yes b and p etc. are the same letters in hanguls~ well~ the best to explain it is in writing it down from the book again (cause i just remembered some easy things
)
"k, t, p and ch are all written as such at the beginning of a word; however, in actual pronounciation, they can be pronounced g, d, b and j if they are preceded and followed by vowel sounds.
the consonants m and n are romanized as such, double consonants are written as kk, tt, pp, cch, asporated consonants are written as k', t', p' and ch', the zero or null consonant is not romanized since it has no sound ( its a 0)- remember to write it in the korean script when a syllable begings with a vowel however. as the last consonant in a syllable we romanice it ng, wich is the way it is pronounced (as in bring)
the letter h is sometimes not pronounced, in those cases we do not romanice it, although we indicate its presence in the vocabularies by writing it in brackets as in the word man(h)i, pronounced mani (many). when the letter h occurs as the last consonant in a syllable and the following syllable begings with k. t, p or ch, then those sounds become aspirated. instead of writing hk in romanization, therefore we write k', which is the way in wich the korean is actually pronounced.
finally the consonant l is a littly tricky. sometimes it is pronounced l (when one of the letters to the side of it is a consonant), but between vowels it is pronounced r. we romanize it as l or r, according to the pronouncitions. take the word "il" for example wich means day (also 1 >_<). when the word is followed by the subject particle -i the l is pronounced as r so we romanize it ir-i. what you have to remember is that in the vocabulary this will be listed under il, and not under ir. it sounds a bit puzzling at first, but you will soon get used to it, and there is no real difficulty~"
that was the easy part, (wihc i always remember
) now the difficult part:
"when the letters k, t and p precede m or n or l, they are pronounced (and romaniced) as ng, n and m respectively. if the letter they precede is an l, then the l also changes to an n sound. the following examples show in the left coluimn how they would be spelt in hang'ul, and in the right-han column the way they are pronounced and romanized. we have put dashes in to indicate the syllable breaks.
hak-nyôn hang-nyôn
ta-nun-da tan-nun-da
hap-ni-da ham-ni-da
tok-lip tong-nip
2nd: l is pronounced as an n when immediately preceded by any consonant, except l or n. thus we have gong-nip as above from tok-nip as above (from tok-lip), shimni (from shim-li)
whenever an l appears next to an n, either as nl or ln, the resulting pronounciations it ll: chilli from chin-li, illyôn from il-nyôn.
3rd: if a word ends in a consonant and it is not followed by a particle ( a little word that attaches to nouns), or the verb -ieyo, then the last consonant is pronounced in a special way. the last consonant is not released, that means tht you say the word as you would in english, moving your mouth into position to make a final consonant sound and beginning to say it, but stopping short of releasing any air. it would sound to an english speaker almost as if the consonand had been swallowed.
if the last consonant is a ch, chÄ, s, ss or h, then the sound that you beging to make at the end of the word is the sound t (again you don't release it)."
okay i think that is really confusing >_<"
one last thing about the numbers han(a) etc~~
the letters in brackets are only used when the number is not followed by a noun or a counter to wich it refers.
i hope i didn't confuse you too much