Hyun-Jin Ryu in Toronto T-Shirt with Hangul!

The Blue Jays signed Hyun-Jin Ryu to a four-year contract, bringing the Korean southpaw to Toronto, a big Canadian multicultural city. To welcome him to Toronto, BreakingT has produced this fantastic t-shirt and hoodie of Ryu’s pitching motion dominating over the skyline of his new hometown.

BreakingT

Get the MLBPA-licensed and super-comfortable Hyun-Jin Ryu in Toronto t-shirt & hoodie from BreakingT!

Behind the illustration of Ryu is his name written in Hangul, the Korean alphabet, with his Latin-translitered name appearing below. From left to right, it reads 류현진 [Ryu Hyun Jin] as traditional Korean name order begins with the family name followed by the given name. At the top, “Toronto” is accompanied by the Korean transliteration “토론토”.

Anyone who has purchased a BreakingT shirt will tell you that they are very soft and comfortable to wear, especially since they have gotten rid of the collar tag. They are also very durable (the original bat flip shirt from 2015 still looks—and feels—like new!). This Hyun-Jin Ryu shirt is an officially licensed product of the Major League Baseball Players Association, meaning they are legit and the players are compensated for the use of their name and image. We play fair.

But wait, there’s more! Until January 1, you can use the discount code BYE19 at checkout to take 19% off your order.

By following the links to the tee and hoodie you tell BreakingT that you found it at Bluebird Banter and we get a portion of the sales. It won’t pay for our contributors’ rent but occasionally we collect enough to enjoy a few premium cheese doodles and a basket of chicken wings.

About Hangul

I don’t speak Korean but have been fascinated with their alphabet for a while*. To the untrained eye, Korean may look like it is written in logographs like Chinese, but its words are actually spelled out phonetically with each portion of a character representing a consonant or vowel. The coolest part of Hangul is that its consonants are shaped based on the physiology of the mouth when pronouncing that letter and its vowels are all combinations of vertical and horizontal lines.

So let’s learn a few Hangul letters!

• ㄹ makes a [r] / [l] sound (Related video)
• ㅠ makes a [yu]
• ㅎ makes an [h]
• ㅕmakes a [yeo]
• ㄴmakes an [n]

By now you can probably deconstruct the word 진 to see that ㅈ makes a [j], ㅣmakes an [ĭ], and we’ve already met ㄴ. To write “Toronto” you only need two new letters: ㅌ[t], and ㅗ[o].

*I decided to learn it after sitting down in a restaurant in Busan and not being able to read the menu. Now I can order 비빔밥, 김치찌개, 순두부찌개, 냉면, 만두 and 부침개!