A Korean Language Lesson

This past Saturday we went hiking in Dobongsan. "Dobong" is actually a town, and "san" is Korean for "mountain." To pronounce it like a Korean, pronounce the two o's like "no" and the a like "arm." It's spelled like: 도봉산 That is the first Korean word that I've ever typed. (If it doesn't show up on your computer, won't worry about it). Korean uses a phonetic alphabet, like English. It has fourteen basic consonant sounds and ten basic vowel sounds. The vowels can be combined in different ways, as can the consonants, to make new sounds. Their sentence structure is Japanese, though, which is SOV, that is, Subject-Object-Verb. For instance, they would say, "we the mountain hiked," rather than, "we hiked the mountain."