How to learn Korean. About the origin of the Korean language

The modern Korean alphabet consists of 40 letters - 24 main and 16 compound. Of these 19 - consonants and 21 vowels.
In the Korean language, there are 14 simple and 5 compound letters to represent consonants sounds. Among vowels There are 10 simple and 11 compound letters in the Korean language.
Total:
Consonants - 19 (14 main and 5 constituent).
Vowels - 21 (10 main and 11 diphthongs).

자음
The creation of consonants is based on 5 initial letters:
ㄱ (To- at the beginning / G
ㄴ (n )
ㅁ (m )
ㅅ (With )
ㅇ (not at the beginning / eyn- in the middle or at the end of a syllable)
Next, the remaining consonants were formed:
ㄷ (T- at the beginning of a syllable / d- in the middle or at the end of a syllable)
ㄹ (r- at the beginning of a syllable / l- in the middle or at the end of a syllable)
ㅂ (n- at the beginning of a syllable / b- in the middle or at the end of a syllable)
ㅈ (zh )
ㅊ (h )
ㅋ (kh )
ㅌ (tx )
ㅍ (ph )
ㅎ (X )
These were 5 basic consonants and 9 consonants formed from them, but there are also 5 double consonants:
ㄲ (ky )
ㄸ (You )
ㅃ (py )
ㅆ (ss )
ㅉ (tsy )
As we can see, each double consonant is formed from two main consonants. The pronunciation of these consonants is very short but stronger than that of ordinary consonants. In total we got 19 consonants, 14 main and 5 double.
모음

____________________________________________________________________________________________

The creation of vowels is based on 2 letters:
ㅡ (s )
ㅣ (And )
Next, the remaining main vowels were formed:
ㅗ (oo )
ㅛ (e )
ㅜ (at )
ㅠ (yu )
ㅏ (A )
ㅑ (I )
ㅓ (O )
ㅕ (yo )
These are the basic vowels. There are also so-called diffthongs, these are complex vowels:
ㅐ (uh )
ㅒ (yeah )
ㅔ (e )
ㅖ (yeah )
ㅢ (th )
ㅚ (oh )
ㅘ (oa )
ㅙ (oe )
ㅟ (ui )
ㅝ (woah )
ㅞ (ye )

Everything is simple here, diphthongs are formed in the same way as double consonants. So, in total we have 21 vowels, of which 10 are main and 11 are diphthongs.

ATTENTION: Before moving on to the next lesson, learn Korean alphabet. It can be downloaded and printed in . Practice in writing letters. A simple 5 minute workout will help you master reading in Korean.

P.S. The materials on learning the Korean language posted on the site were written by one of our users who is studying at a Korean school. Since such lessons were created by an unprofessional teacher, they may contain errors (typos in Russian) and discrepancies (in the rules of the Korean language, such as “zh” and “j” or “ua” or “va”). We ask you to treat such materials as an additional tool to test your knowledge. These lessons are mainly published on the site for users who cannot attend Korean language courses in their hometown.

Features of the Korean language

Korean is one of the most distinctive languages ​​in the world, spoken by about 60 million people.

Since ancient times, the Korean language has been written in written characters. The Korean alphabet ZS±Y (Hangul) is unique, and this is also an aspect of Korean culture. ZS±Y (Hangul) was created by a group of Korean scientists in 1443 or 1444 by order of the fourth king of the Joseon dynasty, Sejong the Great (јјБѕґлїХ). It was from this time that Koreans began to use perfect phonetic writing for writing. Previously, in Korea they used Chinese characters, they just pronounced them differently. The reason for creating their own alphabet was that using Chinese characters is very difficult to learn ordinary people, and at that time only nobles were taught to read and write, and in order to combat illiteracy of the population and increase its cultural level, ZS±Y (Hangul) was created.

Currently, Hangul firmly holds the position of the Korean national script, and the scope of its use is extremely wide. Newspapers and magazines are printed in Hangul (although Chinese characters are still found in newspapers), poetry and prose works are written, a variety of specialized literature is published, and government decrees and documents are published in it.

The modern Korean alphabet consists of 40 letters - 24 basic and 16 compound. Of these, 19 are consonants and 21 are vowels.

In the Korean language, there are 14 simple and 5 compound letters to represent consonants. Among the vowel letters in the Korean language, there are 10 simple and 11 compound letters.

The graphic design of the letters is very simple, while the design of consonants differs sharply from the design of vowels. Characteristic feature Hangeul is that individual letters are formed into syllabic marks. One syllabic sign can contain from two to four letters.

Nowadays, Koreans write exactly the same way as we do - in a line from left to right. However, back in the middle of the last century, a spelling similar to Japanese was used - in a column from right to left.

The creation of consonants is based on 5 initial letters:

The creation of vowels is based on 2 letters:

The outline of vowel letters consists of three elements:

A horizontal line symbolizing the Earth as the beginning of all things.

A dot symbolizing the Sun, otherwise energy (later, when drawn with a brush, the dot turned into a short line).

A vertical line symbolizing man as an entity located between Earth and Heaven.

Korean is a language in which the verb always comes at the end of the sentence. Other members of the sentence, except the verb, can be rearranged relatively freely, although the usual and preferred word order is as follows: subject - object - verb. In sentences, a noun takes one or more various service morphemes, but there are a huge number of endings attached to the verb, and all these endings carry important grammatical functions. The endings mark tense, or indicate whether the sentence is interrogative, affirmative, or imperative. Other endings determine the flow of speech that is appropriate in a given situation and the personality of the interlocutor.

In the Korean tradition, a polite style of communication is of great importance - it is customary to talk in a polite style, for example, with parents, teachers or with interlocutors who are only 2-3 years older, and at the same time the interlocutor can answer in a familiar style, since you are younger than him and this is acceptable. Unlike the Russian language, which has only two levels of politeness - “You” and “you”, in the Korean language the range of such levels is much wider - polite and familiar styles are divided into a number of sublevels. An incorrectly chosen verb ending can lead to serious misunderstandings.

In Korean, adjectives also take endings, which means that in essence, the functions of adjectives almost completely coincide with the functions of verbs.

Nouns are distinguished by a wealth of case forms, grammatical category clarification, lack of grammatical gender.

The morphological structure of a word may contain a root, stem, affixes (prefixes are only derivational, suffixes are also inflectional), a connecting morpheme and inflections (in predicates).

Names (nouns, pronouns, numerals) do not have a category of grammatical gender. The category of animate/inanimate intersects with the category of person/non-person.

Pronunciation in Korean is one of the most difficult aspects for foreigners

• 1) the presence of such vowel phonemes as va, ve, vo (vu), vi, which do not exist in the Russian language
• 2) the absence of whistling and hissing sounds (zh, ch, sh, shch, s, z) and sound combinations with them
• 3) the presence of one two-faced consonant phoneme, which is something in between IL.

The Korean language has a rich composition of vowels and consonants, including ten simple vowels and three series of stop consonants and affricates: simple, aspirated and glottalized.

This variety of sounds creates difficulties for foreigners starting to learn the Korean language.

The phonemes of a series of simple stops are realized at the beginning of a word as voiceless, in the intervocalic position (in the position between a sonorant and a vowel) as voiced, and as implosive sounds (not leading to an explosion) at the end of a word. For example, “kap” [kap] - “box” and “kap-e” [kabe] - “in a box”. The smooth phoneme is realized as “r” in intervocalic position and as “l” at the end of a word. For example, “tar” [tal] - “moon” and “tar-e” [tare] - “under the moon”.

Another feature of modern Korean is that it does not allow a consonant cluster or a smooth consonant at the beginning of a word. That's why Koreans pronounce the word "stop" in two syllables as sy-thop and replace it with foreign words"l" and "r" to "n". However, in lately There has been a tendency to pronounce a smooth sound at the beginning of words borrowed from Western languages.

There are many features that significantly distinguish the Korean language from other languages. But recently, words borrowed from European languages, mainly from English, are increasingly penetrating into the Korean language.

korean alphabet hangul language grammatical

Korean is traditionally considered to belong to and isolated group. Nevertheless, it is spoken by almost eighty million people in the world.

Korean is not only spoken by Koreans living in North and South Korea, but also those who live outside their historical homeland. The birth of the Korean language dates back to the period of the existence of three kingdoms that were located on the territory of the Korean Peninsula: Baekje, Silla and Goguryeo. Moreover, there is every reason to believe that the ancestor of the Korean language is precisely the language of the Silla kingdom, and the Goguryeo language is the ancestor of Japanese.

In the state of South Korea, the recognized official language is the Seoul dialect. It contains (as, indeed, other dialects of Korean) many borrowed words from American and Chinese languages. Dialects in both South and North Korea are distributed according to provinces. Thus, there are the Chuncheon, Gangwon, Gyeongsang, and Jeolla dialects. The smallest province of South Korea is Jeju Island and almost the entire southwestern coast of the country speaks the Jeju dialect. Thanks to its official status state language, The Seoul dialect helps communication between representatives of different language groups South Korea. Having common roots, all dialects overlap with each other and have minor differences in spelling and pronunciation. The exception is the Jeju dialect, which speakers of other language groups cannot understand. This is a consequence of a certain isolation of Jeju from other population groups.

Since 2000, the South Korean government has officially approved the romanization of the Korean language (writing Korean words in Latin), which is designed to make life easier for tourists. However, the peculiarities of the local script, which make it possible to arbitrarily change the consonants in a word when writing it, easily turn “coffee” into “kopi” and “golf” into “goppy”. Despite such confusion, a couple of phrases learned with the help of a phrasebook will greatly facilitate a tourist’s stay in South Korea. Although Korean writing seems complicated at first glance, it is quite simple. Sounds are collected into blocks, forming syllables, and those, in turn, into words.

For many, the Korean language seems mysterious and super complex, because it is so different from ours. In front of you 8 interesting facts about the Korean language, which will help you understand it a little better.

1. There are only 24 letters in the Korean alphabet.

Many people imagine the Korean alphabet to be very complex with a large number characters, but it only has 24 letters. Moreover, 10 of them are vowels.

For example, recall that there are 5 vowels in the English language, but most of them have several sounds. So in in different words letters can be read in different ways. But each Korean vowel corresponds to only one sound.

It turns out that there are only 14 consonants in the Korean alphabet, and many sounds that exist in English or Russian are simply not there (for example, “Z” or “F” from English).

2 . The Korean alphabet (HANGEUL) can be learned in just 90 minutes.

The Korean alphabet was invented with specific purpose- make it easy to learn. All consonants have a shape that will help you learn them using almost just one lip shape. The spelling of vowels is also easy to remember.

3. 80 million people around the world speak Korean

The bulk of them, of course, live in South and North Korea, and in addition, one of the provinces of China uses the Korean language. You will find people speaking Korean in Japan, USA, Russia and other countries.

4. D The dialects of the regions in Korea are very different from standard Korean.

The Korean spoken in Seoul is called "standard Korean". The media uses it and important government statements are made on it. But since Korea is a country of mountains, many regions are very isolated from each other. Because of this, the language in different areas can vary greatly. This is why many Seoulians have a hard time understanding the man from Busan.

5. There are many borrowed words in the Korean language.

Most loanwords come from English language or directly from Japan. So for example, the word "motorbike" — "oto-bai" from the word "auto-bike".

Other languages ​​can also be found in Korean, such as "bbang"(bread) from Portuguese, and "arubaituh"(part-time job, part-time job) from German.

6. Many of the remaining words have Chinese roots.

In due time Chinese culture made a huge contribution to the formation of an active vocabulary of the Korean language.

7. There are two counting systems in Korea

One of the counting systems is based on the Korean language, the other has Chinese roots, the numbers here have similar sound with Chinese. Often, Korean language learners get confused about how to apply each of these systems in practice. But don't give up or despair!

8. The North Korean language is gradually becoming an independent language.

Despite the fact that large differences in pronunciation and dialects existed even before the Korean War, the languages ​​truly became foreign after the separation. Significant influence foreign languages into South Korean and the isolation of North Korea has led to the fact that now many words that have the same meaning on one side and the other have become completely different. For example words "ice cream", "rainbow", "friend", "lunchbox"— the two Koreas sound completely different.

Which fact did you find most interesting? What unusual facts about the Korean language do you know?

Standard Korean in the North and South differs from each other. In 1954, the North Korean spelling rules “Joseon choljabop” (조선어 철자법) were issued, and although it introduced very small changes, the language of the North and South began to separate from this time.

On January 3, 1964, Kim Il Sung, developing the ideas of Juche, released a collection of thoughts on the development of the Korean language, Several Problems in the Development of the Korean Language ( 조선어를 발전시키기 위한 몇 가지 문제 , Joseon-ryul paljeongsihigi wihan myet kaji munjae), and on May 14, 1966 - an essay “On the correct development of national characteristics of the Korean language” ( 조선어의 민족적 특성을 옳게 살려 나갈 데 대하여 , Chosonoi minjokchok teuksong-eul olkhe salryo nagal te tehayo). In the same year, the National Language Committee published the "Rules of the Literary Korean Language" (조선말규범집, Joseonmal-gyubomjeep). These documents increased the differences between the dialects of the North and the South. In 1987 North Korea revised the spelling rules, for 2011 this is the current version of the rules. Additionally, in 2000, “Rules for Spacing in Written Korean” (조선말 띄여쓰기규범) was released. Joseonmal ttiyossigigyubom); in 2003, these rules were replaced by the “Space Rules” (띄여쓰기규정, Ttiyossygigujon).

Several linguists, concerned about the estrangement of the DPRK and ROK language variants, have been working to create a 330,000-word pan-Korean dictionary since the mid-1980s.

This article uses the International Phonetic Alphabet and symbols:

• vertical bar | | for morphophonemes;
• slash // for phonemes;
• square brackets for allophones.

In order to more accurate transcription, the letter ㅓ is transcribed as /ʌ/ when describing South Korean and general Korean words and as /ɔ/ when describing words from the North.

Chamo

The North and South use the same Hangeul letters (Chamo). However, in the North the stroke that distinguishes ㅌ |tʰ| from ㄷ |t| it is written above the letter, and not inside, as in the South.

In the South, the compound vowels are ㅐ |ɛ|, ㅒ |jɛ|, ㅔ |e|, ㅖ |je|, ㅘ |wa|, ㅙ |wɛ|, ㅚ |ø|, ㅝ |wʌ|, ㅞ |we|, ㅟ |y|, ㅢ |ɰi| and doubled consonants ㄲ |k͈|, ㄸ |t͈|, ㅃ |p͈|, ㅆ |s͈|, ㅉ |tɕ͈| are not considered independent letters, unlike North.

Some Chamo are called differently in the North and South.

Chamo	South Korean name	North Korean name
ㄱ |k|	기역, kiyok	기윽, kiik
ㄷ |t|	디귿, tigyt	디읃, tiyt
ㅅ |s|	시옷 [ɕiot̚], siot	시읏 [ɕiɯt̚], siyt
ㄲ |k͈|	쌍기역, ssankyeok	된기윽, twengyeuk
ㄸ |t͈|	쌍디귿, ssandigyt	된디읃, twendyit
ㅃ |p͈|	쌍비읍, ssanbyup	된비읍, twenbyeup
ㅆ |s͈|	쌍시옷, sansyot	된시읏, twensiyt
ㅉ |tɕ͈|	쌍지읒, ssanjiit	된지읒, twenjiit

In the South, the Chamo names are used from the 1527 treatise “Hunmon Chahwe” (훈몽자회, 訓蒙字會), and the names in the DPRK were invented according to the scheme “letter + 이 + 으 + letter”. Doubled consonants are called "double" (쌍- /s͈aŋ-/) in the South, and "strong" (된- /tøːn-/) in the North.

Chamo order

Vowels

South:

ㅏ

ㅐ

ㅑ

ㅒ

ㅓ

ㅔ

ㅕ

ㅖ

ㅗ

ㅘ

ㅙ

ㅚ

ㅛ

ㅜ

ㅝ

ㅞ

ㅟ

ㅠ

ㅡ

ㅢ

ㅣ

[a]

[ɛ]

[ʌ]

[e]

[o]

[ø]

[u]

[y]

[ɯ]

[ɰi]

[i]

North:

ㅏ

ㅑ

ㅓ

ㅕ

ㅗ

ㅛ

ㅜ

ㅠ

ㅡ

ㅣ

ㅐ

ㅒ

ㅔ

ㅖ

ㅚ

ㅟ

ㅢ

ㅘ

ㅝ

ㅙ

ㅞ

[a]

[ɔ]

[o]

[u]

[ɯ]

[i]

[ɛ]

[e]

[ø]

[y]

[ɰi]

Consonants

South:

ㄱ

ㄲ

ㄴ

ㄷ

ㄸ

ㄹ

ㅁ

ㅂ

ㅃ

ㅅ

ㅆ

ㅇ

ㅈ

ㅉ

ㅊ

ㅋ

ㅌ

ㅍ

ㅎ

[k]

[n]

[t]

[l]

[m]

[p]

[s]

[∅]/[ŋ]

[h]

North:

ㄱ

ㄴ

ㄷ

ㄹ

ㅁ

ㅂ

ㅅ

ㆁ

ㅈ

ㅊ

ㅋ

ㅌ

ㅍ

ㅎ

ㄲ

ㄸ

ㅃ

ㅆ

ㅉ

ㅇ

[k]

[n]

[t]

[l]

[m]

[p]

[s]

[ŋ]

[h]

[∅]

In the North, diphthongs are considered separate chamos, their place in the alphabet is after pure vowels. In the South, diphthongs are found among pure vowels: after ㅏ comes ㅐ, a combination of ㅏ and ㅣ; after ㅗ come ㅘ, ㅙ and ㅚ, starting with ㅗ. In the North the letters are divided ㆁ |ŋ|, called " Yesiyn"and located between ㅅ And ㅈ , and actually " iyn" for a zero initial, located at the very end of the alphabet and found in syllables beginning with a vowel. In the south, the letters for the zero initial and final [ŋ] are considered to be one letter ㅇ, placed between ㅆ and ㅈ.

Pronunciation

Southern and Northern Korean have the same number of phonemes, but there are differences in the pronunciation of these phonemes. The South Korean standard is based on the Seoul dialect, while the North Korean standard is based on Pyongyang.

Consonants

In Seoul pronunciation, the consonants ㅈ, ㅊ and ㅉ are usually pronounced with the alveolo-palatal affricates , , , while in Pyongyang the same letters correspond to the alveolar affricates: , , . The syllables 지 and 시 in the North can be pronounced without palatalization: , .

Words borrowed from China sometimes omit the initial ㄴ |n| and all ㄹ |l|. Both ㄴ and ㄹ are always written and pronounced. For example, a common surname 이 [i], in the North is written and pronounced as 리 [ɾi], Ri. In Russian, this surname is known as Li. Korean word Yoja, 여자, "woman", written in the North 녀자 (pronounced nyoja, ). But since this pronunciation was artificially introduced, older North Koreans may have difficulty pronouncing ㄴ and ㄹ at the beginning of words.

Vowels

The vowel sound ㅓ /ʌ/ in North Korean is rounded, unlike in South Korean. In IPA notation, the South Korean sound will look like [ʌ̹] or [ɔ̜], and the Pyongyang sound will look like [ɔ]. Due to the North Korean rounding, Seoulians may mistake North Korean ㅓ for ㅗ /o/. In addition, the difference between ㅐ /ɛ/ and ㅔ /e/ in the speech of young Seoulians is gradually disappearing, but it is unknown whether the same is happening in the speech of North Koreans.

Musical Accent

The Korean language has musical accent, a kind of two-tone system: a syllable can be pronounced in a high or low tone. North Korean musical accents are different from South Korean ones, but there is very little research on this issue. On the other hand, the Joseonmal Daesajeong (조선말대사전), published in 1992, lists the accents for some words. For example, the word "kwekkori" (꾀꼬리, - Korean nightingale) is described as having the accent "232" ("2" is a low tone and "3" is a high tone). It should be noted that the speech of the announcers on North Korean television is very tense, they almost shout, which may indicate that their pronunciation cannot be relied upon as the speech of “typical Pyongyang people.”

Spelling

Conjugation

어 / 여

Words ending in ㅣ |i|, ㅐ |ɛ|, ㅔ |e|, ㅚ |ø|, ㅟ |y|, ㅢ |ɰi|, in forms that in the South are formed by adding -어 /-ʌ/ to the ending , in the North they add -여 /-jɔ/. In the South, pronunciation with /-jʌ/ is also found.

Conjugated word	Southern conjugation	Northern conjugation	Translation
피다	피어 (펴)	피여	blossom
내다	내어	내여	give
세다	세어	세여	count
되다	되어 (돼)	되여	become
뛰다	뛰어	뛰여	jump
희다 [çida]	희어 [çiʌ]	희여[çijɔ]	be white

Exceptions to ㅂ-

When the root of a conjugated word consisting of two or more syllables ends in ㅂ, for example, 고맙다, then vowel harmony has been ignored in conjugation in the South since 1988, while in the North it has been preserved. If the root contains a single syllable, the harmony is preserved in the south (돕다).

Indication of consonant tension after endings with -ㄹ

Words that end with the letter ㄹ |l|, according to southern spelling, are written -ㄹ까 |-l.k͈a| and -ㄹ쏘냐 |-l.s͈.nja| to indicate the tension of consonants. In the North, such words are written -ㄹ가 |-l.ka|，-ㄹ소냐 |-l.so.nja|. Also in the South until 1988 the ending -ㄹ게 |-l.ɡe| was written as -ㄹ께 |-l.k͈e|, but with a change in the rules, the spelling changed to the same as in the North: -ㄹ게.

Borrowed from Chinese words

Initial ㄴ / ㄹ

Initial ㄴ |n| and ㄹ |l|, which were in words borrowed from Chinese, are preserved in the North, but are subject to changes in the South (두음법칙, tight ass, "initial consonant rule"). Words starting with ㄹ followed by [i] or [j] (i.e. ㄹ + ㅣ |i|, ㅑ |ja|, ㅕ |jʌ|, ㅖ |je|, ㅛ |jo|, ㅠ |ju| ), ㄹ is replaced by ㅇ |∅|; if the initial ㄹ is followed by any other vowel, it is replaced by ㄴ |n|.

Likewise, Chinese loanwords beginning with ㄴ |n| followed by [i] or [j] lose the ㄴ in the South, but retain the ㄴ in the North.

South	North	Hancha	Translation
이승	니승	尼僧	nun
여자	녀자	女子	woman

Sometimes the difference persists even in the South, mainly to distinguish the surnames 유 (柳) and 임 (林) from 유 (兪) and 임 (任), the latter may be pronounced 류 (柳 [ɾju]) and 림 (林 [ ɾim]).

Pronunciation of hanchi

If a loanword in the South is written 몌 |mje| or 폐 |pʰje|, then in the North the spelling 메 |me|, 페 |pʰe| is used. But even in the South such words are pronounced 메 /me/, 페 ) /pʰe/.

Some hanchi signs are pronounced differently in the North and South.

In the North, in addition, hanja 讐 "revenge" is usually pronounced 수, but in a single word怨讐 ("enemy") it is pronounced 쑤. This probably avoids homophony with the word 元帥 (“marshal”), which is one of the titles of Kim Jong Il, which is written 원수 |wɔn.su|.

Difficult words

Sai Siot

"Sai siot", (사이 시옷, "middle ㅅ") - a phenomenon in which compound words derived from unbending words, inserted -ㅅ. This phenomenon does not occur in the North, but the pronunciation is the same in the two countries.

Endings in compound words

Usually ending components V difficult words are written down, but when the etymology of a word is not traced, endings may be omitted, and for native speakers, accordingly, etymology and spelling may cause disagreements:

In the first example, in the South, the 올 part indicates that the etymology is lost, and the word is written phonetically as 올바르다. In the North, the word is believed to come from 옳다, so it is written as 옳바르다 (pronounced the same). Another example is that in the South the word 벚꽃 is considered to be composed of 벚 and 꽃, but in the North the individual parts are no longer recognized, so the spelling 벗꽃 is used.

Inserting spaces

In the South, the rules for separating words with spaces are not officially defined, but in the North, on the contrary, they are specified very precisely. In general, South Korean texts tend to have more spaces.

Non-independent words

Non-independent words in the North are called purwanjeong myeongsa (불완전명사, 不完全名詞 , “incomplete nouns”), and in the South - Uijeon Myungsa(의존 명사, 依存名詞, “dependent nouns”). These are nouns that cannot be used alone, for example, counting words and words such as chul (줄, such and such a method), ri (리, such and such a reason): they must be preceded by a verb. Non-independent words are preceded by a space in the South, but not in the North.

Auxiliary verbs

In the South, there is usually a space between the main and auxiliary verbs. There is never a gap in the North.

South	North	Translation
먹어 보다／먹어보다	먹어보다	try to eat
올 듯하다／올듯하다	올듯하다	appear to be advancing
읽고 있다	읽고있다	read
자고 싶다	자고싶다	want to sleep

In the South, in the examples above, auxiliary verbs after -아/-어 or the nominative case can be written without a space, but the space after -고 cannot be omitted.

Unseparable compound words

Words made up of two or more, meaning some independent object or phenomenon, are written with spaces in the South, but together in the North. Personal names and terms can be written without spaces in the South.

It should be taken into account that although the rules for placing spaces in the South are codified, spelling may change depending on the opinion of the speaker: for example, the word 국어 사전 is considered by some to be two words, writing it with a space, while others are considered to be one word and written together.

Highlighting in text

Dictionary

Literary South Korean is based on the Seoul dialect, while North Korean is based on Pyongyang. However, the vocabulary of both dialects is based on "Sajonghan josono pyojunmal moeum" ( 사정한 조선어 표준말 모음 ), published by the Korean Language Committee in 1936. The differences in vocabulary between adverbs are thus minimal. However, due to the fact that different political forces dominate in the South and the North, the vocabularies of the South and the North are replenished with different neologisms, and the differences will only increase in the future.

Difference in words caused by political and social reasons

South	North	Meaning
한반도 (韓半島)	조선 반도 (朝鮮半島)	Korean Peninsula
한국 전쟁 (韓國戰爭)	조 국 해방 전쟁 (祖國解放戰爭)	Korean War
초등 학교 (初等學校)	소학교 (小學校)	primary school
친구 (親舊)	동무	Friend

The North Korean word for "friend" (동무, dongmu) was also used in the South before the separation. However, after the separation, North Koreans began to use the word as a translation of the Russian word for "comrade"; the meaning of “tonmu (comrade)” spread to the South, after which it fell into disuse.

Difference in borrowed words

South Korea has borrowed many English words, and Northern - a number of Russians, in addition, even words borrowed from the same language can have different meanings in the South and North. In the South, transliteration of the English toponym is used for foreign toponyms, and in the North - the local one.

South			North			Meaning
Korean	Transliteration	Origin	Korean	Transliteration	Origin
트랙터	thyrekho	English tractor	뜨락또르	ttytractors	rus. tractor	tractor
스타킹	sythakhkhin	am. English stocking	스토킹	Sytkhokhin	British English stocking	stocking
폴란드	Phollands	English Poland	뽈스까	Ppolsykka	floor. Polska	Poland

Other differences in the dictionary

The remaining differences boil down to dialectal differences between Seoul and Pyongyang

The words 강냉이 and 우 are found in South Korean dialects.

There are North Korean words for which there are no South Korean equivalents. The verbs 마스다 (masyta, break, destroy) and its passive voice 마사지다 (to be broken, to be destroyed) do not have South Korean equivalents.