Learning Hangul Part One

Hangul is the Korean Alphabet. It was introduced to Koreans in 1446 by King Sejong as a substitute for the far more complex Chinese writing system. When studying Korean it is recommended to learn Hangul first and then study words, grammar, sentences etc. In the romanization of Hangul there are many different ways of writing Korean and it can get confusing. Hangul consists of 14 consonants, 5 double consonants and 21 vowels.  Over the next few pages we are going to learn Hangul. If taken seriously Hangul can easily be learnt in a few hours.

Here are all the Korean Hangul Letters
ㅏ ㅐ ㅑ ㅒ ㅓ ㅔ ㅕ ㅖ ㅗ ㅘ ㅙ ㅚ ㅛ ㅜ ㅝ ㅞ ㅟ ㅠ ㅡ ㅢ ㅣ(Vowels)
ㄱ (ㄲ) ㄴ ㄷ (ㄸ) ㄹ ㅁ ㅂ (ㅃ) ㅅ (ㅆ) ㅇ ㅈ (ㅉ) ㅊ ㅋ ㅌ ㅍ ㅎ(Consonants)
If you have trouble viewing the Korean letters, visit our page on setting up Korean on your computer.

Let’s start off with the most basic 5 vowels ㅏ ㅓ ㅗ ㅜ ㅣ . The rest of the vowels are made up of a combination of these 5.

In Korean writing and most Asian writing systems the stroke order is important. That will be explained below.

ㅏ= a in romanization and pronounced in English like the start of (a)pple.

ㅓ = eo in romanization and is pronounced like awe in English
ㅗ = o in romanization and is pronounced the same as the letter o in English

ㅜ = u in romanization and is sounds like oo


ㅣ = i in romanization and is pronounced the same as the letter E

Stay tuned for more posts on learning Hangul.

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