# Transliteration of Jake



## ShakeyX

Okay so quick question. I have just started to read a bit about Korean (Can't really take on fully learning it as I have been self studying Russian for a year and now just took on Icelandic).

So, my names Jake!

Google translate gives: 제이크 (jeikeu)

Now obviously, already phonetically this isn't my name and I also read that 3 character names is a sort of Chinese cultural thing that has been carried over and not necessary.

So I understand that hangul is actually an alpahbet just put into blocks, so how phonetically would I spell Jake (Dzheik/Djeik I guess is the closest literal sounds).

And finally, what is the smallest level of meaning in Korean? I understand the blocks normally consist of consonant vowel consonant so at that level its an alphabet much like english, but can these alone have meaning, or is it the blocks that have meaning, or infact a combonation of blocks (i'm guessing a single character can have meaning as it seems common in asian languages) which leads me to ask. What does my name mean?

Cheers. Just curious about these things.


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## vientito

제이크 has no meaning individually and it is just an imitation of the sound by way of korean.  Tibetan-speaking minorities in china does similar thing.  Sometimes they use chinese words to write their names in tibetan.  Those chinese words typically does not render any meaning.  it is purely just chosen to fit the sound.


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## Superhero1

Hello, Jake.




ShakeyX said:


> Google translate gives: 제이크 (jeikeu)



Yes, we write 제이크 and read [jeikeu]. The more similar form for English pronunciation is 제잌 but the typeface looks strange (we don’t have a word consisting of 잌) hence we write your name 제이크. 


> Now obviously, already phonetically this isn't my name and I also read that 3 character names is a sort of Chinese cultural thing that has been carried over and not necessary.



Your name is actually not three syllable in English but the reason we write your name as three syllable is owing to Korean grammar regulation for foreign phonetic notation, not to Chinese culture. The name Liam is written as 리엄, Victoria is written as 빅토리아 and Sam is written as 샘. 


> So I understand that hangul is actually an alpahbet just put into blocks, so how phonetically would I spell Jake (Dzheik/Djeik I guess is the closest literal sounds).


제잌. Some people like to write 케잌(cake) for 케이크(cake). (Because writing 케잌 conveys actual English pronunciation)


> And finally, what is the smallest level of meaning in Korean? I understand the blocks normally consist of consonant vowel consonant so at that level its an alphabet much like english, but can these alone have meaning, or is it the blocks that have meaning, or infact a combonation of blocks (i'm guessing a single character can have meaning as it seems common in asian languages) which leads me to ask. What does my name mean?


-> What is the smallest level of meaning in Korean? Linguistically you mean morpheme, and it sometimes can be just consonant, or combination of consonant+vowel, 
e.g. 가다 (go) : In this case, the minimum unit is 가 and 다. 가 means ‘going’, and 다 is used for ending. 갔다 (went) : The minimum unit is 가(going), ㅆ(past tense), 다(ending).
Bear in mind 가 does not always mean ‘going’.

Your name has no meaning. South Korea has been affected by american culture such as Hollywood movie and also English education, so many Korean get used to your name Jake as an English name.


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## Stassri

ShakeyX said:


> So I understand that hangul is actually an alpahbet just put into blocks, so how phonetically would I spell Jake (Dzheik/Djeik I guess is the closest literal sounds).



I would say 쩨잌.


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## youngbuts

As Superhero1 indicated well enough, the smallest level of meaning in Korean words could be broken into under a syllable such as ㅆ(the past tense), -ㄴ(one of morphemes usually making adjective clauses).. etc. Most of those cases probalbly blong to the grammatical morpheme, which works like suffixes in English such as -ed and -s. What is differnt in Korean from English is that we have a lot, a lot more things of that kind. Though it could be bad news, there is good news also.They are very regular. Once you have mastered them, I guess there would not be many exceptions. And All of them are from original Korean word etymologically.

And I hope you notice almost 80 percent of modern Korean nouns are deriven from Chinese characters. As you probably have already known, one Chinese  letter has one meaning, even though we usually use them as a word containing more than two Chinese letters. So, with those words etymologically from Chinese, we can say the words have a meaning even for one syllable in itself. For example, 전화기(Telephone) is consisted of three Chinese letters: 電(electronic)+話(conversation)+機(mashcine). And As you see in 화 or 기 of the word 전화기, a syllable has just one consonant(첫소리/초성=the first sound) and one vowel(가운뎃소리/중성=the middle sound). The other 전 has one consonant, one vowel, and even one consonant(끝소리/종성=the final sound). I think the both patterns are used without any preference.

And an other thing that I hope you need to know is that Chinese people articulate one Chinese letter as more than two syllable with their special intonation, but Korean people give just one syllable to one Chinese letter with our sound and without a special intonation. I mean we have a differnt sound system for one Chinese letter. Janpanese also have their sound system for the same Chinese letter. We all have each own sound for the same Chinese letter according to the nation. Of course though some words are used with similar sounds by us, it is difficult we could identify it is the same word because we have a very different intonation. 

Actually, even Korean people does not know exactly the meaning of the other's name unless he or she tell us what chinese characters they use for their name. That's because there are almost more than twenty Chinese letters for one Korean sound '영'. (Probably Chinese people distinguish them with their intonation.) So, with your name, you can give a meanig by using Chinese letters. Probably there are many Chinese letters for '제' and '이' sounds as well. (I guess they are rare for '크' sound.)     


I wish my poor English don't bother you so much.


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