Lesson/2
Contents
Hangul Part 1/5
This part covers a few of the consonants, some of the vowels, and shows you how to put them together.
Overview
- Basic Consonants: ㄱ, ㄴ, ㄷ, ㄹ, ㅁ, ㅂ, ㅅ, ㅇ, ㅈ
- Vertical Vowels: ㅏ, ㅑ, ㅓ, ㅕ, ㅣ, ㅐ, ㅔ, ㅒ, ㅖ
Basic Consonants
There are 9 basic consonants in Hangul.
- ㄱ: giyeok, g
- ㄴ: nieun, n
- ㄷ: digeot, d
- ㄹ: rieul, r*
- ㅁ: mieum, m
- ㅂ: biyeop, b
- ㅅ: shiot, s, except for in front of ㅣ, 'sh'.
- ㅇ: ieung, (silent)
- ㅈ: jiyeot, j
Each of these make the sound of the English letter I posted next to them. If you can't pronounce their names properly, don't worry.
* Note that the 'r' sound, ㄹ, is more like a very, very light 'd'. This is just one flick of the trilled 'r' you might hear in Spanish. It is not the 'err' sound that we like to make in American English.
Vertical Vowels
There are 3 basic vertical vowels:
- ㅏ: 'a' as in 'father': open your mouth, hold your tongue back.
- ㅓ: 'eo': open your mouth, hold your tongue forward. This is a shallow "o" sound.
- ㅣ: 'i': Hold your mouth halfway open, and stick your tongue in the middle. This is somewhere between the "ee" of "sheep" and the "i" of "ship".
Vowels can combine one with another.
If you put ㅣ in front of another vowel, then you just add another leg:
- ㅣ + ㅏ = ㅑ: 'ya' as in 'yawn'.
- ㅣ + ㅓ = ㅕ: 'yeo'
If you put the ㅣ after the other vowels, then it changes its sound.
- ㅏ + ㅣ = ㅐ: 'ae' as in 'wet'
- ㅓ + ㅣ = ㅔ: 'e' as in 'wait', but without the final 'i' sound we add in English
If you have a hard time telling the difference between these two, don't worry, so do native Korean speakers. If you don't get it right, then it's like saying, "Oh no, my towel got wait!" In other words, you'll just have a slight accent, and that is all. If you listen to Korean speakers, you'll pick up which is which naturally.
And if you put an ㅣ in front and back, you have two legs and an extra vertical line.
- ㅣ + ㅏ + ㅣ = ㅒ: 'yae' as in 'yet'.
- ㅣ + ㅓ + ㅣ = ㅖ: 'ye' as in 'yay!', but without the extra 'i' sound we add in English.
Putting it all together
When you are ready to put it together, then just throw the consonant to the left of the vowel, and you have a full Hangul syllable.
Ex: 가 = "ga", 저 = "jeo", 벼 = "byeo", 이 = "i"
Practice
Take a random letter from the consonants, and combine it with one of the vowels, and say it the best you can.
Put two or three syllables together and see what you get.
Memorizing
You might be thinking that ths stuff is pretty hard to memorize. Nothing could be further from the truth. See, the Hangul symbols actually tell you how to say the letters.
I think I hinted at this with the vowels, but let me point out how to see it.
- ㅣ: The long vertical line suggests making your mouth tall. This is a neutral position, where the tongue is neither forward or back.
- ㅏ: From the tall mouth position, the tongue moves back into the throat, making the characteristic "ah" sound the dentist likes to hear.
- ㅓ: From the same open tall position, the tongue goes forward, making a light "o" sound. Keep your mouth open as you had it for ㅏ, and you'll be doing it right.
Of course, I demonstrated how the vowels combine with each other to make diphthongs. I won't do that again.
The consonants even have some reasoning behind it.
- ㄱ: This is the shape of your tongue from the side view. The left is the front and the right is the back. You can see the tongue is lifted in the back, which is where it needs to go for the 'g' sound.
- ㄴ: The tongue is pressed against the back of the teeth, in a forward position, opposite of ㄱ, making the 'n' sound.
- ㄷ: The tongue 'clicks' against the roof of the mouth, from the back-of-the-teeth position, 'd'.
- ㄹ: The tongue does a trilly click, 'r'. Think of how your tongue changes from ㄴ to ㄷ, and one step further would be ㄹ.
- ㅅ: The tongue goes up slightly, but air rushes through it to make 's'. I see the small line to the right being the tongue, with the long line to the left being the air rushing by.
- ㅈ: This is a "dirty" ㅅ, the 'j' sound. I think the line on top means, "Make it humm". I think there is a pattern here, ㄴ->ㄷ, ㅅ->ㅈ, but I can't really put my finger on it.
- ㅁ: This is the shape of your lips when you close your mouth and say, "m".
- ㅂ: This starts off like an ㅁ, but your explode. That's the lines coming from the top---explosion lines.
- ㅇ: Your mouth is open here, not making any sound at all, which is why it is silent.
Memorization
I don't recommend memorizing these symbols. Rather, refer back to this chart or some other chart as you start reading Hangul. After about an hour, you won't need the chart anymore.
Confusing Letters and Sounds
The sounds that confuse English speakers the most are as follows.
- ㄹ vs. ㄷ: The "r" sound is very, very light, just a flap of the tongue. The "d" sound is more solid, blocking the flow of air for an instant.
- "o" vs. 어: These two sounds will be very hard to distinguish, but Korean have no problem. We'll cover more of their differences later.
- "long" vowels in general: In English, our vowels come in two forms. We have "short vowels" and "long vowels". Short vowels are pure but they are mostly similar in shape and sound. The long vowels are stronger and usually are a combination of two sounds. It's hard to tell for English speakers, but we do add an "uh" or an "ee" at the end of them. For instance, the name of the letter "A" is actually two sounds in the ears of the Korean speaker, with the second sound being "ee". The long "o" is also two sounds, "oh" plus "uh". Korean vowels are pure. They do not distinguish short and long. Diphthongs, two vowels stuck together, are spelled out in Korean as so.
- short "i" vs. long "e" vs. 이: The Korean vowel is actually in between the English "i" as in "pit" and "e" as in "Pete". Don't worry, if you use the English sounds Koreans will understand you. You will just sound a little funny. If you switch between "i" and "ee" then they will think something is off but can't really put their finger on it.
