Lesson/5
Hangul 4/5
This lesson covers the diphthongs and ending consonants.
Overview
- diphthongs: ㅐㅒㅔㅖㅘㅙㅚㅝㅞㅟㅢ
- Ending consonants
Diphthongs
We've already seen all 6 of the basic vowels. We also formed 4 Y- vowels.
The diphthongs are relatively few.
- ㅏ + ㅣ = ㅐ (ae): Pronounced as a short 'e' as in 'wet'.
- ㅑ + ㅣ = ㅒ (yae): Prounced as in 'yet'.
- ㅓ + ㅣ = ㅔ (e): Pronounced as a long 'a' as in 'wait. There is no 'i' sound at the end of this.
- ㅕ + ㅣ = ㅖ (ye): Pronounced as in 'Yale', but no 'i' sound at the end.
- ㅗ + ㅏ = ㅘ (wa): Pronounced as in 'water'
- ㅗ + ㅐ = ㅙ (wae): Pronounced as in 'wet'
- ㅗ + ㅣ = ㅚ (oe): This is almost exactly like ㅙ, not 'wi'.
- ㅜ + ㅓ = ㅝ (weo)
- ㅜ + ㅔ = ㅞ (we): 'wait'
- ㅜ + ㅣ = ㅟ (wi): 'winter' or 'we'.
- ㅡ + ㅣ = ㅢ (eui): This is an odd sound. It may show up in three different ways.
- 'eu-i': This is quite different from ㅟ (wi), since it starts out with the 'eu' sound instead of a deep 'u' sound.
- 'i': Sometimes the 'eu' part is skipped entirely, particularly when the consonant combination is difficult for a native speaker to clearly articulate.
- 'e': When used as part of the possessive article, it is almost always pronounced as ㅔ.
Bottom Consonants
In a syllable, you will often have a consonant that appears below. These consonants are pronounced differently than you might expect.
The key is to form the mouth in the shape of the final consonant, and to not let any air escape after the consonant shape is formed. The rules are below.
- 악, 앆, 앜: All sound like 'ak'.
- 안: 'an'
- 앋, 앝, 앗, 았, 앚, 앛, 앟: 'at'
- 알: 'al'. Note that the ㄹ does not make an 'r' sound, but an 'l' sound. Pronounce this 'l' sound slightly behind where you would normally pronounce it.
- 암: 'am'
- 압, 앞: 'ap'
- 앙: 'ang'. The ㅇ here makes the sound 'ng' at the end.
Sometimes, there will be a double consonant on the bottom, not like you've already seen, but two different consonants put together. Note that you can't pronounce both of them at the same time, so one will dominat the others.
- 앇, 앍: 'ak'
- 앐, 앑, 앓: 'at'
- 앉,않: 'an'
- 앎: 'am', although I have heard it sometimes as 'alm'.
- 앏, 앒, 앖: 'ap'
These double consonants will play an important role when we combine final consonants with initial consonants in the following syllable. (But that's next lesson.)
Exercise
There are now no individual syllables you can't read in Korean. There are only a couple of syllable combinations that may surprise you, which we'll cover next time.
It is a good time to start reading some Hangul on your own. Doing so will make new words familiar when you learn them.
