Updates · 업데이트
Since over the next few months I'll mainly be editing pages I've already posted (principally the Korean Vocabulary List), I'm keeping a record of updates here. Updates are listed in reverse chronological order, starting with the most recent.
This article was originally posted on 24 August 2006. The post date is set to 31 December 2007 to keep this post at the top of the blog (at least until then!).
| 17 Sep 2006 | ★ Divided vocabulary list pages up into more, smaller pages (38 in total), to make them more manageable. ★ Posted more finely-grained sidebar links: 가 through 히. ★ Still in process of updating various links in introductory article, sidebar, and elsewhere. |
| 24-25 Aug 2006 | ★ Removed vocabulary list details posted in January 2005 and added links to corresponding updated pages. |
| 24 Aug 2006 | ★ Expanded and updated sidebar links. ★ Expanded vocabulary list from 3,045 entries to 5,902 entries (see main page for explanation). |
posted by Stefan Ewing @ Monday, December 31, 2007
23 comments
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23 Comments:
So, this vocab list. How are you going with it? I consider my Korean pretty good, but.... arrgggh!
산낙지씨:
Elaborate, please! Do you mean, "How's it going?" as in, "Why haven't you done more yet?" or "How are you going about it?" as in "What is your approach?"
Rome wasn't built in a day! I know I don't update this blog at a blistering pace, but I do have other commitments, and I'm trying the best I can, given that I only got serious about resuming blogging about a week ago! Give me time, please!
...Although—and perhaps you can help me out with this—I'm still debating how many words to work with. That 5,900-word list I'm using contains most of the words one will come across not only in everyday communication, but even some less often encountered. But even if I were to do 20 words a day (which takes longer than one might think), it'll take me damn near a year to get the whole thing done.
The list, however, is divided into 3 classes: roughly 1,000 "A-class" words (simple ones like 나, 우리, 나무, 빨간색, 사랑, 사랑하다, etc.), 2,000 "B-class" words, and 2,900 "C-class" words. Although just the "top" 1,000 words is too limited, I could take the top 3,000 or so "A-" and "B-class" words from the list—which have been carefully selected by the list's editors to represent what probably are the most essential words to know—but your vocabulary and mine are probably larger than that. The advantage of such a restriction, however, is that I would get this list done more quickly, or on the other hand may be able to afford more space and attention to each entry.
Anyhow, one of my weaknesses is that even among the words I know and use, I don't always know their correct pronunciation (due to 긴소리 or hidden 된소리), and even for some very basic verbs or noun-verb combinations, I'm not very adept at using the verbs comfortably or properly...so it may be better to start with a smaller list, and work up from there.
(Heck, I could even stick to the 1,000 most basic words, which if those were all the words one knew, would impose a heavy limitation on one's communicative ability...but I could start with those, do the next 2,000, and finish off with the last 3,000....)
What am I trying to say? I want something that, first and foremost, helps me. But I also want something that will be useful to people of varying abilities...yourself and Nathan being a representative subset of such people (this is no slight on your ability, Nathan, but I assume you're not quite as proficient as San Nakji, who's better than I am).
Any input from you two or anyone else who's reading this would be appreciated.
By the way, of the first three entries I've done, I've marked them with stars: 가게 has 3 stars, meaning it's an "A" word; 가격 has 2 stars—a "B" word; and 가구 ("household") has 1 star—a "C" word. The source list—linked to from the footnotes of the introductory page, the next post after this one and the previous one chronologically—marks each of the 5,900 words with an "A," "B," or "C," if you want to get an idea of which kinds of words are in each class.
I like where you are going with this Sewing. I will need some time to go through your list and have a look. 가구 however. I have used that a lot. In the sense of furniture I think it's more a B class?
Oh yeah, no pressure by the way. Sorry if my first comment sounded that way. I just meant how are you finding it, in a friendly sort of way ;o)
Hi, San Nakji:
Sorry if I took your comment the wrong way! Mea culpa.
Bingo...가구 is a second-tier word. I think the first 3,000 words are probably a happy medium between the simplicity of the first 1,000 words and the exhaustiveness of the full list. They probably represent an adequate second-language learner's vocabulary...enough to converse fluently, but not enough to cover every conceivable situation.
By way of illustration, here's are the first few words in the list (slightly marked up by me, but otherwise the raw deal), with the letter at the end of each line denoting the tier it belongs to:
가게 명 A
가격3 명: 價格 B
가구3 명: 家口 C
가구4 명: 家具 B
가까워지다 동 B
가까이 명 B
가까이 부 B
가깝다 형 A
가꾸다 동 B
가끔 부 A
가난1 명 C
가난하다 형 B
가늘다 형 B
가능 명: 可能 C
가능성 명: 可能性 B
가능하다 형: 可能- B
가능해지다 동: 可能- C
가다1 동 A
가다1 보 A
가득1 부: ~ 차다 B
가득하다1 형 B
가득히 부 C
가라앉다 동 C
가려지다 동 C
가령5 부: 假令 C
가로1 명: ~와 세로 B
가로등 명: 街路燈 C
가로막다 동 C
가로수 명: 街路樹 C
가루1 명: 분필 ~ B
가르다 동 C
가르치다1 동 A
가르침 명 C
가리다2 동: 시야를 ~ B
가리다3 동: 시비를 ~ B
가리키다1 동 B
가만 부 C
가만있다 동 C
가만히 부 B
가뭄 명 C
가방1 명: ~을 메다 A
가볍다 형 A
가사9 명: 歌詞 C
가상5 명: 假想 C
가수11 명: 歌手 A
가스 명: ←영 B
가슴1 명 A
가슴속 명 B
가요2 명: 歌謠 B
가운데 명 A
가위1 명: 기구 B
가을1 명 A
가이드 명: ←영 B
가입 명: 加入 C
가입자 명: 加入者 C
가입하다 동: 加入- C
가장1 부 A
가장7 명: 家長 C
가정6 명: 家庭 B
가정7 명: 假定 C
가정교사 명: 家庭敎師 C
가져가다 동 B
가져다주다 동 B
가져오다 동 A
가족1 명: 家族 A
가죽1 명 B
가지1 명: ~를 치다 B
가지4 의: 한 ~ B
가지다 동 A
가지다 보 A
가짜 명: 假- B
가치6 명: 價値 C
가치관 명: 價値觀 C
가톨릭 명: ←영 C
가하다1 동: 加- C
각1 관: 各 B
각각1 명: 各各 B
각각1 부: 各各 B
각국 명: 各國 B
각기2 부: 各其 C
각오1 명: 覺悟 C
각자2 명: 各自 B
각자2 부: 各自 B
각종 명: 各種 B
간1 명: 음식의 ~을 보다 C
간10 의: 間. 서울과 부산 ~ B
간8 명: 肝 C
간격2 명: 間隔 C
간단하다2 형: 簡單- B
간단히 부: 簡單- B
간부5 명: 幹部 C
간섭 명: 干涉 C
간식2 명: 間食 B
간신히 부: 艱辛- C
간장1 명: -醬 B
간접 명: 間接 C
간접적 명: 間接的 C
간판2 명: 看板 C
간편하다 형: 簡便- C
간호 명: 看護 C
간호사 명: 看護師 A
간혹 부: 間或 C
갇히다 동 C
갈다1 동: 바꾸다 B
갈다2 동: 문지르다 B
갈등 명: 葛藤 C
갈비1 명 A
갈비탕 명: -湯 B
갈색 명: 褐色 B
갈수록 부 C
갈아입다 동 B
갈아타다 동 B
갈증 명: 渴症 C
As you can see, the relative utility or "essentialness" of the three classes of words becomes fairly apparent....
I guess an analogue in English would be this:
The "A-class" words are equivalent to what you might find in a children's first dictionary.
The "A-" and "B-class" words together are equivalent to, say, a basic 2,000-word vocabulary for intermediate language learners.
The "A-," "B-," and "C-class" words together give fairly broad coverage of everyday Korean. Although there are many words not on the list, I would (perhaps presumptuously) consider myself fluent—at least, able to function as an articulate, advanced 2nd-language speaker—if I could recognize and properly use all 6,000 words.
...I meant to say that these would be the analogies in English. It seems to me that one needs to know more words in Korean than in English to express the same range of concepts. (Some compounds of simple English words have a single, less simple hanja word as their equivalent—like 가로수 for "street tree." And of course, phrasal verbs in English are made up of a handful of simple words...although phrasal verbs themselves are fairly complex, and have to be studied separately as if they were additional, distinct vocabulary items on their own.)
I like it. I am trying to get some time to check it out more. Nice work my canuck friend!
Why thank you, Kiwi!
the problem is that there are no definitions in English. This is a major obstacle.
Hi, joesp:
You're right, I agree—that is a major obstacle! It's been my intention to add English definitions, but I've been sidetracked by other things in my life, and still haven't gotten around to picking up where I left off. Thanks for checking this blog out all the same, and I plan to get back to updating it soon....
I have started to do that. I thought it would take me 20 hours. However, I was stumped by words here and there, and to create an accurate list .... there were, in short, many time-consuming little problems. I am not a korean native speaker and to do it properly requires extreme care.
My humble little site has this list feature, which i made using php's PEAR's package's Pager class, to page through results from the DB. So, I saved the XLS file to a CSV and imported into postgres using the COPY command, and voila. I think this is better than simply listing them alphabetically; Mine are instead separated by level. If not tonight, then tomorrow, people will be able to quiz themselves on the list.
It really took me about 2, 3 hours to find the enlish definitions for 935 words.
We shouldn't have to duplicate the translation work; I will give you the translated versions, so you can save time.
you sound too busy with other things at the moment to lend a hand.
This will change in the next week, but here's a preliminary glance.
http://www.myowndictionary.com/index.php?cfile=mod_pager&from_lang=korean&browse_all=1&switch=m&level=B
Hi, Joesp:
It looks good! I'm glad someone else is (also) taking this ball and running with it, as obviously the intention behind drawing up and publishing the list was to help Korean learners in their quest.
If you want to contact me off-line, I'm at sa_ewing AT hotmail DOT com.
Well, no need to contact you yet, I just check here periodically to read your news.
I made a few mistakes in my last post, I was so excited to give you ANY news....
First, it took me about 3 ~ 4 hours to do the 935 words, actually.
Second, what I meant was, listing them by category 'A-B-C' and then by popularity ranking seems more like the proper way to study the list, rather than just alphabetizing it.
That said, i wish you all the luck in your project.
In translating, if I'm in doubt, I'm asking koreans, but there will undoubtedly be mistakes in there without 100% proofreading.
i got 2,524 done but i'm losing steam. i'm around 선호..... i'm not even half way there yet.
2,524 is pretty good...it's a lot of work, isn't it!? I don't like doing things halfway, and since I don't have the free time and energy to just get the whole thing done (or the patience to do a bit at a time; say, 50 words a day for 120 days or even 100 words a day for two months), it's not really getting anywhere. Good on you for plugging away at it, though!
2,145 left
3,519 done .....
most of them are level C, then level B, and only a few at level A
I wonder how they have a most popular word list like that, where the most popular words are considered the most difficult....
It's time to announce .... "I'm finished!"
The most useful thing for me was checking my understanding by going from korean-english in my head, then checking naver.com and seeing the correct definition; I learned quickly that i was often wrong!!
my final word count is 5731. Some words I deleted.
the scholars will be mad I didn't use their list properly, but with nobody to explain to me what is the difference between the same word as different parts of speech, i just deleted the duplicate entry when the dictionary couldn't help me.
But, with such a long list, who will browse except for the first few entries?
So, it's really a reference item waiting for an application.
It is more useful divided more fully like you have it here, because you increase the chance of a user seeing multiple portions of the list.
Maybe quizzes would be useful?
Hi, Joesp:
Congratulations on finishing the job! Happy 2007 to you, and I'll check out your finished work shortly.
sewing, they have published these in a book! really, I saw a book with these 6000 words in there.
Did you hear of this?
I was shocked!!
It's a small book, fits in your pocket, you know, to read in the subway....
Really? That's great! Thanks for the tip. Is it a proper dictionary, or just a word list? There has been a large dictionary out for a year or two based on this vocabulary list, but it's definitely not pocket-sized! Did you catch the title of the book? I'll have to look for it the next time I'm in Korea.
If I can upload a link to my site (that shouldn't be a problem) we discuss your site and the mp3 files and the book, too ..... here: the link to the files and to the book as well
Thanks for the link!
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