Korean Alphabet (Part 1) | Mini Korean Lesson

Want to learn more about the Korean alphabet (Hangul) and how to pronounce them? Keep reading...

Basically, the Korean alphabet, Hangul, is categorized into 2 parts. 

Vowels,

Image Credit Duolingo

And Consonants. 

Image Credit Duolingo

Image Credit Duolingo

Image Credit Duolingo

In this part, I'll share about Korean vowels and how to pronounce them.

There will be 3 parts to this mini-lesson, you may find the other parts below. 

Korean Alphabet (Part 2)

Korean Alphabet (Part 3)

Each Korean word is made up of a consonant followed by a vowel and sometimes it ends with another consonant - 받침 (badchim) - and sometimes it does not have a consonant at the bottom placement. 

For the examples, you will see the consonant 'ㅇ' often. This consonant is silent when placed in front of a vowel. However, the 'ㅇ' does make a sound when it is placed as the last consonant or at the bottom placement of a word, it will have a sound and I'll explain that in part 2 on consonants.

Let's get started with the single vowels. The single vowels are: 

ㅏ ㅓ ㅗ ㅜ ㅑ ㅕ ㅛ ㅠ ㅣ ㅡ 

Below will be how they are read out and pronounced. 

아 -  Ah

어 - Orh (Something like Or but without rolling the R sound)

오 - Oh

우 - U

야 - Ya

여 - Yor

요 - Yo

유 - Yu

이 - Yi

으 - Eeeeer (Smile showing your teeth to make this sound) 

Now, let's move on to the double vowels. The double vowels are:

ㅐ ㅒ ㅔ ㅖ ㅘ ㅙ ㅚ ㅝ ㅞ ㅟ ㅢ 

애 - Ae

얘 - Yae

에 - Eh

예 - Ye

와 - Wa

왜 - Wae

외 - We

워 - Wo

웨 - We

위 - Wi

의 - Eui (Sounds something like E-wi said together) 

That's the end of Part 1 on Korean Alphabet and Pronunciation. 

Hope this was helpful! 

Korean Alphabet (Part 1)

Korean Alphabet (Part 2)

Korean Alphabet (Part 3)