map

Eating intestines

Dongtan has more restaurants specializing in intestines than I have ever seen. No other place in Korea is this obsessed with organ meat. In this blog post you will learn how to identify which restaurants will serve you intestines. You can then avoid them, or try it. I recommend avoiding it.

Tl;dr: If you see a restaurant that says it specialize in 곱창, do not eat there. Unless you want intestines.

곱창 = intestines

But here's the tricky bit: 양, while technically meaning sheep, pretty much also means intestines. My husband and I love mutton. I recognized the word 양 and I told him we could have mutton. The restaurant was full of happy Koreans. We tend to think a full restaurant is a good restaurant. Spoiler alert: We were wrong.

So I order some 양 and they bring us this side dish:

Tripe and liver. Served cold and disgusting.

We had no idea. I mean, I figured the red bloody stuff was liver. I tried it. I didn't gag or anything, but I only had one. We didn't know what the grey stuff on the left was. I guessed shark's skin. It's actually tripe. Basically, the second or third stomach of a cow or sheep. It's one of the parts they probably grind up for that $1.99 ground beef manager's special. I didn't eat the tripe. It felt like it would take a lot of chewing.

They also served us 번데기, silkworm larvae. The Mr. ate almost the whole bowl, so it must have been good. Korean children like to eat them as an after-school snack. I ate one. I thought the taste was musty, like eating a cobweb.


So we weren't happy with the side dishes, but, we thought, no one can screw up mutton. Then they brought out the mutton.

It's mutton, but it's not the right part.

I couldn't even understand what part of the sheep it was. It certainly wasn't the delicious part the Irish put in stews, or the soft beefy part the Brazilians roast. We ate it, even though what looked like fat was exploding out of the pieces of meat on the grill.

So a piece of 양곱창 is complicated. I didn't know it, but it's the intestines cut into bite-sized pieces. Cholesterol spills out of in white puffs. After it cooks for a REALLY long time (you do NOT want to eat undercooked poop tubes), you dip it into some of the sauces on the table. To be honest, the cholesterol is delectable. But it dissolves on your tongue quickly, and you're left with the organ itself. It's chewy, and if they didn't clean it thoroughly enough, EEEWWW UGH I don't even want to think about it. 

The Mr. didn't like the 곱창 as much as I did, and I could only sort of tolerate it. We paid, were unhappy with our meal, and vowed to never eat at that restaurant again. Additionally, we agreed not to order 양 in Korea. I still didn't know what I should have known ...

 A few days later we were trying to find a restaurant. Because the Mr. works so late, our choices of restaurants are somewhat limited. We found an open restaurant. I did NOT order 양. I would never. I mean, tripe, people. We were tired and hungry. I just ordered their specialty.

And OH MY GOD THEY BROUGHT US INTESTINES.

I had not ordered 양. In fact, there were pictures of cows all over the restaurant. I had stupidly ordered  소곱창,  cow intestines. 

So the moral of the story is:  곱창 means intestines. Don't order that.

Obviously I'm too squeamish to get into 곱창, but a number of bloggers and several of my adult students tell me they love it. Other people say that because it is expensive, people eat it just to be extravagant. Apparently having the smell of 곱창 on your clothes is a sign of affluence. If you are adventurous, go ahead, try it. But don't say I didn't warn you.


All restaurants in Dongtan serving 곱창: No stars. For shame.

Places to drink in Dongtan: Munchen Ice Pub ★★★★

Many late-night establishments (like Boss BBQ) insist that patrons order food with their alcohol. But sometimes you don't want grease to dilute the healing magic of fermented sub-nutrition. That's when you need to go to a place where you can just drink. That's why I have this series: Places to Drink in Dongtan.

This series is specifically targeted to the sloppy, drinking masses. You know who you are.

The first place I would like to recommend to you is Munchen Ice Pub. Its name is good for practicing reading Korean. Actually, I would probably not have figured out that 뮌헨 is Munchen if it weren't printed on the windows. But ice has three syllables. That's easy.

뮌헨        아이스    펍

Munchen   Ice           Pub

Munchen Ice Pub

Munchen Ice Pub has one thing that raises it above the other drinking establishments: pints made out of ice that you can then throw at a target. Yes, that's right. Drinking is finally a real sport.

So this is a pint made out of ice.

Ice pint filled with rice beer

Now, I am aware that beer served ice cold disguises the flavor, but when it comes to Korean lager made out of rice, that's probably for the best.

So you drink your cold beer. Then, you stand behind a line drawn on the floor, and throw your ice mug at a target.

Like so.

The Mr. throwing his ice stein at the target

If you hit the target, you get a prize. Prizes range from 30,000 ₩ to a free beer. It's fun. It's just a splash at carnival games. Plus, it's hard. I've been there three times and I've yet to see anyone hit it.

If you do choose to eat at Munchen Ice Pub, you should know that the food is edible, but not memorable. Everything is, indeed, food, but it's overpriced and not very delicious. I recommend eating elsewhere.

The seafood noodle dish, inspired by Japanese cuisine, is good, but it's greasy. The Mr. and I liked it.

Seafood noodle dish at Munchen Ice Pub

But we also tried a salad which was not good. The salad is fried chicken and fruit on a bed of iceberg lettuce, drowned in sweet dressing. The dressing is completely unnecessary on the fruit. They should put the dressing on the lettuce and serve the fruit unmolested on the side.


Salad

So, do not eat at Munchen Ice Pub. Drink there, throw your pint at the wall, and have a merry time.

Munchen Ice Pub drinking: ★★★★
Munchen Ice Pub food: ★★

New job!

I have begun my new job as a teacher trainer for Seoul public schools, and I love it. I'm at the Seoul Education Training Institute, which is near Sadang and Bangbae stations in southern Seoul. I have a beautiful, big apartment and a very nice desk in the administration building. We're currently teaching a Travel English course to school administrators planning a business trip to Singapore. Today I'm teaching them English for the airplane. I made them a little boarding pass. Also, I just finished editing a teenage paranormal romance novel called Soul Thief. I'm excited for its release! You can buy it on Kindle, or pre-order a hardcover. I hope to continue posting about the Korean language and living in Dongtan soon. Thanks for reading, and thanks for your patience! -Linguist Ashley

Boss BBQ ★★★★

Next to Central Park is a vibrant neighborhood with bars, restaurants, PC bangs (internet cafes), and even an animal hospital. Because the Mr. teaches at a private school until 10pm, and then often grades until 11pm, we have to eat at places that stay open late.

One of our favorite late-night spots is Boss BBQ. They specialize in chicken and beer. You can get 3000 cc of Cass (a Korean lager that has become more popular than Hite) for only 14,000₩. That's equal to about 8 bottles of beer. If that's too much, you can get 2000 cc for 10,000₩. Either way, it's a steal.

But Boss BBQ doesn't want you to drink without eating. It's not allowed. So you can order their specialty, chicken.

Their menu is very foreigner-friendly. It has pictures you can point at. If you read Hangeul (like you really should! It's super easy to learn) you will be sitting pretty.

One of their specialties at Boss BBQ is boneless fried chicken in a sweet sauce. It's a lot like the General Tso's chicken that you can get at Chinese buffets in the US. And it's delish, but definitely not healthy.

Boss BBQ's boneless fried chicken

Perhaps because specializing in beer and chicken is not a totally healthy lifestyle choice, Boss BBQ serves salad as a side dish with every meal. You can get free refills of your salad.

Boss BBQ also has more Korean-style chicken. This dish is an entire chopped chicken (bones in) simmered with vegetables. It is probably healthier than the dish above because it's not fried and it had vegetables. Also, the parts of the chicken were recognizable, so you know what you're eating. ("Found the neck!") It wasn't as delicious, though.

An entire chopped chicken with vegetables

For a place that specializes in chicken, it's strange that the Mr. and I like their non-chicken dishes better. Boss BBQ serves a mean budaejjigae (army stew), served with loads of mushrooms, sprouts and hot dogs. The Mr. also likes their fruit plate.

Gloss:

부대           찌개

army base   stew 

부대찌개 and fruit plate at Boss BBQ

In the picture above, you can see tomatoes on the fruit plate. Yes, tomatoes are technically fruit, but Westerners typically treat them as vegetables, serving them in savory dishes. Koreans treat tomatoes as fruit. They are served on top of cake, along with grapes and kiwis. I even got tomatoes with some chocolate fondue once. Linguist Ashley does not recommend tomatoes dipped in chocolate.

We like Boss BBQ because it's open late, the food is good, and the beer is cheap. As if that wasn't good enough, the old man who runs it is super-nice. Last night we asked him for some rice to go with our budaejjigae. He didn't have any, so he ran to the convenience store and came back with a microwaved plastic container of white rice. He gave it to us as service. Koreans sometimes give customers a freebie, called service, to inspire customer loyalty. Then the old man went back to his booth, eating chicken and drinking soju with a shotglass. We love him.

The final reason we like Boss BBQ is that it's not obnoxiously busy. The music isn't too loud, it's not too noisy or too smoky, and the clientele is less drunk than at other places. It's a classy drinking establishment.

Our only real problem with Boss BBQ is that we tend to go to Boss BBQ too often.

Boss BBQ: ★★★★

A star is deducted because not all dishes are as delicious as the fried chicken and budaejjigae, but it definitely beats Kkanbu Chicken.



View Boss BBQ in a larger map

My Oscar Predictions 2012/Analysis of Best Song Category

Last year I predicted more Oscar winners than anyone else at the Oscar viewing party. Prepare to be devastated once again, Muncie. Ladies, place your bets.

BEST PICTURE The Artist

BEST DIRECTOR Michel Hazanavicius

BEST ACTOR Jean Dujardin

BEST ACTRESS Viola Davis

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR Christopher Plummer

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS Octavia Spencer

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY Midnight in Paris

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY The Descendants

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM A Separation

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE Rango

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY The Tree of Life

BEST FILM EDITING The Artist

BEST ART DIRECTION Hugo

BEST COSTUME DESIGN Hugo

BEST ORIGINAL SONG Man or Muppet

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE The Artist

BEST SOUND MIXING Hugo

BEST SOUND EDITING Hugo

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS Rise of the Planet of the Apes

BEST MAKEUP The Iron Lady
BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom

BEST ANIMATED SHORT Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT The Shore

I am certain about the first 9 predictions. I made a lot of these guesses based on other critics' predictions; obviously this is how I guessed the shorts and best doc. I've seen most of the others or read tons of reviews about them.

The most interesting category this year, for me, is Best Song. I really don't know which one the Academy will go for. I love the fact that one-half of Flight of the Conchords could win an Oscar. Plus, it's a great song. The first time I listened to it, I went around singing it all day. (The Mr.: "What the hell are you singing?") It's sweetly ridiculous and I love how it skewers the usual grand, soaring vocals that the Oscars famously reward (e.g., "My Heart Will Go On", "Beauty and the Beast", "Can You Feel the Love Tonight").

On the other hand, "Real in Rio" has a lot of features that the Academy has awarded in the past. It has a World Music beat that takes off at a sprint, like "Jai Ho" and "Under the Sea". It also has rap, like previous winners "Lose Yourself" and "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp". I like the choir and the Brazilian beat. It's not bad.

I'm placing my bets on "Man or Muppet" because I think it is the better song. I would love to see a song that perfectly balances satire and sincerity win. This is the category I'm really excited about. 

A lot of people are bitching about there only being 2 nominated songs in this category. My response is: At least they are good songs. Here's a list of bad songs that have won: both winners by Randy Newman, "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp", "Al otro lado del río", "I Need to Wake Up", "Falling Slowly" . . . At least both songs this year are good. I'd rather have two good songs than 5 crappy Billboard rejects.

*UPDATE: I got 17/23 predictions correct, including Best Song. I'm so awesome. 

Noryangjin Fish Market

The Mr. and I went to Seoul. We ate at a big fish market called Noryangjin.

This is probably less than half of it.

The smell was mighty.

We bought a king crab. They gave us some jumbo shrimp as "service", and we took it to a nearby restaurant. They cooked it for us.

It was the best crab I've ever had. The best part wasn't in the legs, but in the body of the crab. Still, it was kinda nasty to cut it open ourselves. It was like that high school biology autopsy assignment. I mean dissection. (Bad memories of a fetal pig are happening right now.)

While we were waiting for our crab, a guy started yelling at one of the women working as a cashier. He was drunk and his friends held him back. The woman who worked there tried to talk to him, but he ended up throwing a chair around. It was exciting. We were really close. It was like front-row-at-a-hockey-game exciting.

If you go to Noryangjin, try to bring a Korean or someone who speaks Korean so you can get a discount. You can really bargain with the fishmongers if you can speak the language. Also, wear clothes you don't mind getting dirty. The fishmongers wear rain boots. I got crab liquid all over me.

The Problem with Hugo

~Here Be Spoilers~

I am not a machine. You cannot find the right key to make me work. You cannot use parts of me to make another person work. You cannot spend enough time on me that will make me work. Again: I am not a machine.

I just finished watching Hugo. It was a little predictable, and I didn't like that the unsavory characters had dialects associated with lower social classes than the protagonists (this is common in films; it is called dialect discrimination), but I have a huge problem with the central message of the film.

In the film, the central protagonist and titular character, Hugo, inherited an automaton (robot) from his father. (Actually, the automaton belonged to the museum the father worked for, but we'll continue in the spirit of he-who-loves-it-most-deserves-it.) He works to restore it, find its key, and make it work.

Enough with the automaton reaction shots!

What bothers me enough to write a blog entry is that the automaton becomes a metaphor for people who have issues. The former antagonist in the film, Papa Georges, makes this clear in his end speech: "Ladies and gentlemen, I ... I am standing before you tonight because of one very brave young man who saw a broken machine and against all odds, he fixed it. It was the kindest magic trick that ever I've seen." The eye contact and reaction shots make it clear that Papa Georges is the fixed machine.

I wish the film had charmed me like it did critics. I wish the moral at the end had been more complex. The simplicity of the solution--it's OK, we found his old films!--though it is historically accurate meant Papa Georges' character flaws were reducible to a single cause. If only that were true in real life! If only we all were broken birds, and all we needed was for a "very brave young man" to pay attention to us.

If you enjoyed this film, wonderful! I wish I had. I expected to like it, but there were a lot of little things that didn't add up for me, and the big message is so problematic it depresses me.

Very Delicious House: A Restaurant Review with (SPOILER!) a Surprise Ending

Across the street from our apartment is a restaurant named 정말 맛있는 집, or Very Delicious House. It would stand to reason that the food purchased in this house would be very delicious. 

And the Award for Best Name goes to ... 정말 맛있는 집!

Gloss:

정말    맛있는      집
Very    Delicious   House


But sometimes I just don't order well. I have been known to go to a steakhouse and be quite peeved about the quality of my casserole. I stubbornly ordered fish at every restaurant in Nashville before I admitted fish is not one of the South's specialties (do not speak to me of the bottom-dwelling catfish). And so it was with Very Delicious House.

With the Mr. off teaching over-schooled Korean youngsters that Columbus does not deserve a national holiday (Chungdahm's reading exercises are wonderfully revisionist), yours truly is often left by her lonesome during the hours the hagwon is open. Therefore, I must feed myself. Or, rather, I must choose a restaurant to feed me. One day, I chose Very Delicious House.

Dining alone in Korea is as awkward as dining alone in America, but choosing your restaurant well helps. Very Delicious House has booths separated by screens for optimal privacy. That way your shame can be shielded from the innocent accompanied diners. Also, Very Delicious House is, as I mentioned, across the street from my apartment. It is literally about ten yards from where I compose this blog post. Therefore it would appear to be a capitol spot to eat alone.

I took off my shoes, sat on a thin pillow on the floor, and examined the menu on the wall. Stuff was expensive. I didn't want a ₩12,000 dinner for one. I am not that extravagant. I ordered the cheapest thing on the menu: 누룽지탕, for ₩5000. I had no idea what it was, but I knew it was cheap.


The waitress brought this:

Not the 누룽지탕 I ate. Another blogger's 누룽지탕. But mine was similar.

This is just burned rice and hot water. I like rice, but I'm the kind of person who always puts something on the rice. I think it's bland by itself. Drowned in hot water without spices, vegetables, or meat it's ... well, I ordered wrong. I forced myself to eat the blandest food I have ever had in my life. I made it through the meal, paid my ₩5000, and memorized the word 누룽지 so I wouldn't order it again.

I knew the fact that I ordered something I did not like was not the restaurant's fault, so I braved going back. Very Delicious House deserved another chance at earning its name. I sat down in the same spot and carefully ordered 우거지탕. I didn't know what that was either, but it was only ₩5000 and at least I knew it wasn't 누룽지탕.

Well she brought me 누룽지탕 again.

And I was mad. I knew the two soups have similar names (nurungjitang and ugeojitang), and that she probably misheard me, or my pronunciation was too foreign. This happened in Venezuela when I ordered a mojito and I received a gin y tónico. When you speak a foreign language, your tongue becomes a giant raw potato in your mouth. But ex-pat frustrations aside, what was I going to do with this mushy rice before me?

Both times I ate at Very Delicious House I received eight colorful side dishes with my burned rice soup. This time, instead of punishing myself with rapidly-cooling watery burned rice, I mixed the spicy, flavorful side dishes (especially the kimchis and the sauces) with the rice soup. And low and behold, it was good. I ate all the rice. I asked for more side dishes. 

I am now full. I have this euphoric feeling Anglophones cannot describe with an adjective. We resort to a phrase we seldom use: I have eaten well.

Although I have only had one dish at this restaurant, and the waitress misheard me (or I misspoke), and one meal was miserable, I have to give this restaurant props for breaking down the walls I erected between myself and bland well-being food. Very Delicious House changed my mind. I now understand why 누룽지 is a beloved Korean comfort food.

Very Delicious House: ★★★



View 정말 맛있는 집 (Very Delicious House) in a larger map
Make your own  누룽지탕 by following this recipe.

How to Learn to read Hangeul Part 4/4

If you've gotten this far in my How to Learn Hangeul series, you are probably serious about learning to read Korean. If you've been practicing your flashcards, guess what? You already read 한글. If that was your goal, you can stop reading. You will be able to go to a Korean 레스토랑 and recognize if they serve 김치, 김밥, 라면, or 비빔밥. You'll know if a person's family name is 김, 백, or 이. You will be able to read a ton of loanwords and your time in Korea (or some city's Koreatown) will be immeasurably enhanced. You will already know more than most foreigners. In short, if you are not interested in learning to speak Korean, and only in reading, you can stop.

This post is more for people who want to speak Korean. If you want to continue your Korean studies beyond sounding out English loanwords, keep reading. In this lesson you will learn about initial devoicing (it's much more simple than it sounds) and how to pronounce some tricky final consonants. Your pronunciation of Korean will improve. In time, this knowledge will also help your listening comprehension.

Voicing and Devoicing

In an earlier post I showed a picture of your relaxed vocal cords. We need to talk about those cords some more.

I hope you are not in public, because I want you to make a z sound. Go ahead. Really. Don't whisper or it won't work. Make a loud z sound.

Now put your hand on your throat. (Trust me, this is all related to reading Korean.) Do it like this:

No manicure. No lipstick. Just phonology.

When you make a z sound, you should feel your throat vibrating. That's your vocal chords! Cool, huh? Now make an s sound. Your fingers don't vibrate. Now make a z sound again. Now they're vibrating. Switch between a z sound and an s sound. When you make a z sound, your vocal cords vibrate. They don't vibrate for an s sound.

The vibration of the vocal cords is the only difference between a z and an s. The z is voiced and s is devoiced (or voiceless). There are a few other pairs of sounds which are only distinguished by whether they are voiced or not.

Voiced   Devoiced

z             s

b             p

d             t

g             k

 j             ch

(In English, the ch sound is not exactly a devoiced j, but we can think of it that way in order to read Korean. I'm simplifying here. Also, Korean doesn't really have a z. That's why the amusement park in Seoul, Everland, has a 주토피아. That's zoo-topia, not Jew-topia. My friends and I thought that was funny.)

Initial devoicing

If you are in Korea, or if you have spoken with Koreans, you may have noticed that at times they seem to say "Pusan" for Busan and "Taegu" for Daegu. You also may have heard "kalbi" for galbi and "pibimbab" for bibimbab. Of course, they are pronouncing these Korean city names and word correctly. This phenomenon is called initial devoicing.

If a voiced consonant is the first word in a sentence, or after a pause, Korean will devoice it. 

So if these Korean letters are first, they are pronounced like their devoiced counterparts:

Voiced     Devoiced

ㅂ             ㅍ

ㄷ             ㅌ

ㄱ             ㅋ

 ㅈ             ㅊ

Don't devoice these

Sometimes, though, the Korean language wants the initial sound to be voiced. That's where those weird double consonants come in. These four double consonants are not devoiced. You pronounce them very much like their voiced simple consonant counterparts.

ㄲ ㄸ ㅃ  ㅉ 

(There is another double consonant, ㅆ, which is always devoiced. Just, you know, so this process is not too straightforward and simple.)

Usually, these double consonants are Romanized as kk, tt, pp, and jj. However, you will make a closer approximation of the Korean pronunciation if you pronounce them as g, d, b, and j.

ㄲ  g

ㄸ  d

ㅃ  b

ㅉ  j

(There is a slight difference between the voiced simple consonants and their voiced double consonant counterparts. But don't worry about that right now. Maybe don't worry about that ever. Let's keep moving.)

Final consonants of syllables (받침)

You already know that some syllables in Korean can end in a consonant. For example, the middle syllable of my name has a ㄹ: 쉴. 


If a syllable ends in a consonant, that consonant is called a batchim (받침), which means support or small plate. Most batchims are relatively easy. In the above syllable, you see a ㄹ and you pronounce a ㄹ.

Some batchims are more complicated. All three of these letters in the batchim position sound like  ㄱ: ㄱ, ㄲ, ㅋ.

Therefore, these three words are all pronounced "pag": 박, 밖, 밬

They are not pronounced "bag" unless the syllable is not initial. For example, if I were saying "미스터박 I would say "mi-seu-teo-bag" (Mister Park).

Any of these letters in the batchim position are pronounced ㄷ: ㄷ, ㅌ,ㅅ,ㅆ,ㅈ,ㅊ,ㅎ

This is why the Korean loanword for cheese must be two syllables (치즈).  If you just write 칮 it would be pronounced "chid."

Double batchim
 
I know I've already given you quite a lot to think about as you read Hangeul, but I really must mention the double batchim and their special rules. Actually, had history gone a little differently, there might not be any of these. King Sejong, the Korean king who commissioned brilliant linguists to invent Hangeul, liked Korean spelling to reflect the root words rather than the actual pronunciation. He liked etymology. Had he preferred regular orthography--spelling that makes perfect sense--I could stop writing this post now and get back to watching my totally not-illegal download of Hugo. But, sigh, he liked the spelling to reflect the words it was related to. So here we go.

There are number of double batchims: ㄳ ㄵ  ㄶ ㄺ  ㄻ  ㄼ ㄽ  ㄾ  ㄿ  ㅀ  ㅄ

Most of these are so rare, I'm not going to waste time telling you how to pronounce them. Trust me: the issue won't come up too much. Try not to flip out if you happen to see one.

But there are a couple that are important. ㄺ and  ㄻ are just pronounced ㄹ.

When a double batchim is followed by a syllable that begins with a vowel sound, the double batchim carries over to the second syllable. So the word  있어요 (meaning "exists" or "have"--I'll get to this word and its meaning when I move on to speaking Korean) is pronounced ee-seo-yo.

There are a lot of other rules for pronouncing these double batchim. My advice is: don't waste your time. Remember that they have different rules, and just move on.

And one last thing ...

 ...just to really confuse you. When people have a final consonant in English, it is really enunciated. The final t in cat has to be really heard. It's different in Korean. (If you've taught Koreans ESL and struggled to get them to pronounce final consonants, you know what I'm blogging about.)

Korean final consonants lack the final puff of air that English consonants have. It's like they form the consonant with their mouth, then don't actually pronounce it. Thus, 집 can sound like "chee" and 밥 might sound like "pa." Just be aware of it.

 

Practice

Try reading these words aloud. I have chosen words which will be helpful for you to know during your time in 한국 (Korea). Try to remember the initial devoicing and all the batchim rules. The answers (Romanized) are below. And you can always copy and paste into Google Translate to hear a native speaker pronounce it.

빵 (bread)
빗 (comb)
진짜? (informal way of asking Really?)
꽃 (flower)
옷 (clothes)
닭 (chicken)
집 (house)
감사합니다 (thank you)
없습니다 (there isn't any/don't have)
김밥
찜질방 (public bathhouse)
부대찌개 (army stew)
시내 (downtown)
빨리빨리 (informal: hurry up)

Answers

(Please don't post a comment that I'm "wrong." I know that most websites Romanize these words differently. I'm Romanizing these in order to teach you initial devoicing. Most websites don't do that. So thank me instead of trying to correct me.)

bang
pit
chinja?
god
od
tag
chib
kam-sa-ham-ni-da
eob-sum-ni-da
kimbab
jim-jil-bang
pu-dae-ji-gae
shi-nae
bal-li-bal-li