Table Of Content

To Access the Audio Recordings: 1. Check that you have an internet connection. 2. Type the URL below into your web browser: https://www.tuttlepublishing.com/korean-folktales-for-language-learners For support you can email us at [email protected]. Contents How to Use This Book 7 The Korean Language: an Overview 8 Reading and Writing Korean Words 12 The Stories Pleased to Meet You! 16 A Self-Introduction 18 How the Mountains and the Sea Were Made 21 Wrestling with a Goblin 25 The Tiger That Saved a Child 29 A Grateful Stork 33 The Scariest Thing in the World 37 Two Mandarin Ducks 41 Rice from a Hole 45 The King Who Became an Eagle 49 Free Drinks 53 The Zelkova Tree Bachelor 59 The Good-for-Nothing Farmer 65 The Man Who Sweat Porridge 73 The Yellow Ox and the Black Ox 79 How the Tiger Froze Its Tail 85 A Tool That Outlives the User 91 The Strong Farmer 97 Guardian of the Ginseng 103 The Bell Seller 109 The Magic Pot 115 Good Brothers 121 The Farting Daughter-in-Law 127 The Shepherd Boy and the Fairy 133 The Magic Mirror 141 Father for Sale 147 The Centipede Woman and the Worm 153 How a Gold Nugget Saved a Life 161 The Magistrate Who Bought the Moon 167 Fox Sister 173 Kongji and Patji 181 The Money in the Cauldron 189 Princess Bari and the Giant 197 The Turtle and the Rabbit 207 How Korea Came to Be 217 English to Korean Glossary 224 How to Use This Book In this book you’ll find a collection of well-known folktales that are much loved by Koreans, featuring wily animals and wise animals, fighting families and loving families, humor, horror and magic, as well as legends about the creation of Korea. Each story is presented with parallel Korean and English text on facing pages. You can challenge yourself by reading the stories in Korean, using the English text as a guide if needed, or you can simply enjoy the English stories. For students who are unfamiliar with the Hangul alphabet, this is presented on pages 10–11, followed by reading and writing exercises that will allow you to master the basics. The book goes from short, simple stories to longer, more complex ones. To tell the stories clearly we use some grammatical forms that are considered “intermediate” even in the first part of the book. As far as possible we use expressions that are common today rather than old-fashioned forms, to be of practical use to the Korean language learner. English translations aim to be faithful to the original, but where a literal translation would sound awkward, a freer translation has been given. Each chapter also contains the following elements: Vocabulary A comprehensive list gives key words from the story in Hangul and English. Selected grammar points Key grammar points from the story are explained, along with example sentences. After reading the story Comprehension questions encourage your deeper understanding of the story and reinforce the vocabulary and grammar presented in each lesson. Let’s talk! Students working with a teacher can use the prompts as a starting point for discussion. Self-study students can explore issues from the story in writing. Notes on Korean culture Notes on the cultural background to each story help you gain valuable insights into Korean society. An English-Korean glossary is provided at the end of the book. Each story is available as an online audio recording made by native Korean speakers, via the link on page 4. The Korean Language: an Overview The Korean Language 한국말 Korean belongs to a family of languages that is thought to include Japanese and possibly even Mongolian, Finnish and Hungarian. Although Korean has no structural relationship with the Chinese language, a large portion of Korean vocabulary has cognates in Chinese. In contrast with some European languages, in Korean the verb always comes at the end of the sentence, with the basic sentence structure being: subject – object – verb. So a sentence would be structured as, for example, “My friend the book reads” rather than “My friend reads the book.” In addition, particles are added to nouns to indicate their function in the sentence. In Korean you would say: My friend (+ subject particle) the book (+ object particle) reads. In Korean, verbs must change their forms in order to show tense and mood. The tense of a verb indicates whether the action or state is taking place in the present, future or past. There are five moods in Korean, which are declarative (statements), interrogative (questions), imperative (commands), propositive (suggestions) and exclamatory (exclamations). Perhaps one of the most interesting features of Korean is the extensive use of honorific language. When speaking in Korean, you must use a level of respect appropriate to the person being addressed or the person being discussed. The language used to address a small child will differ significantly from that used to a friend, and that too will be different from the level of speech used to a senior colleague or elderly relative. There are some verbs and nouns which have their own honorific equivalents: for example, the word for one’s own wife is urijipsaram while another person’s wife is referred to as buin. Other verbs rely on infixes (syllables attached directly to the verb stem) or honorific verb endings. The Korean Alphabet 한글 Before the invention of the Korean alphabet in the fifteenth century, people in Korea borrowed Chinese characters when they wanted to write something.