Over the years, I was able to put up more and more lessons, and as of

now, in January 2011, there are morethan 60 lessons on Korean

grammar in this blog.The principles in writing these lessons have been that I

remain intentional about making them as easy tounderstand

and readily applicable in daily life as I can, and comprehensi ve enough to

cover major points of Korean grammar which include both

the Written and Spoken forms. Now, what do I mean by written and

spoken forms?In Korean, the verb endings change depending on

whether the language is used in writing or speech.

Note:

In Korean grammar, the verbs come at the end of a sentence. For more on

the sentence order, pleasereadSe ntence Order .For example, "

" which means "I went to

school" is a written form, and "

" is a spoken form.

= I went to school (
written form

as in writing, books, diary

and newspaper)

= I went to school (
spoken form

as in conversation s, movies and

dramas)As you can see, the ending of a verb changes from

to

, both of which mean "went".There fore you'd write in one way but

speak in a slightly different way. But don't be too alarmed at

thedifference , as there are simple patterns to it, and you'll get to learn them

along the way.It is also important to learn the differences in degrees of

formalities in the Korean language.The re are three major types in the

degrees of formality:Inf ormalPoliteH onorificIn expressing the

politeness in the speech, Korean differs from English in that the verb

endings changedepen ding on the age and rank of the person being

addressed to and the social setting one finds oneself in. For example,

when I'm asked, "Where are you going?" I might answer, "I'm

going to school" in the followingwa ys:

- [Informal, to people of the same age as me or younger than me,

especially among closefriends]

- [Polite, to people older than me, and in formal social situations]

- [Honorific, this is rarely used in

normal conversation s. I would say this type of

speaking is only found in very formal settings such as on the news or in

the army.]You would use the polite form even when the

person you're speaking to is of the same age as you or younger than

you if you're not very close to the person and/or you're in a formal

social setting. I'd say it's best to stickto the polite form first and then

use the informal form later as you gain more understandin

g of the Koreanlangu age.The major mark of the division is

probably the age. The polite language is used to people above

one's age andinformal language to people equal to and below one's

age.However, generally, the polite language is generally used in many

social situations and the informal languageis usually used among close

friends.I am trying to lay out some basics to the language of Korean.

However it'd be good at this point to dive intothe lessons and learn them

for yourself.You can start reading the grammar guide from

the top to bottom in the order as it's designed to guide you fromthe

basics to intermediate and advanced grammar.Bef ore you go,

here is a bit of history of

(
Hangeul

, the Korean alphabet):Ko

rean is the official language of Korea, both North and South. There

are around 78 million people whospeak Korean

around the world.

[1]

(the Korean alphabet) was invented

by Sejong the Great in the 15th century. Before that time,

peopleused Hanja (the equivalent of the Chinese characters) which was

not only difficult to learn but was alsoconsidera bly different to the Korean

grammar and sentence order.

[2]

is a phonetic writing

system which means that the words correspond to

pronunciatio n.The English alphabet is phonetic whereas the

Chinese characters are not.If you learn the English alphabet, you

can read an English writing fairly well although you may

notunderstan d the meaning.Kor ean is even more phonetic than

that of English and many other languages, in that each consonant

andvowel in Korean mostly have only one sound.For example,

=n

= a (as in car and mama,

short sound

+ =

[na] (which means "I" as in "I" am

Luke)Follow ing the guide down the column on the righthand of the

page, we're now moving onto learning thesounds of the consonants

and vowels of

.You'll learn to write and pronounce each of these

consonants and vowels, and how to form a character in this

e illo. Sigui una pausa apenas perceptible. Servicio individual, o doble? Individual, si es tan amable. nando Esteves. Sobre el auto Arturo Prez-Revert fue reportero de guerra durante veintin aos y es autor, entre otras novelas, de El hsar, El maestro de esgrima, La tabla de Flandes, El club Dumas, Territorio Comanche, La piel del tambor, La carta esfrica, La Reina del Sur, El pintor de batallas, Un da de clera y El asedio; y de la ya legendaria serie histrica Las aventuras delcapitn Alatriste. Es miembro de la Real Academia Espaola. www.perezreverte.com www.facebook.com/perezreverte http://twitter.com/perezreverte 2012, Arturo Prez-Revert, De esta edicin 2012, Santillana Ediciones Generales, S. L2 Avenida de los Artesanos, 28760 Tres Cantos - Madrid Telfono 91 744 90 60 Telefax 91 744 92 24