How do I turn my kids' names from Hanguel to Romanized versions?

[bden011]

Hi all,

Once upon a time I stumbled upon a post on waygook that was talking about a website you can use to turn your kids names into Romanized versions, and also it helps you make nametags. If anyone has heard of this website or can point me in the right direction that would be great! Since the classes will be smaller I want to try and learn my kids' names.

[Setaro]

Hi all,

Once upon a time I stumbled upon a post on waygook that was talking about a website you can use to turn your kids names into Romanized versions, and also it helps you make nametags. If anyone has heard of this website or can point me in the right direction that would be great! Since the classes will be smaller I want to try and learn my kids' names.

Just learn to read Hangeul and make your own nametags! Takes about 2 or 3 hours to learn to read Hangeul, that's all.

[Tpre022]

How do people handle the different systems of romanization, is there any standard way to do it? I once romanized part of a student's name as "Chol" once and he came back later to complain that it should be "Cheol", since it has an ㅓ  not an ㅗ. I think "Chol" looks more like the correct pronunciation, but I can understand why you'd want those vowels to be spelled distinctly.

[LemonWater]

If it's a boy, add "us" to the end of their name. If it's a girl, add "a" to the end.

[Setaro]

How do people handle the different systems of romanization, is there any standard way to do it? I once romanized part of a student's name as "Chol" once and he came back later to complain that it should be "Cheol", since it has an ㅓ  not an ㅗ. I think "Chol" looks more like the correct pronunciation, but I can understand why you'd want those vowels to be spelled distinctly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCune-Reischauer This is the one I prefer, it's far more accurate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revised_Romanization_of_Korean This is the official one, the one you see everywhere on road signs/anything government related. It's also not very accurate, especially with vowels like 으  and 어.

The kids may know the latter, but the definately won't know the former.

[justanotherwaygook]

How do people handle the different systems of romanization, is there any standard way to do it? I once romanized part of a student's name as "Chol" once and he came back later to complain that it should be "Cheol", since it has an ㅓ  not an ㅗ. I think "Chol" looks more like the correct pronunciation, but I can understand why you'd want those vowels to be spelled distinctly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCune-Reischauer This is the one I prefer, it's far more accurate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revised_Romanization_of_Korean This is the official one, the one you see everywhere on road signs/anything government related. It's also not very accurate, especially with vowels like 으  and 어.

The kids may know the latter, but the definately won't know the former.

Both are inaccurate.  Both take learning to use them.  In learning the McCune-Reischauer system, one needs to learn the role of the breves.  With the new system, one needs to learn the purpose of the vowel combinations, like eo=ㅓ.  It's just easier to learn Hangul.

[bden011]

I still haven't learned Hanguel  yet :( Don't know if I'll be able to in time for camp. Anyway, if anyone knows of this website that helps you turn  Korean into romanized names, I would be very grateful. 

[justanotherwaygook]

I still haven't learned Hanguel  yet :( Don't know if I'll be able to in time for camp. Anyway, if anyone knows of this website that helps you turn  Korean into romanized names, I would be very grateful. 

I'm sure you have a few free hours between now and when camp starts.  It really is very simple.  Romanizations don't work well and students will giggle and laugh at you when you screw up their name because it's romanized.  They'll still giggle the first time if you pronounce it properly using the Hangul form, but that's a lot better than messing up.

But, if you must, this converter exists.
http://sori.org/hangul/conv2kr.cgi?

But really, just learn hangul.

[Tempie]

Thanks for this post it. I plan to teach my students in camp how to Romanize their names because a lot of students don't know how and though I can read hangul fairly well, Romanization can still be tricky.

[Loki001]

Well, I have to take a jab at you too for not learning how to read yet. But.....

Google translate will do a pretty decent job unless their name actually means something. For example 진주 (jinju) would translate into pearl.
http://translate.google.com/#ko|en|%EC%A7%84%ED%98%B8%0A

[Paul]

What I do is go around the class at one point, flip their books open to the back back and ask them to write their name in the corner in hangul. Then, under that I'll give them RR, McCune and if necessary one of my own devising that I feel my mother could read and let them choose. If RR or McCune ever dumps out something obscene (RR especially often does sadly) I'll skip it for that student. I'll point at each one, and read it in my best Korean-oblivious fake-American accent and let them pick. If there's a common abbreviated version or similar English name (eg: Jaesong/Jason, Seohwi/Zoe, anything with a J halfway to C.J., E.J. etc) I'll offer that as an option too.

If the RR one wasn't skipped then I'll also point out to them as what will be on their passport (passport is yogwon [RR: yeogwon] in Korean if you need to explain it). Whichever they end up deciding gets circled and a little star scribbled next to it. These students now routinely refer back to this page and always write their name romanised on worksheets now. I've tried doing this other ways as part of a lesson or the like, but they lose the cards, tags or worksheets without fail.

Hong's Hangul Tools are a great way to get the RR and McCune versions if you need them, as RR in particular has a tonne of obscure exceptions and the like (yet still routinely dishes out gibberlish with the official government excuse that that is the cost of a "simple" system... tsk). To make a native readable version, just learn hangul. Seriously. Dipthongs aside it should only take 2 hours if you're using a good resource. Use Wikipedia if you have to to understand jamo formation, and for pronunciation, the site I just linked is surprisingly good in that it actually tries to link the sounds to various words in English (and Spanish) to explain them rather than spewing stupid rubbish like 어 is eo in English (Hint: It's not, it was derived from French stripped of accents.)

Watch out for 아 (Middle English a OR short u*, like in the non-American English pronunciation of castle or can't), 어 (short o but as English doesn't have short o on the ends of syllables, it can be hard to get your head around at the end of a word) and 오 (pretty close to o at the end of a syllable in English, but if there's a final consonant, the sound is a bit alien, so its more oh, or oa). Ideally, any method to romanise names (RR is official so it's used for everything, but names are personal, so getting them right matters to these kids) needs to distinguish between vowels followed by a consonant and those that are not.

* My rudimentary understanding is that the short u used to exist in Korean as the arae-a but it was bulk changed into 아 in the past. You'll still occasionally see it in brand names, on Jeju or on things designed to be old-styled, like the mugs at Starbucks. Wikipedia has a bit on this character so you probably want to double check rather than trust me.