3 Reasons to Avoid Romanization for Korean

Romanization is writing the Korean alphabet with English letters. For example, “한글” could be written as Hangul, Hangeul, Han-gool, Han-kul, or a dozen other ways depending on the Romanization system. This video explains why I feel that using Romanization can be detrimental to your Korean learning and slow down or even stop your progress, and why it should be avoided.

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[magnusmagnusson]

Not going to lie, as me being a beginner, learning hangul was a piece of cake. Only time I ever use romanization is when singing along to a song. Cant read hangul that fast lol

[Eyes_On_America]

The scariest thing is, that some people "learn" Korean without learning Korean alphabet. Can you imagine learning Arabic, Hebrew, Russian without learning its writing system? Thank you for this video! :)

[Padafee]

Thanks for your tips, Billy!
I learn 한글 both with your book Korean Made Simple 1 and your 90 minute video, it's a great combo!
I dropped the romanization when you suggested so in the book and try to proceed further without it. It's difficult at first, but the more I listen to how words like 한글 are pronounced, the more it gives me an idea how this might apply to other words / sounds.
I guess when you start learning a new language, it might be difficult to associate certain letters with corresponding sounds. We're also afraid of making mistakes and doing so, we hamper our development by desperately holding to familiar sounds.
So I'd say patience, practice and perseverance comes in handy while learning anything new! Thanks for motivating us with great videos and I'm going back to your aforementioned video to practice sound changes rules! :)

[keyarca]

Am I the only one who after using 한글 for so long, can barely read and understand romanization? Romanization is truly bad and inaccurate.

[jeff__w]

This video manages to avoid mentioning the case _for_ 한글 rather than the case _against_ romanization:

The basics of 한글 are exceedingly easy to learn—as *Billy* says, he has a video teaching all of it in less than 90 minutes. That doesn’t mean you’ll be proficient or comfortable reading it (that takes lots more practice) but it _does_ mean that you can be off to a good start fairly quickly.

한글 fits the Korean language perfectly (not surprising because it was developed by Koreans for Korean). So, for example, with ㄱ →ㅋ, ㄷ→ㅌ, ㅂ→ㅍ, and ㅈ→ㅊ, the small horizontal stroke added to the letter reflects the aspiration (the little puff of air) in the sound that the second letter represents that the sound of first doesn’t have. Latin letters don’t reflect these changes at all.

Or, for example, _batchim_ ㅎ reflects that the following ㄱ, ㄷ, ㅂ, ㅈ are pronounced as their aspirated forms: ㅋ, ㅌ, ㅍ, ㅊ so that, for example, 않고 is pronounced as 안코 — you can’t make sense out of Korean sound transformations like that with romanization because the Latin letters don’t reflect them.

Or, for example, you can see how the 여 vowel in “보여주다” comes from combining “이” (in 보이, from 보이다 “to be seen”) with “어” (in ~어 주다 doing something for someone) to make “보여주다” “to show.” That’s incomprehensible with romanization.

There are probably countless more examples.

In short, 한글 reflects the sound scheme of Korean and the sound changes in a regular way (if you become familiar with some basic rules); romanization obscures those.

Lastly, learning Korean for English speakers requires a bit of a commitment—if you’re not willing to learn 한글, which is pretty easy to learn, fairly early on, how committed are you to learning Korean, beyond a few phrases, in any case? And, if you _are_ committed — _and_ it’s pretty easy to learn — what’s the point in putting it off?

[anthonydyer]

I’m a beginner of the Hangul. We have a South Korean exchange student living with us. I am wanting to learn the language to better interact and make a connection with him and his family. I like your videos! Easy to understand and I am learning! I agree with your point in this video. It makes sense. Keep making them! 고맙습니다

[ahmedemam]

You can say that again. Well said my dear teacher. I totally agree with you. It was really bad at the beginning because I had to map new words from English to romanized Korean words then after a while re-map again all those romanized words to Korean words written in Korean alphabet. I have found it easier to just learn한글 directly without using romanization.

[glitterpicklesx]

I just just bought 1, 2 & 3 of your Korean textbooks. Honestly your videos have helped me so much! I have spoken to you before on instagram, and your not just a great youtuber who never fails to make me laugh whilst educating me but your a very sweet person also :) Keep making these videos! Keep making people smile whilst helping them understand a whole new language and culture! What you do is great❤ 감사합니다!

[isabelrodriguez]

I've been learning Korean for 6-7 months and I just used romanization while learning 한글, while making my flashcards for each letter. For example when learning the sound 오 I used to write something like " O (close your mouth a little bit)" hahaha.
Great video Billy!

[제영미-fc]

Your pronunciation is quite accurate when you speak in both English and Korean. What an acquired!

[FortunaJewels]

The minute I got the Hangul reading down, I realized Korean is easier than I thought! Tried reading romanized lyrics and saw that every word seems infinitely long and difficult. D: I'd say though that romanization of Japanese seems far more helpful than the Korean as Korean has more vowels sounds.

[Sebastian-xyxk]

I've actually learned to read most of the Hangul characters subconsciously (and I'm not even trying to study the language). I'm currently studying Japanese, but for a short while I was watching Korean videos a few months ago. In short, I've learned how to read Hangul pretty quickly by just watching Korean videos with Korean subtitles. It's really that easy, there isn't much of a need for romanization if you want to learn. I mean like if *I* learnt it by not even trying and deeply studying the language, why can't yall too? 😂

[훈말티즈]

Everything mentioned was right! I got into kpop (casual listening) when i was at the end of 6th grade but luckily i never been engaged to romanization thingy and when i got into 7th grade someone gave me tips to learn 한글 and it actually only took me not even an hour to learn, im now at 11th grade and starting to learn korean grammar and being used to read and sing along in 한글 really benefits me a lot now!

[Cupidteez]

Omg! So this whole entire month I thought Hangul was hard because I was trying to figure out how do you write a, b, c, d in Hangul. OMG! But thank you so much Billy.

[Screamlovehoney]

Agree. I bet some people have tried to sing Korean song by using romanization. Seems like it's too difficult? It probably is because you're not reading Korean. I think it was TTMIK that once posted a video where Koreans tried to read romanized Korean and it was nearly impossible for them to do it.

[newjeansfan]

Yes that's true! I'm french and beginner learners asked if ㄹ is a r or l or why it changes r to l when in reality, ㄹ isn't r, specially our french r.
So they didn't understand how to produce ㄹ and what is ㄹ pronunciation because of romanization....

[waltdisney]

one clear example was when I walked around cheonggyecheon which i often do when I am in korea. there is a bridge called seungyo. at first I thought the hangeul would be 승교, but no, it is 세운교. that is if i am not mistaken. there is a lot of problem with the revised romanisation, and yes, when I started to learn korean I abandoned all kinds of romanisation (that was 6 years ago)

[hert]

as a korean, i'm SO glad you're teaching your viewers this!! i've been saying it every time someone is like "ooh is that korean 's'??" or when someone tries to correct someone else's romanization of a korean word.. it just sucks, just don't do it, there's basically no right or wrong because it's korean not english lol

[naritruwireve]

Romanisation is so confusing to me now. I remember seeing "영" and trying to spell it out, and I was like "Is it young or yeong or yong or yung?"

[richardfitzpatrick]

Another awesome video mate! It is getting close to the midnight hour in 대전:Daejeon! I think I will stick to drinking American IPA's! Have a good one Billy! 잘자요!