Serodeurip, the game of standing first letters

What a serodeurip is

A serodeurip stands the syllables of a name or a word in a column and attaches to each one a line that starts with that syllable. A three-syllable name gives a samhaengsi (three-line poem), four syllables a four-line one. It is an old form and still in daily use: birthday wishes, welcome messages, the first day of a class, group chats.

The hard part is always the first word. What starts with 김 besides 김치 and 김밥, how far a final consonant may be bent, what to pick when only the consonants are given. A dictionary could help, but a dictionary is for meanings, not for first letters.

This site helps with that first word only. Type the letters and you get words that start with each; pick one or write your own and you have a line. Joining the lines is yours, so the result is your poem. When it is done you can save it as a picture card and share it.

Rules

The basic rule is one: each line's first syllable must match the given syllable. For a three-syllable name the first line starts with the first syllable, the second with the second, the third with the third.

Final consonants (batchim) are usually forgiven. Few words start with 김, so using a word that starts with 기 is common practice. This site keeps the two apart: words that start with the exact syllable come first, words that start with the syllable minus its final consonant come next. Which to use depends on the occasion.

Consonant play gives only the jamo. For ㅎㅅ you write a line starting with ㅎ and a line starting with ㅅ. Double consonants are separate: ㄲ is not ㄱ, and 까치 starts with ㄲ. This site sorts them the same way.

Line length is free. A single word is fine and so is a full sentence. The card draws at most two rows per line, so under forty characters looks best.

How this site works

This section describes what the code actually does. Words come from the learner vocabulary list published by the National Institute of Korean Language in 2003: 5,965 words with part of speech and level. It is released under KOGL type 1, which allows use with attribution, so the card carries a small credit line.

The list is filtered, not used as is. Only nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs are kept; proper nouns, bound nouns and interjections are dropped. Homonym numbers are removed and duplicates merged. Only words of two to four Hangul syllables remain. Then an exclusion list of profanity, slurs, words of death and crime, and names of real people is subtracted. What is left is the word count shown on the home page.

Candidates come in three tiers: words starting with the typed syllable, words starting with that syllable minus its final consonant, and words with the same initial consonant only. When you type a consonant, only the third tier exists. Within a tier the order is alphabetical, not popularity. There is no popularity data and the site does not pretend there is. The other words button rotates the starting point within the tier.

The card is drawn by your browser. A 1080 by 1080 image is made on this device, and the save button downloads that file to this device. No image goes to a server. The file name does not contain the name either, only the season and the date.

The name, the words and the lines are stored nowhere and vanish on reload. The server counts only how far you got: opened the page, entered letters, picked a word, saved a card, copied or shared, first input, together with the date, the language and a coarse referrer label, one line each. What you typed is never in it.

Tips

Open the first line with a word that belongs to the person. Among the words starting with the first syllable, look for one that touches what they like, what they do, where they live. The other lines will follow.

The middle line is the freest. Continue the picture from the first line or turn it. Close the last line short. One word with feeling in it lasts longer than a long sentence.

When you use a word with the final consonant dropped, the middle line carries it more naturally than the first. If the first and last lines start with the exact syllable, the name stands out clearly when read downward.

If a word comes to mind that is not in the candidates, use it. Candidates are a start, not an answer. That is what the write-your-own field is for.

Tips by occasion

For a birthday, leave the age and the year out of the three lines. The card lasts and the number is right only this year. Pick the person's season instead; someone born in spring gets the spring card.

A welcome message is read in front of many people. Words everyone understands beat an inside joke. Start the first line with the exact syllable so it is clear whose poem it is.

For a group chat, copy as text is handy. The first letter of each line stands in a column, so the acrostic shows without a picture. Save the picture card separately for the photo album.

In a class or a meeting where many people write together, give only the initial consonants. Even with the same consonants the chosen words differ, so you get as many poems as people. The consonant pages list every word for each consonant.

Two-syllable and four-syllable names work too. Two syllables give a two-line poem, four give four lines. Up to five are accepted; beyond that the card runs out of room, so only the first five are used.

Where people get stuck

If no word starts with the exact syllable, look at the dropped-final tier or the consonant tier. For syllables absent from the vocabulary list only the consonant tier appears. The site does not invent a word to fill the gap.

If none of the candidates fits, press other words to rotate the start, or type what came to mind in the write-your-own field. There is no rule that says you must use a bank word.

If the card will not save, the browser blocked the download. This is common in in-app browsers (a page opened inside a messenger). Open it in a regular browser or take a screenshot. The site does not keep the picture for you when saving fails.

If the text is cut off on the card, the line is too long. At most two rows per line are drawn, so keep it under forty characters. The head letters are never cut.

If the name is in Chinese characters or Latin letters, write it in Hangul. The site reads only Hangul syllables and consonants and skips everything else.