why the unnecessary 'W'?

[HighTreason]

Ok, I have wondered this for some time and maybe somebody here will know. When Koreans are romanizing Korean words, they almost always add a 'W' to the beginning of words that start with 우. Why? It makes no sense. I have a student whose name is 우영 and he writes Wooyoung on his tests. In spite of this, he still insists that his "English name" is pronounced like oo-young.

Of course, the funniest situation is the Korean bank named 우리은행. They add the 'W' to the beginning when they romanize it making it look like WooriBank. Which, of course, sounds like Worry Bank! I had to take a picture of that one to send to my parents!!

Why is the 'W' added?

[austinfd]

Ok, I have wondered this for some time and maybe somebody here will know. When Koreans are romanizing Korean words, they almost add a 'W' to the beginning of words that start with 오. Why? It makes no sense. I have a student whose name is 오영 and he writes Wooyoung on his tests. In spite of this, he still insists that his "English name" is pronounced like oo-young.

Of course, the funniest situation is the Korean bank named 오리은행. They add the 'W' to the beginning when they romanize it making it look like WooriBank. Which, of course, sounds like Worry Bank! I had to take a picture of that one to send to my parents!!

Why is the 'W' added?

HA... well I guess this is a good reason not to lean on romanization..The rules are a bit complicated and it definitely is different for different people. If you ask two different native English speakers (say one from Austrailia and another from the US) for many words, they would not agree on a romanized spelling. Even Koreans don't always follow the guidelines when romanizing.


But double check your student's name... It should be romanized it as Oh-yeong

오 isn't usually romanized with a 'w' Doing so is definetly againt the official rules. "우" on the other hand gets the W. I think it is done so the word isn't pronounced "uh"

Maybe his name is "우영?" In that case "Woo-yeong" even though I totally agree. W is inappropriate!


And the bank is actually "우리은행" I'm sure it was a typo... but 오리은행 means "Duck Bank ^^

[HighTreason]

Yes, I noticed that throughout that entire message I had typed 오 when I meant 우. I have since edited the message to read correctly. Sorry about that. I had class in about 3 minutes and was writing the post very quickly.

[hyunwoo]

Romanizing the Korean letters can never be perfectly correct hehe.

(and FIY, I romanize my name as Hyunwoo too with a 'w' in there.
actually there would be more than one way to romanize my name
- Hyunwoo, Hyeonwoo, Hyunoo, Hyeonoo, Hyeonu, or even Hyonu... )

one possible explanation is that there's this company called "Dae Woo" -

( how would you romanize this otherwise? Dae U ? or Dae Oo? )

Anyway, everybody in Korea knows this company and have been able to recognize this romanized name and read it as 대우 for ages now, so maybe that's one of the many reasons? Hehe.

[tormsen]

Dae Ooh. That's a car name and an obvious ad campaign. Hot chicks walking along the street, guy pulls up in Korean car. "Ooh! Ooh! Ooh! Dae Ooh!"

Out of Hyunwoo, Hyeonwoo, Hyunoo, Hyeonoo, Hyeonu, or Hyonu; I think the last four would be the most likely to have a random foreign pronounce it correctly. The w doesn't seem much use in helping correct pronouncation, but its mainly to improve the aesthetics of romanised Korean names.

They really should call it Our Bank, that would make more sense and look less silly.

[holdfast]

just like how 이 gets romanized as Lee.

it doesn't make sense to me, but how else would you romanize that, especially by itself (like, as a last name). i have a friend named 이지민 and she writes her name as Jimin Lee. writing Jimin Ee or... i don't even know what else.. would just look very strange in english (as does dae oo or oo young).

I think it is because there is no null letter in english, like how the ㅇ acts before a vowel in korean. that's a very smart letter, that ㅇ. ^^

[Bouks]

I would be totally fine with people writing Ee or Oo as a last name...at least I would know where it came from. The surname "Ng" looks awkward too, but is in common use. Yi is another one, but I guess people are used to it being pinyin and would assume it's Chinese.

[HighTreason]

Yeah, I think that there could be a better way than adding letters that actually change the way the word sounds. Which is worse... the resulting romanized word looking weird or the resulting romanized word having a completely different pronunciation from the word being romanized (and therefore in my opinion having utterly failed at romanizing it).

Maybe it wouldn't bother me so much if it weren't for this convention making my life harder at work. Most Korean people to whom I am trying to teach English have this engrained belief that the 'W' has no sound. They pronounce the word 'wood' as 'ood' and so on.

Ah well