90-Day-Challenge-L (Korean Reading) PDF

90 Minute Korean Reading Challenge
_________________________________
Introduction
THE 90 MINUTE CHALLENGE
If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes

to his head. If you talk to him in his own language, that goes
to his heart.
NELSON MANDELA
The sum of human wisdom is not contained in any one

language.
EZRA POUND
Korean culture is on the rise: worldwide music and pop

culture success, rapid economic growth and some of the
worlds biggest and most relevant companies have put
Korea on the map in a big way!
As the world becomes more connected to Korea

through pop culture and the economy, the Korean
language will become increasingly important.
Copyright 2013 90 Day Korean. Get free training and rapid learning resources at:
90DayKorean.com
And the best way to start learning Korean is to learn to
read Hangeul, the Korean writing system.
Thats where this challenge comes in.
Did you know that there are fewer Korean characters

than there are letters in the English alphabet?
Korean has 14 vowels and 10 consonants.
Unlike Japanese or Chinese, which have thousands of

characters and each can have 10, 15 or more strokes, the
most complex Korean character has only five strokes.
On top of this, Korean has a grammar structure that can

be mastered by understanding some basic rules.
This makes Korean a great language for rapid learning,

and it all starts with knowing the Korean characters
the basic building blocks of the language.
This guide makes use of psychological techniques which

are designed for more rapid encoding and memorization
of the characters.
90DayKorean.com
It covers the how, what and why of Korean language
learning, and it is the only guide of its kind.
This is Korean, broken down and simplified. This is

language learning for the everyday language learner.
Lets get started.
Set your stopwatch, because the challenge is to get

through this guide in 90 minutes or less!
There are some exercises along the way to test your

learning, and the time required to complete these
questions is included in the estimated chapter times.
You can print out this guide and write your answers
directly on the paper, or have a notebook or piece of
paper handy.
Go through at a brisk pace, but ensure proper encoding

and memorization along the way.
At the end, the ultimate test is being able to read nine

words in Korean.
Ready. Set. Go.
90DayKorean.com
1
________________________________________________________________________
CONSONANTS (25 MINUTES)
The Korean language has both consonants and vowels

just like English.
Lets learn the consonants to start.
First, lets take a look at the English alphabet. Instead of

looking at the actual letters, lets just look at the sounds
they make.
In doing so, we can find the closest equivalents in

Korean so that we can start to make associations.
In Korean, there are no F, R, V, or Z sounds, so lets

take them out.
90DayKorean.com
The rest of the sounds exist in the Korean
language; however, the Q, W, X and Y sounds:
a) Can only be made by combining two or

more sounds (ie., X = K+ S),
OR
b) Cannot be made without adding a vowel

sound after (ie., ya or yo)
So lets take these letters out too.
Finally, lets remove the English vowels, since

we are first focusing on the consonant sounds.
How many are left in red?
13.
90DayKorean.com
But we can group C and K together, since in
English, they make the same sound.
This leaves a total of 12.
Lets take a look at those 12 first. Since were

learning a new language and have never seen
these shapes before, it will be very difficult for
us just to memorize them. Therefore, we need
to link them to something already in our
minds in order to create an association.
Lets do this using a visual learning technique

to associate the new characters with pictures
and sounds we already know.
90DayKorean.com
The first letter of the English word in the
picture has the same sound as the Korean
character.
This will help to start to create the

associations.
The character , which has a sound similar to

B in English, looks like a bed with a post at
either end.
Make this association in your mind. Write it

down and commit it to memory.
Likewise, the character could be seem as a

doorframe or the panels on a door.
Correspondingly, this character makes the
sound D.
90DayKorean.com
The Korean character has the appearance
of a gun and sounds similar to an English G.
The same goes for (H), which looks like a
man with a hat, and (J) which could be seen
as a jug with a spout at the top.
Try creating these associations now.
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Great work! Lets move on.
90DayKorean.com
Next is the character , which has 5 strokes
and could be compared to the rungs of a ladder.
Its sound is most similar to an English L and
can be made the same way by pressing down
with your tongue.
Finally, there are the characters , , and ,

which have the sounds M, N and S
respectively.
90DayKorean.com
The is a sqaure box like a message on a
phone or a piece of mail.
The points up and to the right like a

compass pointing to the north (and the east at
the same time).
The is like a seashell or clam, having only

two strokes which slightly overlap.
90DayKorean.com
How are we doing so far? Lets do an exercise.
_________________________________
Exercise 1
THE CONSONANTS
Match the character on the left with the English word on the right
that has the corresponding sound in its first letter.
1. a. hat
2. b. jug
3. c. bed
4. d. gun
5. e. northeast
6. f. mail
7. g. door
90DayKorean.com
8. h. seashell
9. i. ladder
Answers: 1. g 2. d 3. c 4. i 5. a 6. f 7. b 8. e 9. h
2
________________________________________________________________________
ASPIRATED CONSONANTS
(15 MINUTES)
Now, lets take a look at four of the sounds we

just learned.
B, D, G and J.
Make each of these sounds now. B. D. G.

J.
90DayKorean.com
What if we made them stronger, aspirating as
we spoke them? What sound would we then
make?
For B, a more aspirated sound forcing out

more air would make P sound. How about D? It
would result in a T sound. T. Try it now.
And G? A K sound, like a C or K. In English,

these two sounds are very similar. Try saying
Ive got a cot five times.
The C is really just an aspirated G.
Finally, if you aspirated a J, it would result in a

ch sound. Try saying cheap Jeep several
times and youll notice how similar the sounds
are.
Lets match up the non-aspirated English

sounds with their aspirated sound pairings.
See how similar these sounds really are?
90DayKorean.com
When we do the same in Korean, well see
some visual similarities in the characters,
which can help greatly for memorization.
90DayKorean.com
Its almost as if all we did was add a small line
to each consonant to create the aspirated
equivalent.
The next four Korean characters are called the

aspirated consonants, and are similar in sound
to their non-aspirated counterparts.
Lets make a visual association as well to

really drill them in.
90DayKorean.com
The (K) could be compared to a key, while
the , which has a T sound, could be
associated with teeth (like the ones in your
mouth or the teeth of a fork).
Remember math class? I hope so!
3.14159265359.
Whats that number? Pi! And the Korean

character with a similar sound to P looks very
90DayKorean.com
similar to the symbol for pi. That makes it
easy to remember.
So there we have it. The first 12 characters

learned!
But we said there were a total of 14

consonants in Korean, so what are the last two?
90DayKorean.com
One of them is special, because it doesnt have
a direct equivalent to an English letter. Instead,
it represents a sound in English.
, the character representing the ch sound

in English (choose), looks like a church with
a steeple at the top. We can associate it this
way, or remember it as an aspirated J () and
add an extra line.
Time to test what we just learned.
_________________________________
Exercise 2
90DayKorean.com
THE ASPIRATED CONSONTANTS
Again, match the character on the left with the English word on
the right that has the corresponding sound in its first letter(s). Be
careful, as this time the regular consonants are mixed in.
1. a. door
2. b. key
3. c. jug
4. d. pi
5. e. teeth
6. f. gun
7. g. bed
8. h. church

Answers: 1. a 2. f 3. g 4. e 5. d 6. h 7. c 8. b
90DayKorean.com
Ok, so thats 13 Korean characters already!
Youre more than halfway there.
The last consonant in Korean is really just a

placeholder, and makes no sound by itself
when placed in front of another character.
Nonetheless, it is considered a consonant.
Just like in math, where we use 0 as a

placeholder, in Korean, the placeholder
character () is a round shape.
For now, thats all you need to remember.

When you learn the vowels and add them in
next to the placeholder character, youll know
what sound to make based on the vowel.
90DayKorean.com
However, if the character ends a particular
syllable, it is pronounced ng like in -ing in
English. This is a very important rule to
remember, otherwise we would just skip over
the consonant, assuming it had no sound.
This will make more sense later. Check your

stopwatch!
Lets move on to the vowels for now.
3
________________________________________________________________________
VOWELS (20 MINUTES)
In Korean there are ten basic vowels that you

need to learn, from which you can create all
other vowel sounds.
90DayKorean.com
But before we get into that, we need to do a
basic review of English grammar.
In English, we have short and long vowel

sounds.
Short A: cat
Long A: mate
Short E: bet
Long E: seen
Short I: bit
Long I: might
Short O: dog
Long O: bone
Short U: bus
Long U: flute
All of these sounds exist or can be made using
Korean characters except for the short I sound
(this just doesnt exist in Korean and is very
difficult for Koreans to pronounce).
90DayKorean.com
The characters for the vowels are all pretty
easy! They are just lines.
The first four well learn are horizontal or

vertical lines with a perpendicular line in the
middle facing in a particular direction.
The only problem is that we need to remember

which way the perpendicular line points and
associate that character with the particular
vowel sound.
Lets use a little bit of psychology.
First, memorize the following acronym:
OLD iPOD NEW iPAD
90DayKorean.com
Now, imagine a cross in the middle
representing a timeline. Did you know the first
iPod came out in 2001? That makes it OLD.
The iPad came out in 2010, making it

comparatively NEW. Easy right?
Now listen carefully to the vowel SOUND in

each word.
Old. Long O sound. Oh.

iPod. Short O sound. Aw
New. Long U sound. Oo
iPad. Short A sound. A
Now recite Old iPod, new iPad working

counterclockwise around the circle.
90DayKorean.com
Good work!
Now, all we need to do is line up the character

in our minds.
The character with the line pointing up is

OLD and has the Long O sound.
The character pointing to the left has a Short

O sound like the O in iPod, but the character
pointing to the right has a Short A sound like
the A in iPad.
90DayKorean.com
Finally, the character pointing down has a
Long U sound like the EW in New.
Ok, not too bad. Commit these to memory.

Now, just like we added a line to some of the
consonants to make an aspirated sound, we
can add a line to the four vowels we just
learned to add a new sound.
Remember how we said we couldnt create a Y

sound with just one Korean character? Well,
we can create a Y sound in front of a vowel
sound when we add a line to the first four
vowels. This helps us create four new vowels.
90DayKorean.com
Therefore, if the vowel sounds we have so far
are:
We can now create the following sounds by

just adding a second line:
So, once you memorize the first four, the

second four are really easy. All you need to do
is double up the line and remember to add a Y
sound in front.
90DayKorean.com
Commit these to memory.
So, there are only ten Korean vowels and we

already know eight of them.
The last two are just lines as well.
Do you know how to say a little bit in French?
If you didnt already know, here is the shortest

French lesson youll ever need:
Un petit peux in French means a little bit.
Notice how the I in petit is not a short I, but

rather is a Long E sound, ee. The Korean
character with the same sound, , looks like
an I, making it easy to remember.
Also, notice the sound EU makes in peux.

This is the same sound as the last Korean
vowel, . Its just a horizontal line.
90DayKorean.com
Its time for another exercise to drill this in.
_________________________________
Exercise 3
THE VOWELS
Match the character on the left with the sound on the right.
90DayKorean.com
1. a. AW
2. b. OO
3. c. YAH
4. d. OH
5. e. EU
6. f. YAW
7. g. YOO
8. h. EE

Answers: 1. a 2. g 3. h 4. c 5. d 6. e 7. b 8. f
4
________________________________________________________________________
READING KOREAN (15 MINUTES)
Just like English, you read Korean right to left,

top to bottom. However, the characters go
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together, existing within small invisible
boxes, and each box can have up to four
characters. Each little box becomes a
syllable. Instead of reading right across, we
read one box at a time using the rule right to
left, top to bottom. Thats all there is to it!
This is the Korean word for hello.
In the first two boxes, there are two

characters on the top and one on the bottom.
Following our rule of left to right, top to
bottom, we would read the in the order 1, 2, 3
as shown above.
The same goes for the second syllable, or box,

but remember: the placeholder character here
is ending the syllable so it would have to be
pronounced ng.
90DayKorean.com
The third, fourth and fifth syllables are more
straightforward and are just read simply right
to left.
The word sounds like an-nyung-ha-sae-yo

when you read it correctly.
If you got the associations with the characters

and vowels down pat in the previous sections,
you can start to read some Korean words on
your own.
Lets try it out. Give it a try first, then check

your answers below.
How would you pronounce the following?
90DayKorean.com
For the first two, we would just read right to
left.
1. K for key + ah = Ka. This is the Korean

word for car.
2. N for northeast + aw = Naw. This means
you.
Now, for the third one, we just read right to

left for the first syllable, then top to bottom for
the second syllable.
That would make it:
90DayKorean.com
3. B for bed + ah = Bah plus B for bed +
oh. Bahbo. This is the Korean word for
stupid. If you can read these words
already, you are definitely not !
Now, remember the placeholder vowel that

doesnt make any sound if placed in front of a
vowel? Here are two general rules for writing:
Spelling-wise, a vowel cannot be

written without either a consonant or
the placeholder beforehand.
However, pronunciation-wise, if there is a

placeholder before the vowel, we just ignore
the placeholder and pronounce the vowel.
Lets try reading some more difficult words

and we can practice this. If you get stuck,
remember to ignore the placeholder if there is
one before a vowel and read top to bottom and
left to right.
90DayKorean.com
How did it go? Did you remember all of the
characters from the associations we made
before? Lets check.
4. Did you remember to ignore the

placeholder? Good. This one then becomes
oh for the first syllable and N for
northeast + eu + L for ladder.
Pronounced oh-neul, means today.
5. M for mail + ee = mee plus G for gun
+ oo + G for gun again. Migug is the
Korean word for U.S.A.
6. K for key + aw then P for pi + ee =
kaw pee, the Korean word for coffee.
90DayKorean.com
*Note. These are rough pronunciations and we
will learn a few more subtle pronunciation
rules in future lessons.
Congratulations, youre nearly there now.
5
________________________________________________________________________
TAKING IT A STEP FURTHER

(15 MINUTES)
We must mention that in Korean, tense or

strong consonants also exist.
But there is no need to learn any new

characters.
When you see a double consonant, all you

need to do is change the way you pronounce it
90DayKorean.com
slightly but doubling up the English consonant
youve already associated with the character.
There are only five of these tense or double

consonants, and here they are:
Easy right?
To pronounce them correctly, all you need to

do is tense up your tongue and pronounce the
sound a little harder with more force. For
example, imagine a bus was coming and your
friend was standing on the street.
You might yell: BUS!
90DayKorean.com
That B sound when you yell the word would
be more similar to the bb sound of the
character .
Not to worry, there will be more on
pronunciation in future lessons.
Now, if youre confident about whats come

before, then this part is going to fun.
We are going to combine vowels to make

different sounds.
Take a look here. What sound do you figure

these characters make?
They look a little familiar. Lets break them

down. The first one can be seen as the
character (ah) combined with the character
90DayKorean.com
(ee), while the second is just (yah)
combined with (ee).
When we pronounce them though, we dont

pronounce each sound individually, but rather
we just blend the sounds together.
Therefore, the first would become more like

ae which is pronounced like the e in the
word egg, while the second would become
yae like the ye in yesterday.
Note that these next two are actually

pronounced the same as the characters we just
learned.
Though you would probably work them out to

have a different sound in your head, they are
actually pronounced the same as the previous
two. Although some Koreans would say there
90DayKorean.com
is a subtle difference, it is not very apparent in
the younger generations. We can remember
them because the horizontal line(s) are just
shifted over to the left from the previous two
we just learned.
Commit these four new characters to memory.

Two of them make the sound ae and the
other two make the sound yae.
Theres one more we must learn before we

wrap up. Remember the last two vowels we
learned, which were just straight lines one
vertical and one horizontal?
Well, we can combine them to create a

different sound.
90DayKorean.com
Just remember we dont pronounce the
placeholder.
Therefore, this one becomes an eui sound,

which you need to pronounce really quickly to
get it right. Instead of two syllables eu +
ee, combine the sound into one syllable,
blending the ee into the preceding eu
sound. Imagine saying chop suey really fast,
with less emphasis on the oo and make it
more of an eu sound.
Thats all there is to it.
90DayKorean.com
Remember though, you would never see these
characters starting a syllable without a
placeholder or a consonant in front of them.
Now its time for one final reading test, with

three even harder words which make use of
what we just learned: tense or double
consonants, and the vowel combinations.
Give it a try, and dont be afraid to look back

at your notes to get them the first time through.
Answers are below.
90DayKorean.com
How did you do? Tough, right? Here are the
answers:
7. Again, ignore the placeholder. Therefore,

all there is here is the one sound, which
we just learned. Its the same as the
similar looking character combination, but
has the two horizontal lines shifted to the
left. Yae or Ye. This means yes in
Korean.
8. A bit tougher now, but break it down. The
first is a double door. Its the character
we associated with a door, but doubled up;
a tense consonant. Therefore Dd + o + ng
since the placeholder consonant ends the
box, or syllable. The second syllable is B
for boat + ae = bae. Ddong bae is a
funny Korean slang term, which means
pot belly (literally: poo belly)!
9. That difficult-to-pronounce combination of
+ (pronounced eui) plus J for jug +
ah = Eui-ja, meaning chair.
90DayKorean.com
Thats it! Click the stop button on your
stopwatch and record your time.
You are officially finished the 90 Minute

Challenge.
6
________________________________________________________________________
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
Congratulations!
Weve learned all of the vowels and the

consonants, plus more sounds we can make by
putting them together.
As time goes by, you will no longer rely on the

associations we have created today and
reading Korean will become second nature!
90DayKorean.com
Armed with this knowledge, youre ready to
start tackling more lessons in Korean. When
you learn Korean in Korean, or at least while
thinking and writing using the characters, you
learn much more effectively.
Instead of trying to think in English and say

thats not how wed say it in English, you
start to recognize patterns and different ways
of communicating.
Its important to note that we have not learned

the proper Romanization here, just the sounds
that the characters make.
We will need to learn some more rules, like

when they subtly change in pronunciation
depending on where theyre located in the
word, and how to read Romanized Korean, but
all this will come with time!
For now, its time to celebrate. You passed the

challenge, and for that, you deserve a lot of
credit!
90DayKorean.com
So go back to www.90DayKorean.com and
post your time in the comments, and let us
know how you found the challenge.
Three winners who have completed the

challenge, regardless of time, will be selected
to win a free scholarship to the upcoming
release of the 90 Day Korean program! Plus,
well keep you updated on the release of more
free content.
Thanks for taking the challenge, and all the

best in your Korean language-learning journey!
Sincerely,
The 90 Day Korean Team
By the way, if you loved this guide,

youll love our new 90 Day Korean
Inner Circle. As a member, you will
receive lessons like this each week,
90DayKorean.com
PLUS accountability, daily challenges
and tasks for motivation and to keep
you on track, email support, grading
from Korean natives, and a whole lot
more. Its like an interactive community
for learning Korean all from the
comfort of your own home.
Sign up now:
http://www.90DayKorean.com/innercircle
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90 Minute Korean Reading Challenge

If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes

The sum of human wisdom is not contained in any one

Korean culture is on the rise: worldwide music and pop

As the world becomes more connected to Korea

Thats where this challenge comes in.

Did you know that there are fewer Korean characters

Korean has 14 vowels and 10 consonants.

Unlike Japanese or Chinese, which have thousands of

On top of this, Korean has a grammar structure that can

This makes Korean a great language for rapid learning,

This guide makes use of psychological techniques which

This is Korean, broken down and simplified. This is

Lets get started.

Set your stopwatch, because the challenge is to get

There are some exercises along the way to test your

Go through at a brisk pace, but ensure proper encoding

At the end, the ultimate test is being able to read nine

Ready. Set. Go.

CONSONANTS (25 MINUTES)

The Korean language has both consonants and vowels

Lets learn the consonants to start.

First, lets take a look at the English alphabet. Instead of

In doing so, we can find the closest equivalents in

In Korean, there are no F, R, V, or Z sounds, so lets

a) Can only be made by combining two or

b) Cannot be made without adding a vowel

So lets take these letters out too.

Finally, lets remove the English vowels, since

How many are left in red?

This leaves a total of 12.

Lets take a look at those 12 first. Since were

Lets do this using a visual learning technique

This will help to start to create the

The character , which has a sound similar to

Make this association in your mind. Write it

Likewise, the character could be seem as a

Try creating these associations now.

Finally, there are the characters , , and ,

The points up and to the right like a

The is like a seashell or clam, having only

Now, lets take a look at four of the sounds we

Make each of these sounds now. B. D. G.

For B, a more aspirated sound forcing out

And G? A K sound, like a C or K. In English,

The C is really just an aspirated G.

Finally, if you aspirated a J, it would result in a

Lets match up the non-aspirated English

See how similar these sounds really are?

The next four Korean characters are called the

Lets make a visual association as well to

Remember math class? I hope so!

Whats that number? Pi! And the Korean

So there we have it. The first 12 characters

But we said there were a total of 14

, the character representing the ch sound

Time to test what we just learned.

The last consonant in Korean is really just a

Just like in math, where we use 0 as a

For now, thats all you need to remember.

This will make more sense later. Check your

Lets move on to the vowels for now.

VOWELS (20 MINUTES)