Learning Korean terminology is an important part of learning the Korean martial art of Tang Soo Do. It can be a daunting and confusing challenge when Sensei James starts throwing out weird sounding words in Korean and expects you to understand what he just said. It can be even more confusing if you try to look up the words and you can’t find anything that is spelled like he pronounces it. There are a couple of factors that play into this confusion. There’s no 100% direct phonetic translation between phonemes in Korean and English. Because of this certain sound may be pronounced as a “P” or a “B”, or a “T” or a “D”. This leads us to spelling things how they sound to our ear. Luckily there are some phonemes that are so similar that they do translate very easily and we use these sounds to anchor our understanding of spelling and pronunciation.

This week’s terminology lesson is simple: Counting

English	Korean
One	Hana
Two	Dul
Three	Set
Four	Net
Five	Dasot
Six	Yasot
Seven	Ilgop
Eight	Yadul
Nine	Ahop
Ten	Yol