Introduction to Korean and Hangul

Basic Korean: Alphabet and Reading Introduction to Hangul (한글)

사랑해요 Friday, July 2, 2010

Welcome to Korean

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Some quick facts about Korean: ✤

The Korean language originated as Chinese script, which was called “Hanja”. These were Chinese characters, but read completely different from Chinese.

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In 1443, King Sejong the Great created Hangul.

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Hangul consists of 24 characters: 14 consonants, 10 vowels

Friday, July 2, 2010

Consonants ✤

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There are 19 consonants. Here they are, with their associated sounds: ㄱ (g,k) ㄴ (n) ㄹ (r,l) ㅁ (m) ㅂ (b,p) ㅅ (s) ㅇ (ng) ㅈ (j) ㅊ (ch) ㅋ (k) ㄷ (t) ㅍ (p) ㅎ (h).

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These ones are double consonants. They have a ‘harder’ sound:

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ㄲ (kk) ㄸ (tt) ㅃ (pp) ㅆ (ss) ㅉ (jj)

Don’t worry too much about this yet. We’ll cover it in more detail soon.

Friday, July 2, 2010

Vowels ✤

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These require a little more complicated explanation. Here we go: ㅏ (water) ㅑ (yah) ㅓ (law) ㅕ (yeo) ㅗ (sole) ㅛ (yo) ㅜ (spoon) ㅠ (you) ㅡ (put) ㅣ(feet)

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Here are the ones that I often confuse:

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ㅐ(hand.. ae) ㅒ(yae.. yay!) ㅔ(met.. eh) ㅖ(ye.. like Kanye)

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These ones combine single vowels:

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ㅙ, ㅚ ㅞ