Seoul - Korean Script

Less Intimidating Than it Looks
When I first looked at Korean I couldn't imagine learning it.  I expected it was ideographic like Chinese.  In other words, you memorize each unique character and it's meaning.  It just didn't make sense though - the characters looked too alike and there were a lot of repeats.  Dodo explained that I was actually looking at an alphabet.

Back in the 14th century, the ruler at the time ditched the Chinese characters that were being used and switched to a 24 letter alphabet called Hangeul.  Similar to English syllables, each Korean word is created with blocks of letters.  Each block is composed of 3 to 5 letters and the letters are placed side by side or over each other.  The placement of the letters in the block determines sounds and whether a vowel precedes or follows the consonants in the block.  Then, blocks are assembled into words.  I watched as people texted on their Korean phones - they were selecting only one of the 24 letters at a time and the phone suggested syllables and then words.  Really amazing to see them do it at a high speed.