hairpeace - let me know if you want a study buddy to learn Hangul with (the Korean phonetic writing system).

I investigated after a recent thread of yours and can confirm that it does work in a very similar manner to the indigenous Japanese writing system (Hiragana/Katakana). In fact Hangul is much easier to read for a beginner than Japanese as you don't have to learn thousands of Chinese characters.

There's a VERY patient lady on youtube who explains it beautifully
1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xq4S7M9rJbg
2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzrCnQGLEP8
3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3r4eEo3wKM

Her student isn't the sharpest knife in the box and the choice of western letters/vowels to depict some of the Korean sounds might not be the best ones - but it's a great explanation. The only difficult sounds for an English speaker are a few vowels similar to those used in French.

Anyway, I popped this in to say thanks as I learnt something useful as a direct result of your enquiry.