They show you the word with the alphabet. They show the letters used in a word.

If you learnt the letters A, T, C in English you can learn the word "cat" without any problem.

I was wondering, am I supposed to say the word or the translation...

You are special and important, so we can teach you, we want you to learn anything.

Because it is part of the alphabet, but it also separately means something. Other than my guess, I am not sure.

I Know Right Its so Weird to

You said it

That's where i started as well. They're spot on about how it's best to just memorize what the characters sound like instead of trying to keep translating from characters to Romaji to English.

Thank you !

It is, but 이 is also a word (this).

When I saw this question the first time, I also considered it as a sound and not a word. However, when we translated the word "this" back to Korean, we use "이것", "이" is a prefix before nouns, we don't use it alone. 이 actually can also mean tooth.

Yes, that's right.

"이" means "this" or "tooth".

Kind of like how "bat" in English means "wooden stick for hitting a baseball" and "flying mammal associated with Hallowe'en".

On its own, you can't tell which meaning is intended -- in a sentence, you can see from context which one of the meanings makes sense.

I'm a begginer as well, but before I started learning from Duolingo I was watching KoreanClass101's videos on YouTube to learn hangul. They even made a playlist only for the alphabet so you wont have to scroll through all the videos to find the hangul learning videos. I also got myself a notebook and wrote down the words and sentences they were mentioning and then translated them so I know around 20-30 words/sentences already. Its unnecesarry to write in a notebook and write down the sentences (it will help you a lot though) but I'd definetely recommend to watch their videos about the Korean alphabet aka Hangul. It should be really easy once you get into it :)

I highly recommend http://koreanwikiproject.com/, it teaches you not only the characters but the variations in pronounciation (such as ㅅ being s, sh or even t) depending on the syllable. It definitely helped me a lot with these first Duolingo lessons.

Also, if you're into podcasts, a great resource is http://talktomeinkorean.com/. The hosts are fun and chill and they still manage to teach you things. It comes with a PDF so you can see the words they're teaching written out.

DL recognizes your potential, spurring you onward and upward to a more glorious linguistic future beyond the alphabet.

Its the same when you're learning the alphabet in kindergarten. A for apple. ㅣ For 이 which means tooth. B for bug 아 for 아이 which means child. Same learning technique.

And the Korean word for "tooth" is pronounced with just one vowel -- it's as short as the English word "a" (as in "a bear") or "I" (as in "I am happy"), which are also just one sound each.

So the Korean word for tooth is written simply 이 and pronounced more or less like the name of the English letter E.

Kind of.

There's a Korean word for "this" which is pronounced /i/ (kind of like "ee", or the name of the letter E).

There are other words with the same pronunciation, e.g. a word for the number "two" is also pronounced /i/.

If you just see 이 without context, then it could be either of them.

Otherwise, you have to use context.

If a baseball player says, "My bat is missing", it means something different than if a vampire says, "My bat is missing".

If you have a complete Korean sentence, you will have to see whether it says, for example, "이 book" (probably "this book") and "my 이" (probably "my tooth") -- that sort of thing.

It's not like in Japanese or Chinese, don't confuse, Hanghul, it's not based on the symbols it's based on the sounds, only the sounds. Same in English, a suite of sounds can mean several things. "peek" and "peak" are the same sounds, but mean 2 different things.

Which sounds exactly do you mean by "these sounds"?

This particular "sentence" only contains one sound -- "이 " sounds like /i/, pretty much the vowel of the English words "see" or "eat".

Some of the other sounds in Korean exist in English, some of them don't,.

Because the Korean word for "this, these" is pronounced "ee" and so is one of the Korean words for "two".

Romanization has nothing to do with translation. It is simply a means of helping learners identify the sounds of the Korean letters at the very beginning. Once the hangul alphabet is mastered, one should adapt their keyboard to use hangul, and never use romanization again. It slows learning the language and impedes proper pronunciation.

Korean is not like Chinese -- it doesn't use "characters" that have a meaning of their own.

Korean uses an alphabet, and so a written word only represents a certain pronunciation.

In this case, 이 is pronounced "i" (more or less like "ee" in the English word "bee").

That's not just a sound but there are Korean words pronounced like that, including the word for "this".

Or in other words, the Korean word for "this" is 이.

Yes, it is.

They've got to start teaching us words eventually... and some words happen to be just one syllable long.

Because the Korean word for "tooth" is "이".

So when it presents you 이, it's not just a sound /i/.

There are also Korean words that are pronounced that way, and one of those words means "tooth".

Another Korean word pronounced 이 is "two", so that translation would probably also be accepted.

(Multiple words pronounced the same way isn't unique to Korean, of course -- in English, "bat" could be a flying animal or a wooden stick to hit a baseball, for example.)

Sure.

Like how someone who is good at English would know whether "like" means "similar to" (they are like cats = they are similar to cats) or "find appealing" (they like cats = they find cats appealing).

And they wouldn't think that a "baseball bat" is a black animal that flies around at night.

The Korean word for tooth sounds like /i/, similar to the name of the English letter E.

It's a bit like how the English word for the buzzy animal that makes honey sounds like the name of the letter B.

How does "B" mean honey-making animal? The two just sound the same.

You can hover over it with your mouse (if you use the website) or tap the word (on a mobile app) and it should pop up a window with hints. (However, not all the hints may apply to any given sentence.)

Or you can just guess and then look at the correction.

이 does not mean "I" as in "the person who is talking to you right now".

It's a syllable that is pronounced a bit like the name of the letter E in English, so in transcription, 이 is i since the letter i is used for that vowel sound when writing Korean in Roman/English letters.

Because the Korean word for "tooth" is 이.

Yes, "this" is one meaning of the Korean word 이.

The Korean prompt was 이 and not 이, 이.

Pick one translation but don't put in both at once.

이 is a Korean word for tooth. It is pronounce as "i"

Me :D

I know you probably already solved this, but, for me at least, there's a word at the top right that says practice.

이 - tooth

아이 - child

That’s right.

Some words in Korean are just one letter long, a bit like how in English the words for ich and ein are just one letter long: I, a.

Also, you're not missing anything by not seeing the deleted comments -- many of them are "I love BTS, I want to learn Korean so I can watch them without subtitles" or similar comments that don't relate to this particular sentence.

Korean doesn't really distinguish between singular and plural in grammar, so "this" and "these" are the same word, 이 (pronounced pretty much like the name of the letter E in English).

이 also means tooth. Two words that are pronounced the same.

Like how "bat" in English can be a wooden stick for hitting a ball, or a flying mammal: two words that are pronounced the same.

Or if you were wondering how something that's just one vowel sound can be a word, consider the English word "eye" -- it's spelled with three letters but pronounced with just one vowel sound.

The Korean word for "tooth" is pronounced /i/ -- similar to the name of the English letter E.

That is also a meaning of the word.

How do you get the word "buzzy insect that makes honey" from the letter B?

How do you get the word "lots of water" from the letter C, or "drink made from steeping leaves in hot water" from the letter T?

The words just happen to sound the same as the English letter names. One Korean word for "tooth" happens to sound like the name of the English letter E.

The word 이 means both of those things -- "this" and "tooth".

"child" is 아이, not just 이.

/i/ is the sound it makes.

"this" is one of the words that sound like /i/ in Korean.

So 이 is pronounced /i/ and means "this" (and "tooth" and one or two other things).

A bit like the English word "I" which is pronounced 아이 (like "eye") and means 나 ("me; the person who is speaking")

Much as the English word "I" is just one syllable long, Korean also has words that are just one syllable long -- even ones with just one vowel sound, like English "I".

Hello,its pronounce letter is" i " in korean it does not mean english letter "I":)

Words with different meanings can be pronounced the same.

For example, "bat" can be an animal that flies or it can be a wooden stick to play baseball with.

Similarly, 이 can mean "this" or "tooth".

Why it is necessary to add "ㅇ" to the words / vowels or consonants ?

It's just a spelling rule: syllables have to have a letter at the "beginning".

If a syllable starts with a consonant, then the consonant goes there.

If a syllable start with a vowel, then "ㅇ" goes there, basically to "fill the space" even though that letter represents no sound in that position.

So syllables such as man and an look similar: 만 versus 안. They all have three letters in the syllable: m-a-n in the first case and Ø-a-n in the second case (where "Ø" here stands for a letter that has no pronunciation).

No; child is 아이.

Words can have more than one meaning.

이 can mean "tooth, teeth" or "this" or even "two".