Korean

The Korean language is classified as a member of the Ural-Altaic family (other members of this family include the Mongolian, Finnish, and Hungarian languages.) Until the early 1400s, most documents were written in classical Chinese characters (known in Korean as Hanja). As the idiographs are difficult to learn, only the educated people could read and write. King Sejong, the 4th ruler of the Joseon dynasty (1392-1910), set up a special committee of scholars in 1443 to create a new writing system specifically suited to the Korean language.

The result was Hangul (meaning 'the one script'). It originally contained 28 symbols, although 4 have dropped out of use. The alphabet has 10 vowels and 14 consonants. The consonants represent the simplified outlines of the parts of the mouth and tongue used to pronounce them. The vowels are associated with elements of the philosophy of the Book of Changes.

Our institute is under direct control of the Ministry of Education & Human Resources Development and takes part in the education of overseas Koreans all over the world in Korean language, history, and culture. Also, it is a governmental organization, managed as an executive agency, which contributes to international educational exchanges and the promotion of mutual cooperation through these exchanges.
The institute operates the Korean language study site, KOSNET, for people who want to learn Korean. KOSNET is the most advanced Korean language study system on the Internet and is provided in 3 different languages, English, Japanese, and Chinese. The system, which consists of a total of 6 stages, is designed to teach Korean easily from the beginning. We feel proud that it is the best online Korean language study system to extend a learner's Korean language ability through interactive learning.

This is a very good idea, because the Korean Language is the best way to know and enjoy this beautiful country, its people, traditions, and culture. LearnKoreanLanguage.com is your bridge to the Korean language, culture, and traditions. Learn Korean Language will help you to understand the basics of Korean - if you decide you like our lessons, check out Learn Korean Now, our member-based site that offers even better lessons! Those lessons are much more detailed and in-depth, but also contain audio, quizzes, and everything else needed to learn Korean.

Korean is spoken in both North and South Korea by about 65 million people. There are also about 2 million speakers in China, 700,000 in Japan, and 600,000 in the United States.
Korean's linguistic affiliation is uncertain, though in its grammatical structure it is most similar to Japanese. It is certainly not related to Chinese, although it has borrowed many Chinese words and has used the Chinese characters, together with the Korean alphabet, for many centuries. This latter practice was abolished in North Korea after World War II and is gradually being phased out in South Korea. In the fourth line of the poem above the proper nouns Yongbyon and Yag San appear with the Chinese characters following in parentheses.

We are an independent online korean learning resource site, offering various free learning tools for speaking, reading and writing we also provide a unique online community forum featuring teachers to help you learn as you go.
Learn Korean has developed from a small language site, to one of the largest learning website online.

We will teach you in gradual phases, and will also provide you with a forum, where you can ask each other, as well as our teachers for help. We will also recommend a wide variety of online language learning tools, in the event that you wish to take your learning further, and will give you guidance in order to allow you to achieve this aim. We encourage all students to learn at their own pace, since their learning is dependent on their abilities

This site was originally designed to help the students taking Korean classes with Dr. Oh, when he was teaching at the Department of East Asian Languages and Literature, the University of Wisconsin-Madison. However, as it is offered over the Web, anyone who is interested in learning Korean or knowing about Korea receives a very warm welcome.

Dr. Oh (Ph. D. University of Wisconsin-Madison) is now teaching Korean at the Department of Languages and Literatures, Arizona State University. ASU has recently launched a Korean Studies program, which was established by the late Dr. John Koo and is being developed by Dr. Hyaeweol Choi. ASU is supporting the Korean Studies program very actively and with much enthusiasm.

Korean is the official language of both North and South Korea. The language is also one of the two official languages in neighbouring Yanbian, China. Worldwide, there are around 80 million Korean speakers, including large groups in the former Soviet Union, China, Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Canada, Brazil, Japan, and more recently, South Africa and the Philippines.