Fan art by Forbidden-Lover-Girl a.k.a. moonfrost13:

Fluttering Feelings

These two lovely ladies continue to make my heart flutter each week.
Honestly, I haven't created fan art in... a decade. lol. But I felt so inspired while following along with Seol-a and No-rae's blossoming love story that I pushed myself to learn the basics of photoshop in order to draw this artwork of them. ^^

They're from the ongoing manhwa/webtoon "Fluttering Feelings" (aka Exciting Feelings). I highly recommend reading it.

Source:

http://forbidden-lover-girl.deviantart.com/art/Fluttering-Feelings-519854748
http://orig07.deviantart.net/cce4/f/2015/072/1/6/fluttering_feelings_by_forbidden_lover_girl-d8liaho.png

http://moonfrost13.tumblr.com/post/113504035519/these-two-lovely-ladies-continue-to-make-my-heart
http://40.media.tumblr.com/93b38f64456e6059c113e10a37aadf3c/tumblr_nl5dfp5Xce1qj60sho1_1280.png

There is way too few fan art of FF out there, whether on DA, Pixiv, so on.
(By few, I mean practically none.)

Edit: This artist is in fact moonfrost13 who posts here! Added extra source link.

last edited at Aug 17, 2015 11:59PM

trafi:

^ All those punctilious rules for pronunciation when before having understood all those romanization rules you already know Hangeul x)

Actually, I learned both pretty much side by side.

The romanization actually helped me learn hangeul, and vice versa.
 
 
trafi:

I inherited from my korean teacher the opinion that korean romanization is useless because learning hangeul is faster and easier

halmoni:

Romanized Korean is just gross. I hate it lol.

Lol.

Yes, I know any form of romanization is pretty much a 'compromised' form of the native writing of a language.

But at the same time, having a good romanization scheme is pretty necessary, since at one point or another, names or terms of that language will inevitably be written in English or some other Western language. And well, most 'normal' people don't know and would never bother to learn the native writing (hangeul, hiragana, katakana, so on). I'm talking about the mainstream here, not niche stuff like manga where people might be more willing to learn.

So in this case, it's better to have one well defined, standardized and well understood romanization scheme rather than multiple schemes that people can't agree on. Or worst of all, 'ad hoc' schemes (basically, just writing randomly based on 'common sense'), which guarantee things will just end up as an inconsistent mess.

And the most important thing to remember is that romanization is almost never for the natives (who often don't even know these schemes). It's usually for foreigners. Which makes it all the more important for it to be well thought out and consistent, so that your language would be represented as accurately as possible in translation.
 
 
As far as romanization schemes go, I don't find Korean RR too bad.
It's mostly pretty obvious.
Trickier things include "ae" (which looks like it should be pronounced like "eye" but is in fact pronounced "eh"), "eo" (not too obvious, but beats ŏ in the old system), and eu (beats ŭ in the old system). Once you get past these, you're pretty much fine.
One thing I do like is that it reflects certain sound changes that are not shown by hangeul.
Like how 's', 'ss', 'j', 'ch' at the end of words are all pronounced as 't'. (!)
Or these sound changes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revised_Romanization_of_Korean#Special_provisions (Holy crap.)
 
 
halmoni:

From what I've seen, there are no real strict rules concerning how you have to write a Korean name. I've known people who use dashes, spaces instead of dashes, or no spaces/dashes at all. Using dashes is probably the least common option, in my opinion. It doesn't necessarily have to follow Romanized Korean rules to be considered "correct".

Yes, I know names are the most conservative, and hence the least consistent.
Especially family names, like "Park" or "Lee", which are still written the way they were first written ages ago and thus are the furthest away from RR.

I also wish words like "sunbae", "unni", so on would be written in RR: "seonbae", "eonni". (Mostly for selfish reasons, since I've already figured out RR, lol.)
But once again, I know these are very common, as Kanaria has said:

I left all the names true to RR 2000. Recurring phrases like sunbae, hoobae, noona, unni, and hyung were formatted to follow widespread informal romanizations that can be commonly found in Kpop communities.

Ah well.

last edited at Mar 5, 2015 10:54PM

anonymous:

Check out this pretty neat art of Seol-a * by ssamba:

http://blog.naver.com/ssambasoul/220019284696

http://i.imgur.com/Q1sJZig.jpg

I'm surprised this picture doesn't get posted/uploaded very often. If you look for art for FF done by ssamba, you'd usually see the same few pictures, but I don't believe I've ever seen this one.
 
 
* note:
OK, now technically, is that really Seol-a?
I believe that blog post is not actually directly related to FF. (Unsure; not Korean. Maybe someone can clarify?)
However, it was made on 2014/06/03, just a few days before ssamba's first post about FF on 2014/06/14.
So even if it wasn't directly related to FF, I'd assume that's more or less concept art for Seol-a.

halmoni:

Yes, ssamba confirms in that blog post that that is indeed a character from their future webtoon (FF), so it most likely is Seol-a.

Thanks for that information.

And as already mentioned by pretty much everyone,
thank you and the rest of the team for your work on FF.
 
 
Faylicia:

Why is it Seo-la instead of Seola?! I don't understand T_T

trafi:

Seol-A*

You can write the two way they are both correct (or at least understandable I've seen both). To begin with a Korean name Is made of three part : the surname and a first name composed of two part. And generally the two part are written separately.

@ Faylicia

I believe this is part of the 'rules' of Revised Romanization of Korean (often referred to as "RR").

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revised_Romanization_of_Korean

It is permitted to hyphenate syllables in the given name, following common practice. Certain phonological changes, ordinarily indicated in other contexts, are ignored in names, to better disambiguate between names [...]

 
 
In fact, from what I understand,
hypothetically, if "Seol-a" were not a person's name but just a regular term,
following the rules of RR, it would in fact be written as "seora".

설아
The 2 words above are:
seol a
Because L is before a vowel, it is written as an R.
And in regular terms, words are 'glued' together, and there are usually no hyphens except for specific special usages.
Hence:
seora

However, because this is a person's name, the 2 words are written separately, with a hyphen, and the above rules do not apply.

If anyone sees anything incorrect in the above, feel free to correct me. (Not Korean; I just know some stuff about Hangeul and Korean romanization.)

last edited at May 4, 2015 7:22PM

Check out this pretty neat art of Seol-a * by ssamba:

http://blog.naver.com/ssambasoul/220019284696

I'm surprised this picture doesn't get posted/uploaded very often. If you look for art for FF done by ssamba, you'd usually see the same few pictures, but I don't believe I've ever seen this one.
 
 
* note:
OK, now technically, is that really Seol-a?
I believe that blog post is not actually directly related to FF. (Unsure; not Korean. Maybe someone can clarify?)
However, it was made on 2014/06/03, just a few days before ssamba's first post about FF on 2014/06/14.
So even if it wasn't directly related to FF, I'd assume that's more or less concept art for Seol-a.

last edited at Jun 16, 2015 12:59AM

Bojack727:

I have a question: Chinese is a complex and varies language... and also one of the worst translated ones. What I mean is, that it's never been phonetically translated (as far as I know). How should I pronounce the character's names?

I mean, the tomboy's name is Sun Jing and the the girly girl is called Qui Tong. The problem is that sometimes the "i" is pronounced as "er", I've heard "Q" pronounced as bouth "K" and "Ch". My personal frame of reference is pretty limited, as I've only played the Dynasty Warriors games (my main point of reference)- which has only recently gotten a handle on the changeover between Cantonese/Pinyin/English... Sorry, if I sound like a dumb white guy, but I'm just curious.

Kitsune Spirit:

Qui Tong would be Ki Tong, Xiao is Shao, as far as I know, if it is at the end of a name, it's the the equivalent of -chan. The word itself means "tiny." And I'm not sure, but I think Sun Jing sounds like it reads.

I'm by no means fluent in any sort of Chinese, I know more Russian and Japanese than anything else (and even then I'm not fluent) lol.

No, "q" in pinyin is never "k"; it is approximately like the "ts" in "cats".
 
 
As for how to pronounce the names...
 
 
short answer:
 
 
"Sun Jing"
Note that there are some non-optional 'shorthands' in pinyin; hypothetically, without these 'shorthands', it would have been:
"Suen Jing"
pronounced: swuhn dzeeng

"Qiu Tong"
Note that there are some non-optional 'shorthands' in pinyin; hypothetically, without these 'shorthands', it would have been:
"Qiou Tong"
pronounced: tsyou toong

Note that it is "Qiu Tong", not "Qui Tong" as misspelled above.
Just for completeness's sake...
"Qui"
Note that there are some non-optional 'shorthands' in pinyin; hypothetically, without these 'shorthands', it would have been:
"Quei"
pronounced: tswei

Qi Fang
pronounced: tsee fawng

Qin Xiong
pronounced: tseen shyoong

xiao ("little")
pronounced: shyao

xuezhang ("upperclassman")
pronounced: shweh jawng
 
 
long detailed answer:
 
 
Before I begin, here is some 'prerequisite' information...

Pinyin is the romanization scheme of Mandarin Chinese. (It is not used for the other Chinese dialects.)
It is the official romanization scheme in China, Taiwan (since 2009) and in Singapore -- basically, all countries where Mandarin Chinese is the official language.

First off, I want to point out one particularity of pinyin.
There are 3 specific 'shorthands' for 3 specific 'finals'.
These 'shorthands' are NOT optional; they must be applied.

The 3 'shorthands':
- "un" is actually 'shorthand' for "uen".
- "ui" is actually 'shorthand' for "uei".
- "iu" is actually 'shorthand' for "iou".

So for example:
- "sun" is actually "suen".
- "gui" is actually "guei".
- "qiu" is actually "qiou".
 
 
OK, now let's get to the names.
 
 
"Sun Jing"
Remember that there are some 'shorthands' in pinyin (explained above); hypothetically, without these 'shorthands', it would have been:
"Suen Jing"
pronounced: swuhn dzeeng
where
s = normal English "s"
w = the "w" in "Gwen"
uhn = the "en" in "Allen" or the "on" in "action"
dz = approximately the "ds" in "fads"
ee = the "ee" in "see"
ng = the "ng" in "king"

"Qiu Tong"
Remember that there are some 'shorthands' in pinyin (explained above); hypothetically, without these 'shorthands', it would have been:
"Qiou Tong"
pronounced: tsyou toong
where
ts = approximately the "ts" in "cats"
you = the "io" in "adagio"
t = normal English "t"
oo = the "oo" in "look"
ng = the "ng" in "king"

Note that it is "Qiu Tong", not "Qui Tong" as misspelled above.
Just for completeness's sake...
"Qui"
Remember that there are some 'shorthands' in pinyin (explained above); hypothetically, without these 'shorthands', it would have been:
"Quei"
pronounced: tswei
ts = approximately the "ts" in "cats"
w = the "w" in "Gwen"
ei = the "ay" in "say"
"qui" rhymes with the English word "sway".

Qi Fang
pronounced: tsee fawng
where
ts = approximately the "ts" in "cats"
ee = the "ee" in "see"
f = normal English "f"
aw = the "aw" in "law"
ng = the "ng" in "king"

Qin Xiong
pronounced: tseen shyoong
where
ts = approximately the "ts" in "cats"
een = the "een" in "seen"
sh = approximately
y = the "i" in "adagio" (glide)
oo = the "oo" in "look"
ng = the "ng" in "king"

xiao ("little")
pronounced: shyao
where
sh = approximately like "sh" in English
y = the "i" in "adagio" (glide)
ao = the "ow" in "cow"

xuezhang ("upperclassman")
pronounced: shweh jawng
where
sh = approximately like "sh" in English
w = the "w" in "Gwen"
eh = the "eh" in "meh"
j = approximately like "j" in English
aw = the "aw" in "law"
ng = the "ng" in "king"
 
 
Not sure how clear these explanations are; hope this was useful.

last edited at Feb 1, 2015 3:42PM