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Long ago in Korea, there was a little prince who loved to read books.

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One day, the prince was sick.

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"Cough, cough"

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I cannot stop coughing."

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The prince still did not stop reading  at his desk.

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The worried servants went to the king and said,

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"Your Highness!

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The prince keeps reading books even though he is very sick."

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King Taejong, the father of the prince, said,

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"That's terrible.

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Do not let the prince read books until he gets better!"

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The servants removed all books

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from the prince's room.

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To help the prince get better quickly, they had to make him have good rest.

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"Prince, you should take a rest now."

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Then, a servant found several books behind a folding screen.

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He opened one of them and saw marks showing that the prince had read it 100 times.

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"My prince,

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did you read this book 100 times?"

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"Yes,

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the more you read books, the more fun you can have."

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The prince who liked reading grew up and became a good king.

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He was King Sejong.

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King Sejong thought

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that it would be great if people could read many different books,

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so he published new ones.

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He published books about agriculture,

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and collection of songs.

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In the old days, people made books

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by writing them by hand,

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so it was hard to make produce many copies.

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King Sejong thought about it for a long time,

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and made a machine that could print letters.

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Once it was possible to print letters on paper with this machine,

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they could make many books.

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However, a long time ago in Korea,

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they had their own spoken language, but didn't have their own writing system.

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The people could speak well,

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but they did not know how to read.

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They couldn't read the books made by King Sejong, either.

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King Sejong was very sad.

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So he decided to make Korea's own characters.

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"To make sure anyone can read books,

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we need to make easy characters."

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Making new characters that were easy to read and write

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was a very difficult task.

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One day, King Sejong had a good idea.

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"Since sound comes from human throat and mouth,

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if we make characters following the shape of both,

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they would be easy to see and read."

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"It would be easy to read and write

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if we design letters by the way they sound.

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The crowing sound of a rooster would be like this,

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COCK-A-DOODLE-DOO."

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The group of characters that King Sejong and his servants created

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is called Hangeul.

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Because Hangeul was so easy that anyone could learn it,

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people could read.

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Thanks to Hangeul that King Sejong created,

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Koreans can now read books

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and write letters like we do now.

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These days, foreigners from other countries are also learning Hangeul.

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Foreigners who don't have written letters, but a spoken language, are learning Hangeul.

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They publish books and write letters in it also.