Section One – Grammar and Spelling

The Korean language is vaguely classified as a Ural-Altaic language, a group which also includes Mongolian, Hungarian, and Finnish. The Korean character system, han-g/l, which is not a semantic or ideographic language like Chinese, but a phonetic language like English, is completely different from and independent of Chinese and Japanese. Han-g/l was created in 1443. It is composed of 10 vowels and 14 consonants. But there are some vowel and consonant sounds that English does not have. In addition, there is no difference in pronunciation between 'l' and 'r', and between 'b' and 'v'.

The Korean character set includes several compound Roman expressions that are displayed or printed as single, wide characters. They include:

- Numbers up to 30, variously circled, boxed or printed white on black
- Upper case letters encircled
- Upper case letters enclosed in parentheses
- Upper and lower case letters followed by right parentheses
- Upper and lower case letters followed by full stops

There is no upper/lower case distinction in Korean. Therefore headings, titles and bullet points are given extra import by the use of italics, underlining or bold, and are sometimes parenthesised using '[ ]'or '( )'.

The typical plural form is “들” but singular and plural are not generally differentiated.

There are no cases or genders, and no definite or indefinite articles.

Korean follows the word order subject, object, verb.

Section Two – Punctuation

Full stops are not used at the end of headings/titles/bullet points.

Speech marks are as English:
“Give me more work!”, shouted Chloe. > “일 을 더 줘 !“ 라고클로가소리쳤다.

“Would anyone like some tea?” asked George. > “차더드실분있어요?“ 라고조지가물었다.

“I’m bored – can I go home now?”, Michala said. > “지겨워, 이제 집에 가도 될까? 라고.

Apostrophes, colons and semi-colons are not used in Korean, but ellipsis is used in the same way as in English.

Brackets are used in the same way as in English, but generally do not contain punctuation other than full stops.

Section Three – Measurements and Abbreviations

1. Measurements: Metric measurements are the official standard in Korea, but inches are used for computer and television monitors.

Roman numerals (I, II, III and i, ii, iii…) are used.

The decimal point is used as in English, (3.7%) and numbers over 9999 are separated by a comma (16,000,000,000).

A space is usually left between a figure and its unit of measurement.

Time: the most common format is 10 am and 3 pm (or 10:00 AM and 03:00 PM).

Noon: 정오 Midnight: 자정

Date: preferably yyyy/mm/dd or yy/mm/dd.
20 February 2004 2004년 2월 20일
20th February 2004 2004년 2월 20일
20/02/2004 2004/02/20
February 20 2월 20일

Currency:
£230 파운드
45 euros 45 유로
$98 billion 98억 달러

2. Abbreviations:

Equivalent abbreviations:
- The tendency is not to use abbreviations.
- Certain engineering abbreviations such as cm² and µA are used.
- Occasionally No. can be used for 'number'.

N/a > 해당 없음
No. (nos.) > 번, 호
e.g. >예를 들어,
WxLxHxD > 폭x길이x높이x깊이
1st / 2nd / 3rd / 4th > 첫번째 / 두번째 / 세번째 / 네번째
Mr. / Mrs. > 씨/부인
Messrs. > 여러분
Miss > 양
Dear Sir / Madam > 친애하는 신사 숙녀 여러분
m (for metre) > 미터
cm (for centimetre) > 센티미터
lb (for pound weight) > 파운드
g (for gram) > 그램
km (for kilometre) > 킬로미터
yr (for year) > 년
k (for 1000) > 천
EMEA (Europe, Middle-East & Asia) > 유럽, 중동 및 아시아(EMEA)
Days of the week: Mon, Tues, Wed, Thurs, Fri, Sat, Sun > 월, 화, 수, 목, 금, 토, 일
Months: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec > 1월, 2월, 3월, 4월, 5월, 6월, 7월, 8월, 9월, 10월, 11월, 12월
Seasons: Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter (not normally abbreviated in
English) > 봄, 여름, 가을, 겨울

Section Four – Hyphenation

Although not ideal, if words must be broken up in Korean then this is acceptable. They may be separated at any point in the word, and without adding in a hyphen (-).

Section Five – Miscellaneous Peculiarities

Surnames precede first names.

Section Six – Geographic Distribution

Korean is spoken in both North and South Korea by about 65 million people. There are also about 2 million speakers in China, 700,000 in Japan, and 600,000 in the United States. Korean's linguistic affiliation is uncertain, though in its grammatical structure it is most similar to Japanese. It is certainly not related to Chinese, although it has borrowed many Chinese words and has used the Chinese characters, together with the Korean alphabet, for many centuries. This latter practice was abolished in North Korea after World War II and is gradually being phased out in South Korea.

Korean is spoken/used in the following countries:
China, Guam (U.S.), Japan, Korea (North), Korea (South), United States of America.

Language Family
Family: Independent

Source: http://www.worldlanguage.com/Languages/Korean - Copyright © Kenneth Katzner, The Languages of the World, Published by Routledge.

Section Seven – Character Set

Simple Vowels

Diphthongs

Consonants - Plain

Consonants - Aspirated

Consonants - Glottalised