Preface

This site is to help visitors understand the Korean language. Korea is taking a unique stance toward culture and tourism. This website introduces 'Travel Korean' to people who need to communicate on a practical level for surviving in an unknown country.

For this purpose, the contents aim to be simple and 'on-scene' functional.

Those who are willing to make efforts to learn the Korean language will enjoy a much more rich and rewarding experience than the casual tourist. With a little Korean, you will be able to share a conversation with the people you meet as you travel through 'the Land of the Morning Calm'. Hopefully, this site can be the windowlet on Korea of the 21st century.

This site's 13 chapters present situations foreign visitors will encounter in their travels. This site includes useful words as well as practical phrases and sentences- all of which are spoken daily by native Korean people.

This site's 12 chapters are divided into 3 major sections. In the first, you'll find practical sentences and in the second, useful dialogue for a variety of travel situations. In the last section you will find a glossary of popular vocabulary.

The pronunciation of Korean words is hard to record correctly and completely in the Roman alphabet. Despite this, by adopting the Korean Government's latest system for the Romanization of Korean, we have tried to present the Korean on this site as it is pronounced by Koreans on a daily basis. (* Japanese Version adopts Katakana)

One final note. This site is intended to be a practical guide for travelers. As such, it is not meant to be an exhaustive source for learning Korean. However, should this site strike a cord and cause you to want to continue to learn Korean, there are a number of books available to help you do so.

General Remarks

Before the Internet we lived in a wide, wide world. Now we live in the era of the world wide web where, with just one click, we can be in a completely different place. It's really a brand-new, wired world. We realize we are living in a global village. To help facilitate communication in this global village, this site presents useful Korean in 4 different languages.

I feel very honored by the invaluable help of my colleagues and foreign students. I'd also like to express my gratitude to all the students, living all around the world, that I have met during the last 15 years of my career. Without them, I would not be where I am today. They have been my inspiration in life. Their love for Korea has strengthened my attachment to Korean language. Sending my deepest affections, I devote this web site to all my students who encouraged and believed in me as a mentor of the Korean language.

Special Thanks

I'd like to thank co-author, Won-Kyung Kim. Colleagues for 10 years, we can just about read each other's minds and I feel lucky to have had her help on this project. Her extensive teaching experiences based on her expertise on the Korean Language Education Training has been invaluable and I cannot thank her enough for all the recording work she did for this site.

I'd also like to express my sincerest gratitude to the students who helped put together this version of Korean Language for Travelers. When I decided to start the project they helped me on this without hesitation. In alphabetical order, the site's translators are:

Shao Li (Chinese Version) came up with the idea for this website. His patient and expert advice about the Internet are greatly appreciated. Without his help, I could not have completed this project. He gave me courage to start it. He has been studying Korean Language for 2 years and communicates in Korean perfectly. He has such a miraculous sense of the language.

Peter Wayne de Fremery (English Version) has helped me with the English translation of this site. A student of Korean literature, he draws on his background to provide polished translations from a unique perspective. Peter is the person who is professional to express the harmony with Korean tradition from western perspectives.

Thomas Defrance (French Version) helped to organize and manage all the computer files for this site. Giving up what would have been his first vacation in 2 years, Thomas has overseen this project from beginning to end. Without his devoted help, this site would have taken many more months to complete.

Kitamura Keiko (Japanese Version) provided very accurate and sensitive translations for the Japanese section of the site. She paid special attention to the subtle differences variations in translation can make. While completing this project we all discovered she is to be a new mother. I'd like to thank her for all her hard work it what is always a stressful time and wish her and her family all the best.

Shimbo Tomoko is one of my dearest students and is always willing to help me out when I am having a hard time. She majored English Literature in Japan and has studied Korean. She has assisted me to wrap-up this project as we were running short on time. Tomoko cheers us up. She was willing to participate to our work.

Lastly, I'd like to give special thanks to
Suk-Ju Hwang of NofDesign,
who helped me visualize my vague images. He helped create the graphic images from my Korean Fantasy, imagination and serenity through the Land of Morning Calm . Although it has been difficult to find sometimes, it's a unique but traditional place based on the abstract conceptions of my Korean soul.