MY UNDERLAND

Hangeul or 한글 (the Korean alphabet) literally means "the Korean writing."

In 한글, the Korean alphabet, consists of 14 consonants and 10 vowels.

In addition, there are 5 double consonants and 11 double vowels.

Additionally, there are 11 final double consonants.

You will get to learn these basic consonants and vowels, learning how to read, write and pronounce.

For the purpose of learning the alphabet, I highly recommend the following resources to help you with familiarizing yourself with the consonants and vowels in 한글.

Click on the alphabet to listen to their corresponding pronunciations.

(Provided by Korean language learning online, Sogang Unversity)

자음[Consonants]

ㄱ = g

ㄴ = n

ㄷ = d

ㄹ = l, r (ㄹ is a sound somewhere between l and r)

ㅁ = m

ㅂ = b

ㅅ = s

ㅇ = "no sound" when used as a first consonant, "ng" when used as a final consonant.

ㅈ = j

ㅊ = ch

ㅋ = k

ㅌ = t

ㅍ = p

ㅎ = h

모음[Vowels]

ㅏ = a

ㅑ = ya

ㅓ = eo

ㅕ = yeo

ㅗ = o

ㅛ = yo

ㅜ = u

ㅠ = yu

ㅡ = eu

ㅣ = i

쌍자음[Double consonants]

ㄲ = gg Click on the link to hear the difference between the sounds of ㄱ, ㄲ and ㅋ.

ㄸ = dd Note the difference in sounds; ㄷ, ㄸ and ㅌ.

ㅃ = bb Note the difference in sounds;ㅂ, ㅃ and ㅍ.

ㅆ = ss Note the difference in sounds; ㅅ and ㅆ

ㅉ = jj Note the difference in sounds; ㅈ, ㅉ and ㅊ 

More links: ㄲ, ㄸ, ㅃ, ㅆ, ㅉ

쌍모음[Double Vowels]

ㅐ = ae

ㅒ = yae (rarely used)

ㅔ = e

ㅖ = ye

ㅘ = wa

ㅙ = wae

ㅚ = oe

ㅝ = wo

ㅞ = we (rarely used)

ㅟ = wi

ㅢ = ui 

● How to form a character

There are two ways of making a character, using the consonants and vowels as building blocks.

 1. Examples

2. Examples

Characters with final consonants of ㄱ, ㄲ and ㅋ, all sound the same. Thus 각, 갂 and 갘 will sound exactly the same.

For example,

국, 엌, 밖 Their final consonants all sound the same. Click on the links to hear.

Now, below is a list of the final consonants and their respective sounds.

For example,

For a more detailed explanation and audio files, click here.

When the initial consonant of second and/or third characters is ㅇ, for example, 돌이 and 만악이, the sound of the final consonant of each letter is pronounced with the next vowel. Because ㅇ has no sound, 돌이 is pronounced as 도리 and 만악이 as 마나기. These are just made-up words to show you how these work.

For more examples on this pronunciation, click on the link.

쌍받침[Final double consonants]

There are also 11 additional final double consonants. Their sounds are as follows. As you can see, the first consonant of the double consonants is pronounced. (except ㄺ = ㄱ,ㄻ = ㅁ and ㄿ = ㅂ) I do not recommend that you learn these exhaustively right away because that is a hard work and I rarely employed them in my grammar lessons anyway. So it would be better to come back to these when you come across them from time to time.

Eg.

삯  [삭] = amount

앉다 [안따] = sit

많다 [만타] = many

읽다 [익따] = read

삶다 [삼따] = boil

넓다 [널따] = spacious

외곬 [외골] = a single way

핥다 [할따] = lick

읊다 [읍따] = recite (a poem)

잃다 [일타] = lose (a thing)

값 [갑] = price

cr: parksguide.blogspot.com