The Basics of The Korean Alphabet

WATCH THE LESSON: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHOfr6yW65U

The Korean writing system is often called the easiest in the world. Far eastern languages are very different from English which makes them challenging to learn. So having a simple writing system makes learning Korean slightly more accessible.

In Korean writing each character represents one syllable and consists of two or more elements. These elements can be thought of as letters.

I find it is most helpful to remember what the letters sound make based on what the shape of the letter resembles. Let me show you what I mean.

This is the letter B and I remember that it is a B because it looks like a bucket which is a word that starts with a B

This makes an M sound and it looks like a map

 This looks like a nose and that is how I remember it is an N

This looks like a rattlesnake so it is an R. You might already be aware that in the far east it is common to have only one letter to represent both R and L. So this is L as well. Koreans often pronounce it as the R and L sound blended together “RL” almost like at the end of girl. (but not really)

This shape looks like pillars. The kind you find in ancient Greek architecture like the Parthenon. Some people also remember it as part II because it resembles the roman numeral for two. But I prefer to think of pillars.

This is a gun. It sounds like G

Add a line, and it becomes a key. So it makes a K sound

This is a door it sounds like D

Now if you take the door and add a line it becomes a T (you gotta cross your t’s)

This is a summit, or a ski slope It sounds like S

Add a line on top and it becomes a J

Add another small line on top and it becomes a CH blend pronounce like “ch”

This is a hat on a head. It sound the letter H

This one I call NOTHING. Cuz it makes NO sound at the beginning of a character and an NG sound when it is found at the end of a character. It also looks like a zero so you can remember it makes zero sound at the beginning of a character.

NOW THE VOWELS...

The simplest vowels are this one it looks like a TREE and that is how you remember it makes the “ee” sound trEE

And this other one looks like a BROOK. That is how you remember it makes the “OO” sound like in brOOk

If we take the brook and add a line OVER it we get the sound “O” like in over

And then this one makes the “OO” sound.  I like to think of the roof because it looks a tiny house with huge flat roof. rOOf.

 But, I realize that some Americans don’t pronounce roof the same way I do. They pronounce it “ruff” which is the wrong way pronounce this vowel. So, for those people they can think of the word rOOt. Think of it as a very short, very wide tree with a very short, skinny root. rOOt

The next vowel is this one. It makes the “ah” sound like in fAr. I think of the small line as being on the far side. That is sorta helpful

Now, this vowel is the hardest one to describe. I think the closest sound we have in English is “Uh” like in the word up. But I have seen many other descriptions of it. The official Romanization is “eo” (If you don’t know what Romanization means that is when you take a word written in another alphabet and try to write it in our alphabet. Our alphabet is called the roman alphabet, if you did not know, that hence the name: Romanization.) So, why did they chose to write this sound as “eo”? Well, it dose kind of sound like the “e” in ten blended with the “o “in gone. “eh-aw”. Or maybe the “e” in green blended with the “o” in gone. “ee-aw”. I have also heard it described as the “o” in before “oa”. But none of these are exactly right. I think I really had a bit of a break through, if you will, when I heard someone describe how it feels to say this vowel. Bear with me and let me try and explain it to ya. When you say the previous vowel that we just learned, “ah”, you feel the sound coming out of your mouth:”ah” But! When you say this vowel you have to try to push the sound back down into your throat: “uh”. Kind of like a noise you might make if you accidentally swallowed a bug “uh!” “uh!”

 For a beginner, though, like you and me, I think it is most useful to think of it as the "u" in up and as you hear more native Koreans say it you will pick up on the subtleties in how to pronounce it. Like I said, this is the hardest Korean sound to describe.

OK, next vowel. I don’t have a good memory device to help you remember this one. It makes the “eh” sound like in pet, yes, pen. Just memorize it the boring, old fashioned way.

This vowel is the second hardest to describe. But, I think I have come up with the perfect English analog and that is the prefix paedo-. You see, this vowel is supposed to be “ae” that AE blend. But people are lazy and often don’t want to say 2 vowels “AE” so the just say one vowel “eh” Like the the prefix paedo-. It is supposed to be "paedo-" but people get lazy and often just pronounce it “pedo-” The same thing happens in Korean and this vowel is often pronounced “eh” exactly the same as the vowel ㅔ. So even though these two vowels are technically different they are often pronounced the same.  Just like in English we’re supposed to say "paedo-" but we often say "pedo-".

Now let’s learn about the letter Y

In order to make the Y sound you take the vowel and add an extra line Like so

The W sound is also made by altering the vowels. You add either the “O”ver or the r”OO”f to the vertical vowels to make the “W” sound. It might seem mindblowing at first that you can get a W sound from putting two vowels together but lets think about what a W sounds like. Take the word Water as an example “water” “oh-ahhhhh-ter” do you hear it? The “Oh” sound from the word OVER and the “ah” sound from the word far coming together to give us that first syllable “Wah” “oh-ah ter”

Lets go through all the characters that contain the W sound. Some of them are not quite as intuitive as OH-AH. Some of them I think don’t sound like the same two vowels they resemble. But here they are.

Notice there are three different “Weh” characters. We can think of one of them as technically being “Way” but it also gets pronounced “weh” quite often.

Then there is one last vowel blend “uh-ee” The "oo" in brook plus the "ee" in tree gives us “uh-ee” If anyone can think of an English word that uses this sound let me know.

And one last thing: Double consonants. Whenever you see a double consonant just put extra stress on that sound.

That’s it: the basics of the Korean writing system. Which is called Hangul! I should have mentioned that earlier.

To practice the Korean writing system I recommend you write yourself a chart of the Korean letters and their roman equivalents and post it in a place where you will look at frequently.

If you are like me, the first thing you are going to want to do is write your name in Hangul. This is a good exercise. Write your name, your friends and families names, the city you live in, famous people’s names, etc.

You can also to try to read any Korean writing I find. Even if you do not understand the meaning of the Korean words you pronounce.

Here are some other exercises for you to do:

Try to read these words. They are Korean words which sound very similar to English

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This link is a chart of the Korean letters and their Roman equivalent. But I do recommend that you write this chart down yourself by putting pen or pencil to paper because the act of writing has been shown to help with memorization.

This link is a webcomic that sums up this lesson in comic form. Just to go and show you how intimidating learning the Korean alphabet really is.

The next lesson will be on the details of the Korean alphabet.

Thanks for watching!
WATCH THE LESSON: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHOfr6yW65U