How Hangul Works

Korean Alphabet 1

Course 1 · Chapter 1 · How Hangul Works

한글 — Meet Hangul

Korean is written in Hangul (한글), and it is one of the easiest writing systems to learn: a true alphabet of just 24 basic letters, and every letter has a shape you can explain. By the end of this chapter you will know how the letters fit together into blocks, and you will have learned your first three letters, ㅏ ㅣ ㅇ. Romanisation is shown for everything, so you are never guessing.

A Script Made on Purpose

Most writing systems grew over centuries. Hangul was designed.

• Who: it was created under King Sejong the Great (who reigned from 1418 to 1450), and he was probably heavily involved personally.
• When: it was introduced to the court in the twelfth month of 1443 and officially promulgated in the ninth month of 1446, in a text called the Hunminjeongeum, which was also the script's original name. The page's translation of that name is "Correct Sounds for the Instruction of the People".
• Why: Sejong said that Korean sounds differ from Chinese, and the Chinese characters did not fit them, so many people could not write what they wanted to say. He designed letters so that everyone could "practice at their ease" and use them daily.
• The name: "Hangul" is the international spelling (in South Korea's official romanisation, "Hangeul"). It means "script of Han", where Han is one of the names of Korea. North Korea calls it Chosŏn'gŭl.

24 Basic Letters

There are 24 basic letters (called jamo): 14 consonants and 10 vowels. Counting the doubled consonants, the compound vowels and the consonant combinations that come later, there are 51 in all. This course teaches the 24 basic letters.

• The consonants are drawn from the mouth. Five basic consonants are based on speech organs: ㄱ (the tongue root blocking the upper palate), ㄴ (the tongue touching the upper palate), ㅁ (the mouth), ㅅ (a tooth) and ㅇ (the throat). The other consonants are built from these.
• The vowels are drawn from philosophy. The vowel shapes are based on ideas from Chinese philosophy: they are built from a dot, a horizontal line (ㅡ) and a vertical line (ㅣ), and the vertical line ㅣ stands for the human being. The other vowels combine these shapes.

Letters Build Blocks

In English letters go in a line. In Hangul letters are stacked into a syllable block, one block per syllable, and the blocks are written in a line.

• Every block has an initial consonant, a vowel and sometimes a final consonant.
• A vowel with a long vertical stroke (like ㅏ and ㅣ) goes to the right of the first consonant. A vowel with a long horizontal stroke (like ㅗ, ㅜ and ㅡ) goes below it. The next chapter teaches the horizontal vowels.
• Text is now written horizontally, in rows, left to right.
• In theory the system can make 11,172 different blocks. Only about 2,000 are used in Korean, so you will not meet most of them.

The silent ㅇ

Every block must begin with a consonant shape. When a syllable begins with a vowel sound, Hangul puts a placeholder there: ㅇ. At the start of a block ㅇ is silent. So the block 아 is just the sound "a": a silent ㅇ on the left with ㅏ on the right.

The ㅇ is silent at the start of a block. At the end of a block it has a different sound, "ng", which Chapter 9 explains.

Your First Three Letters — ㅏ ㅣ ㅇ

Korean vowels, like Japanese ones, are short and steady. Say each one and keep your mouth still.

Read It — Your First Words

With just these three letters you can already read real Korean.

Try It Yourself — 연습

Say each answer out loud first, then click to check.