Table Of ContentTo 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.
