Learn to Read & Write Korean

The alphabet used by Koreans is called Hangul. This is an easy-to-follow guide on reading and writing Hangul.

I started I think last Thursday, and when I came into the dojang Saturday I could almost understand the Hangul on the Kukkiwon flag... I was just missing a few key letters... and that was only three days.

What makes it easy is that Hangul is a phonemic writing system, so the symbols actually correspond to spoken sounds. Other Eastern languages such as Chinese or Japanese use logograms which are pictorial representations of words. Since there are so many logograns to memorize, these languages are usually more difficult for non-native speakers to learn.

Also, because Hangul is more like a true alphabet, you can use it to try and spell almost any word you know in English, whether it is a Korean word or not. SO, it can be like a secret code! Also, you don't really have to know the rules of the Korean language itself in order to know how to read Hangul. This will teach you how to say words written in Hangul, and to write words in Hangul.

All that mumbo-jumbo aside, if you are interested in some of the culture behind taekwondo, then give Korean Hangul a try:

http://www.learnlangs.com/RWP/Korean/index.htm