About this website & Korean Language
This website aims to gather information for proposing a Korean course at the University of Toronto Mississauga campus in a near future.
Korean is a very exciting language. Not to mention its rich morpho-syntax for aspiring linguists and simple phonetic system for beginners, Korean was invented for helping poor. Many people were illiterate during Sino-Korean(Chinese origin) period and unfortunately the Illiterate people were often exposed to harms and poor working conditions.
In the 15th century, King Sejong and scholars invented the first form of Korean alphabets, called Hangul (한글/훈민정음), to help poor people literate; thus, poor people can have a better life. This is why Korean is a very phonetic language, unlike how sounds and spellings do not match in English.
Korean language reflects the tradition, history and values of Korean people. Korean marks different levels of politness and provides an insight to the social norms of a collectivist society. Korean course will be a great addition to UTM for linguistics students and for anyone learning Korean, enrolled in different programs such as sociology, history, and more.
Please support us by participating the survey (on the top menu) if you are a current student at UTM. Also, everyone is welcomed to share their ideas and future collaboration oppourtunities. You can reach me via e-mail: taeho.lee 'at' mail.utoronto.ca
Photo credit: naver.com
About me
Taeho Lee is my full name. In Sino-Korean, Tae(太) means 'great' and ho(昊) means 'sky'.
I recently graduated from the UTM, and I love linguistics and passionate about learning and education: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/taeholee
At the U of T, active research on Korean continues. For example, this associate professor shares her findings on her website: http://www.yoonjungkang.com
I hope I can contribute to implement a Korean course at UTM so many students can benefit from this!