Hangul is the easiest writing system?

Koreasparkling   Sat Nov 10, 2007 5:45 pm GMT
Korean language may not be easy to learn and it is apparently not as popular as Chinese or Japanese, but its writing system - Hangul is very easy!

Hangul(Korean characters) is very unique and creative. It consists of 24 characters and it isn't as complicated as Kanji.
Many Korean people say it's one of the easiest and the most scientific writing systems in the world.

Do you agree with that?
What do you know about Hangul(Korean characters)??
Yop   Sat Nov 10, 2007 6:23 pm GMT
<What do you know about Hangul(Korean characters)??>

Just what you said: that it is said to be easy and logical. But I haven't tried to learn it myself. I might in the future.
Milton   Sat Nov 10, 2007 7:53 pm GMT
Korean phonetics (and phonology) is tricky. :(
Unlike Japanese.


PS
How do you distinguish between ''mouse'' and ''rat'' in Korean?
Do you use the same word for it? Why is that?
Koreasparkling   Sat Nov 10, 2007 8:49 pm GMT
<How do you distinguish between ''mouse'' and ''rat'' in Korean?
Do you use the same word for it? Why is that?>
Is it that important to distinguish between mouse and rat?
I just looked up a dictionary and it says a mouse is a '생쥐(Saeng-Jwi)' and a rat is a '쥐(Jwi)'.
I notice even some native English speakers do not know the difference between them very well. (Mice are just smaller than rats, aren't they?)
http://answers.yahoo.com/search/search_result;_ylt=AsmgYnmIxwC4ZPzCo02GXoIjzKIX;_ylv=3?p=rat+mouse+difference

Now that you mention that, how do you distinguish if your sister is older or younger than you when you just say 'I have a sister.'

In Korean, Japanese and Chinese language, we have different words for older sister and younger sister, older brother and younger brother.

So when a western man or woman says 'I have two brothers and a sister.', it's very confusing for us.
furrykef   Sat Nov 10, 2007 9:19 pm GMT
I do believe hangul is simple and logical... but I hear that it suffers somewhat in modern Korean due to irregular spellings. It suffers the same problem as almost every writing system there is: pronunciation changes faster than spelling.

I'm not convinced that it's easier than an alphabet, but I don't think it's harder, either.

- Kef
guest   Mon Nov 12, 2007 2:27 am GMT
Hangul fits the Korean language well, but would not work for say writing English. It's phonemes are very limited and restricted. For instance, how could you spell "yi" (yee) in Korean? or "wu" (like in wood)? you can't. They would end up as "i" (ee) and "woo" (woo).
Milton   Mon Nov 12, 2007 3:00 am GMT
-(Mice are just smaller than rats, aren't they?) -

Nope, they are different species and they have different number of chromosomes, so they cannot be in-bread. It seems that only Koreans and Brazilians have trouble distinguishing between these two.
Guest   Mon Nov 12, 2007 3:07 am GMT
Ja dumaju hto korejskij jazyk na samom dele ne sushchestvuet. Mne kajetsa hto eto prosto kakajato loj rasprostranennaja amerikanskimi razvedchikami kotorye hotjat nas obmanyvatj. Vy soglasny so mnoj?