Korean writing and the PC

by Philip

This is just an overview of the Korean writing system and how to read and write it on your computer (quick to read but a bit out of date).

HOW IS KOREAN WRITTEN?

Korean is writen using a phonetic writing system known as Hangul, invented under King Sejong. One hangul character represents a syllable, composed of one, two or three individual sounds.
Chinese characters(Hanja) are used to complement in some forms of written communication, such as newspapers and other high level material. Hangul is still by far the most prevalent at the moment, although the current president has plans to incorporate more chinese characters in common with other Asian nations such as China, Japan and Taiwan who all use chinese characters. Also roman characters are increasingly used.
Although the Korean language itself is difficult to learn, there is no system of writing easier to learn or more logical than Hangul.

WHAT ABOUT WRITING KOREAN ON COMPUTER?

There are operating systems for Hangul (egWindows 97 Hangul) but you don't have to buy a new system to write Korean on your computer there is a lot of software to buy and to download free for trial. However it is sometimes difficult finding the right software for your platform(win95, windows NT, etc.) and browser.
To find out if your computer can read Korean click here to go to my Korean introduction; if your browser doesn't support Korean yet this will just read as a selection of random looking characters.

For more information about reading Hangul on computer see:

http://www.erols.com/sang/hangul.htm

Some companies that deal with software for viewing and writing asian languages are Unionway, NJstar and Twinbridge. Unionway is reccomended for software to write Korean.

If you want to be able to read and write Korean, Japanese and/or Chinese on-line and in e-mails the best solution, and the one I use at home, is Microsoft's international support 'Global IME' this can be downloaded completely FREE, and simply. It works alongside your browser(and Office 2000), as long as you have Internet Explorer 4 or greater. You have to be using Windows, too. With the Global IME you can also choose to download a so-called 'language pack' this is the software the allows you to view Korean. A full explanation and links for download is given here on Microsoft If you don't have Internet Explorer 4 or greater, The latest internet Explorer can be downloaded from here and you can choose to have the Korean reading and writing setup automatically downloaded with the new browser.

However if you are in a hurry to read and write Korean I recommend the following:

NJ communicator 2.0 (About 3MB)

Works on all applications for viewing Chinese, Korean and Japanese and on all Windows platforms, Korean, Japanese and Chinese IMEs(input method editors) included.

Download page:
http://www.NJSTAR.com/communicator/download.htm

30 DAY trial version

DIRECT DOWNLOAD it FROM, if you are confident with downloading procedure:

EITHER

US download site:
ftp://ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/win95/inet/njcom210.zip

OR:

UK download site:
ftp://sunsite.doc.ic.ac.uk/packages/simtelnet/win95/inet/njcom210.zip

Then, download WINZIP to unpackage the file 'njcom210.zip' here:
ftp://ftp.download.com/pub/winnt/utilities/winzip70.exe

double click on WINZIP when you have downloaded it, then just follow on screen instructions.
sometimes necessary to to to 'NJconv' (in the NJStar communicator directory) and convert 'unicode' to KSC
Korean encoding in order to be able to read hangul. See the NJstar homepage for more information.