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Introduction

The Korean alphabet, known as Hangeul (한글, "great script"), is considered one of the most efficient and logical writing systems in the world. While most modern alphabets evolved from earlier hieroglyphics or ideographs, 한글 (Hangeul) was created specifically to make it easy to read and write the Korean language.

Although the characters of 한글 (Hangeul) may appear to be ideograms like the traditional Hanja (한자, 漢字), they really form an alphabet. Each block character represents one syllable and is made up of individual jamo (자모), much like the letters in the English alphabet. 한글 (Hangeul) is easy to learn because it has only 24 basic jamo.

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Consonants

Below are the consonants (자음) of the Korean alphabet. You don't need to memorize them yet because individual lessons will cover each letter in detail. For now, just be aware that the Korean alphabet has ten basic consonants and nine variations on them:

Consonant jamo
Basic 예사소리	Letter (jamo)	ㄱ	ㄴ	ㄷ	ㄹ	ㅁ	ㅂ	ㅅ	ㅇ	ㅈ	ㅎ
	Romanization Pronunciation	g or k g or k	n n	d or t d or t	r or l ɾ or l	m m	b or p b or p	s s	- or ng silent or ŋ	j or ch ʥ or ʨ	h h
Aspirated 거센소리	Letter (jamo)	ㅋ		ㅌ			ㅍ			ㅊ
	Romanization Pronunciation	k kʰ		t tʰ			p pʰ			ch ʨʰ
Tense 된소리	Letter (jamo)	ㄲ		ㄸ			ㅃ	ㅆ		ㅉ
	Romanization Pronunciation	gg or kk k͈		dd or tt t͈			bb or pp p͈	ss s͈		jj ʨ͈

Notice that some consonants have two different pronunciations (e.g. ㄱ pronounced as /g/ or /k/ depending on context). Also, some are "aspirated" and some are "tense". Those details and more are explained in Essential Pronounciation Rules.

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Vowels

There are 21 letters used to represent vowels: six basic vowels, nine combinations of those six basic vowels (which originally were all pronounced as diphthongs), and six vowels with an extra short dash representing the initial y j sound.

Vowel jamo
Letter (jamo)	ㅏ	ㅑ	ㅓ	ㅕ	ㅗ	ㅛ	ㅜ	ㅠ	ㅡ	ㅣ
Romanization Pronunciation	a a	ya ja	eo ʌ	yeo jʌ	o o	yo jo	u u	yu ju	eu ɯ	i i
Letter (jamo)	ㅐ	ㅒ	ㅔ	ㅖ	ㅚ		ㅟ		ㅢ
Romanization Pronunciation	ae ɛ	yae jɛ	e e	ye je	oe ø" title="wø">wø		wi wi		ui ɰi
Letter (jamo)	ㅘ		ㅝ
Romanization Pronunciation	wa wa		wo wʌ
Letter (jamo)	ㅙ		ㅞ
Romanization Pronunciation	wae wɛ		we we

Consonant jamo Basic 예사소리 Letter (jamo) ㄱ ㄴ ㄷ ㄹ ㅁ ㅂ ㅅ ㅇ ㅈ ㅎ Romanization Pronunciation g or k g or k n n d or t d or t r or l ɾ or l m m b or p b or p s s - or ng silent or ŋ j or ch ʥ or ʨ h h

Aspirated 거센소리 Letter (jamo) ㅋ ㅌ ㅍ ㅊ Romanizat

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End of introduction

To learn how to read, write, and pronounce each Korean letter, proceed to the Read Write & Pronounce Korean course.

For learning Korean Category Uncategorized Level Unspecified Second language English Created Apr 03, 2008 11:03 Views 7354 Share:

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  bella cha 6 month(s) ago

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  its really helpful but i still confuse -*-
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  Pryta 6 month(s) ago

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  Thank you so much..!!
  It's help me a lot ^^
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  Angie 6 month(s) ago

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  Thanks a lot for this.
  This is pretty easy compared to japanese writing system. LOL
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  Mei 6 month(s) ago

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  this is better than read Japanese kanji. But this still difficult for me
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  Cris~ 6 month(s) ago

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  lol it's really simple, but i think the structure of this is not very good (no offense of course).  The language itself is simple.  It's easier than chinese if you are not chinese xD  but still don't worry it still works and is still useful :)