But as for now, for all K-addicts…

Let us prove that we love Korea..

Let us follow the law…

You’re right that sometimes elements are translated, the favourite one’s being yeok=station and (tae)gyo=(big)bridge however in these case the system of romanisation is superflous since it hasn’t been romanised but translated directly into english. These are most common on road signs but not so much on non-governmental signs, and equally there are many more signs that are not particularly street names e.g. ro/gil are not translated to road/street, cheon/gang are not translated to stream/river etc.etc.

Agreed, where tranlsations are used then english is probably the best bet,if there is only room for one translation, but tourist locations often have chinese and japanese. The subway stations and many tourist locations do indeed reflect signs but these are usually direct translations to help tourists, in the majority tourist languages, rather than romanisation systems of the korean, and are accordingly typically in Chinese, Japanese and English, just as in Japan where the subway frequently has signs in English and Chinese.

But if a romanisation system is used rather than translating then it simply has to be consistent, as the problem of different pronunciation remains whether in different languages or as noted in the multitude of different pronunciations/dialects of English. Think potato -> potahto or potaytoe, neither -> neever or nighver.

Just a couple of thoughts…you are right that often the romanized name of a street, station, etc. is simply a transcription of the Korean; but when Korean words that form part of such names are romanized, they are translated into English: 영등포구청 becomes “Yeongdeungpo-gu Office,” for example.

Is this right? I don’t know…I agree that there are many non-Koreans in South Korea whose first language isn’t English. Then again, as English is evolving into an international lingua franca, if any foreign language has to be picked for such signs, English can probably be more widely understood than any other language that could be picked—at a minimum, it would be readily understood by Europeans and South Asians, who come from places where English is used extensively as a second (or third or fourth in some cases!) language.

On another note, I always thought that the Hancha on subway station signs was for the sake of Chinese and Japanese visitors, but now that I think of it, they wouldn’t really help such people, since pronouncing such names in Mandarin, Cantonese, or Japanese would rarely help if they were, say, asking for directions! (It would help for wayfinding, though—”Okay, I have to get off at 市廳驛”—but then only if the traveller is from Taiwan or Hong Kong or otherwise well versed in the traditional (non-simplified) characters!) I imagine this is a practice that started during the Japanese colonial period, as station signs in Japan are in Kanji, Kana, and Romaja.

And if you’re looking to nit-pick, ignore the “doe” in “doesn’t” for a moment.

Adding a consonant after the /oe/ changes the sound, so the nitpick isn’t really applicable.

Shawn, repeat, its a romanisation system. By defination, most korean signs that have roman transliteration have no second language, they are transliterations! A road sign saying “Seoul”, is korean transliterated into the roman alphabet, ti is not english. You are also totally ignoring the differences, in pronuciation amongst the varied users of the roman alphabet. Attempting to justify it by saying MOST of the people who are going to read it are English is very weak. Actually most of the people who are going to read it are likely to be asian, e.g Japanese, not familiar with hangul, but familiar with their own romanisation systems. You also, ignore the fact that MOST of those who use the roman alphabet do not speak English as a first language, most of Europe, South America, et al, are you suggesting only tourism from America should be encouraged. Also a large proportion of those who do speak english, don’t speak “American”. If it’s to be english which dialect do you suggest we follow for a new system, deep south cotton farmers, geordies, glaswegians, cockneys, australian?

The important factor is to have a consistent system for transliteration, the sound that such a system represent can then be learn’t by those likely to be exposed long enough to warrant it, but towns, places etc in guide books, maps, streets signs and the like, will not be confused by those with short term tourist exposure.

Of course, if you do have the time to learn the correct sounds, then as hangul is pretty easy you’re better to go that route, as opposed to Japanese where kanji make learning to read and write a very difficult option. This is no different from the Japanese romanisation system, where the letter represent the japanese equivalent not one particular foreing countries pronunciation.

The current system should not be changed again, consistency is the main point, and once learn’t it is easy to convert the current system into hangul and back again without worrying about the diacritical marks that the M-C system relys upon.

–Remort

And yes it’s technically a latinized transfer in Romanization, but let’s face it, the native language for MOST of the people that are going to read the Romanization is English! Want evidence of this? What’s the second language on Korean signs that have Romanized transliterations? Hint: It’s not Spanish, French, German, or Latin.

Simplify.

Suh-ool. Boo-Sahn. Gong-nahm. Ahb-goo-jung-dong. Sool hahn-geh-duh-yo.

@Richardson: The approach was to eleminate the eo, because untrained speakers always read it as two seperate vowels. But it was a little late yesterday, so my suggestion was not so good. Here a new one:
ㅡ = eu
ㅗ = o
ㅓ = ou
ㅜ = u (or oo, if the English nativs insist on it, also I don’t like it)

Also, I would introduce the shi/sha etc. for 시, 샤 instead of the si in RR/MC

Inchoun instead of Incheon/Inch’ŏn
Souul instead of Seoul/Sŏul (looks bad, I agree. But isn’t Seoul even worse?)
Pyoungchang instead of Pyeongchang/P’yŏngch’ang
Shiheung instead of Siheung/Sihŭng

If you want to keep a modified MC, please explain, how you would distinct ㅍ from ㅂ, ㄷ from ㅌ, ㄱ from ㅋ and ㅈ from ㅊ. The apostrophe is a pretty bad idea in my oppinion. Also I think, the rules should offer a 1:1 translation rules for the Hangeul-Letters, with the only exception in obvious cases like 신라. To distinct the ㅈ in 제주 (Cheju in MC) is far to complicatated for daily use.

One of the problems with the romanisation is the English writing (And of course I as a German exspect a romanisation to be made for English). In my oppinion, reading Hangeul is easier than reading English, since there are so many exceptions and ways to read a letter. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghoti for examples.