“n” (ㄴ) has the same sound as “neu” (느) and also “g” (ㄱ) as “geu” (그) somewhere in Korean Lesson 1. The problem is I keep choosing the wrong answer because of the similarities. Maybe “n” (ㄴ) should be called nee eun and “g” (ㄱ) called gee yuk. These are the Korean names of these 2 letters.
The main reason is that the korean tongue can’t pronounce a consonant without a vowel associated with it. The characters themselves have names, which you can see here, but when pronouncing them you absolutely need a vowel.
That “eu” vowel that they’re using is the most basic vowel in the language and is used when they must insert a vowel but have no better one to throw in there. For example, the korean word for “stress” is “스트레스”. It’s the same as in English, but it makes up 4 syllables because the koreans can’t put pronounce many consonants without any vowels. Look how many “eu” vowels there are in there. That’s the vowel they chose, because it it the most subtle.
The reason that you’re hearing 느 when the answer is ㄴ is that they are probably the same. If you ask a korean in real life to say ㄴ they will probably say 느. It’s just the way the language works and works that way because korean is a time-stressed language. An interesting result of this is that they don’t have any concept of holding consonant sounds. In English, if you ask somebody to read “nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn” they’ll just hold the N sound for a long time. Korean’s have trouble wrapping their hads around this concept at first and instead will pronounce say “느으으으으으으으으으으으으으으으으” (or “neueueueueueueueueeueueueueu” in English characters) because the language simply doesn’t accomodate it.
Consonants MUST have vowels.
1 Like
cool thanks. but i still have this problem where…“neu” appears and i have to choose from 3 audio clips. TWO lol have the same sound that both sound like “neu” (one is supposed to sound like “n” and the other as “neu”). I try to randomly choose one of the audio clips. I sometimes get it right or sometimes wrong. Sorry as I couldn’t express this for my original post. so what should be done here?
wow. i have a similar problem going more into the lesson. the spoken sound (이) was given and there were written choices 이 and l. I chose 이 and i got it wrong because the answer was l. hmmmmmm
This problem is with the course and only the course moderators can fully fix the problem.
I think your only option here will be to ignore the bad questions. Memrise has the functionality to ignore any questions you don’t want to learn and this is the type of situation that the functionality exists for. For the words you don’t want to learn, if you get it wrong, you will see the option on the page that pops up with the mems on it.
I would recommend that you ignore the questions that don’t test you on complete syllables (vowel and at least one consonant character together). It won’t hinder your learning since the korean writing system is so effective. Your best bet is to start learning simple words and proficiency with the characters will just come along with it. Try to avoid using the English alphabet to spell any korean stuff at any time in any course. That will hurt your learning. I’ve said this a few times throughout the forums… If the English alphabet was a good substitute for writing korean, they would be using it. They are not using it and it is not a good substitute. Just learn Hangeul.
If need be, buy a korean keyboard or a korean keyboard overlay for your laptop.
3 Likes