Free PDF: Concise dictionary of the Korean language 1890, in two parts, Korean-English & English-Korean





I hope this book can be helpful for you in your journey to learn the Korean Language and also useful for Korean students who want to learn English.









Example of the First Part of Korean to English Dictionary

example of English to Korean section in the book



Author: Horace Grant Underwood, .publication Date:1890

The absence of a dictionary of the Korean language in English makes the need for some such work apparent. It was with a full realization of this fact that the author after a few months of residence in the country, began the collection and systematic arrangement of Korean words with their English equivalents, now nearly five years ago. In the midst of other duties, but a small portion of time could be devoted to this work and in fact, it has not infrequently happened that for six months at a time it has been necessary to leave it entirely untouched. For the most part, it has been left to summer vacations, when freedom from many other duties, left time to carry on this work. Consequent upon this, at the opening of last summer, only some ten thousand words on either side had been classified and arranged with their synonyms. At this time the feasibility of preparing for immediate use, a small concise pocket dictionary, which should contain as far as possible, all of the most useful words of the language was suggested to and urged upon the author.On the Korean-English, or first part, assistance was rendered by Mr. Gale, and on the second, or English- Korean, by Professor Hulbert, of the "Royal Korean University. One of the great difficulties encountered in this work' is the chaotic condition of the Korean orthography. Spelling in Korea is purely phonetic, and as each man is “ a law unto himself” in this matter, and as even then the law is quite the reverse of those of the Medes and Persians, almost insurmountable difficulties surround those who attempt to find a standard; for“although as has been said no two men spell alike, each claims that his is the right way, while' acknowledging that others may be allowable, most consider it a good method of spelling, while a large number consider it the true and only method, and it has been deemed best, therefore, to take this as the standard, and as far as possible it has been made the basis of the spelling in this dictionary.With reference to the host of words that cannot be found in the “ Ok Hpyen,” the effort has been made, to ascertain from the derivation what the true spelling should be. In many cases, by careful searching, it has been found that words that have been looked upon as pure Korean are really derived from the Chinese, and they have been spelled accordingly. Each word has been carefully compared with the corresponding word in the “ Dictionaire Coreen — Francais ” and all words for which no authoritative standard could be found, have been made to coincide with it in spelling.With the assistance of Mr. James B. Gale and Professor Homer B. Hulbert, the task was begun of selecting and arranging only the most common of those words which had already been defined, and of adding such as had not up to that time been placed in the as-yet-unfinished larger dictionary. In this undertaking, the aim has been to give all the most common words, and at the same time not to exceed in size, the limits of a pocket dictionary. There are many words which the author felt constrained to include, and yet, had not the line been rigidly drawn somewhere, the primary object of the work would have been lost, and he was forced to let them remain in the columns of the larger dictionary.