Unlike other Asian languages that use complicated (to us westerners) pictograms or scripts and are tonal (e.g. “ma” can be pronounced 5-7 different ways in Mandarin and Thai), Hangul (the Korean language introduced in the 15th century) is actually composed of letters that roughly translate to many English letters, with a specific syllabic pattern, and pronounced fairly flatly. Of course pronunciation rules aren’t always straightforward, but you can get reasonably close. The first few sections of Korean Writing System give a good overview.
I can read most of the letters now, which helps for place names and some key words, but obviously if you don’t know the Korean word for something, then you won’t understand the word you are reading/pronouncing.
For example, 신촌 is Sinchon (pronounced Shinchon), the metro station closest to my hostel (and yes, in the metro, maps and signs also list the stop name in English everywhere). I can read the 3 letters inside each of those 2 syllables. My turning point came one day at lunch when I was even able to recognize the Hangul for beer (maekchu), a local drink (soju) similar to vodka, and rice wine (makkolli) on the no-English menu posted on the wall (for food, I pointed at a picture of the dish I wanted).
I may not be able to read much Korean, but I’m pretty sure the sign, locked gate and barbed wire are all saying: “Keep out!”
- No entry sign on part of Inwangsan (mountain)