Hello there!

Welcome to our guide for learning how to read

Hangul. In this guide, we will teach you the basics of the
Hangul alphabet as well as how to pronounce each letter.

By the end of this guide, you will be able to read and say
Hangul as well as be able to read basic Korean words.

Learning Korean may seem intimidating at first, but trust

us, the Hangul alphabet can be learned in just a few hours
or less. With that, let’s get started!

Basics of the Hangul Alphabet

Like English, the Korean alphabet consists of letters that can be

put together to make words. Compared to other languages like
Chinese or Japanese, this already makes Korean easier to learn
since you don’t have to worry about learning tons of characters. In
fact, King Sejong invented Hangul in order to give people of the
lower classes a chance to become literate since learning Hanja
was difficult at the time.

The alphabet contains 10 vowels and 14 consonants.

Let’s take a look, and then we will break them down each one by
one.

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 Vowels
● (​Track​ ​1​) 

At the bottom of each letter, you will see the Romanized sound for
each. Now these don’t sound exactly how they look, so that’s why
we’ve included audio for each individual letter.

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For this guide, we will be including romanization, but the whole
purpose of this guide will be for you to be able to read Korean
without it. Vowels can also be combined to give you additional
letters like so:

● (​Track​ ​2​) 

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Some letters may sound the same to you and that’s okay. Even
Koreans think words with these vowels sound the same or very
similar.

Consonants
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Now let’s move onto the consonants.

There are also double consonants:

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For many beginners, the double consonants are the hardest to
get right. They are pronounced with the same sound as their
single consonant counterparts, the only difference is that it is a
very strong pronunciation of the sound. Think about the word ball.

The b sound is a very soft b sound, right? Now what about the
word “boom!” When you say this word, the b sound is very
pronounced and strong.

This is the same way double consonants work. We haven’t

discussed how to make words yet, but you can hear the
difference with these two Korean words below:

● (​Track​ ​3​) 

a. 방 b. 빵

● (​Track​ ​4​) 
 
a. 굴 b. 꿀
 
● (​Track​ ​5​) 
 
a. 덕 b. 떡
 
● (​Track​ ​6​) 
 

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a. 시 b. 씨
 
● (​Track​ ​7​) 
 
a. 자 b. 짜
 
We won’t include audio with all of these consonants just yet. We
will combine these with vowels later, and you will be able to hear
the sounds they make. If you want to know the name for each
one, you can take a look at the charts below (next page):

● (​Track​ ​8​) 

● (​Track​ ​9​) 

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Now that you know the individual letters of the alphabet, it’s time
to put them together and make some words. This is the fun part
☺

In Korean, to make words, you don’t put each individual letter next
to another to make a word like in English.

Words are made of blocks that contain each letter which then
together form a word. Let’s take a look:

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Looking at the chart above, you can see that every word will start
with a consonant and if it has 3 or more letters, they will also end
with consonants.

Let’s make a word! How about we start with the syllable “han”
(sounds like hahn). If you need to reference the alphabet charts
above, feel free to do so. We know that:

h=ㅎ
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a (ah sound) = ㅏ
n=ㄴ

If you put them together, what would you get? You would get:

한
What about the syllable “geul”? We know that:

g=ㄱ
eu = ㅡ
l=ㄹ

If you put them together, you would get:

글
Now what if we put both of them together? We get:

한글
This is the word for “Hangeul” in Korean which references the
Korean alphabet and writing system. Pretty easy right?

Consonant + Vowel

These are common combinations that feature a consonant in the

first position, and a vowel in the second position. Let’s take a look
at some examples:
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 ● (​Track​ ​10​) 

If we break it down, we get this:

a. 가 = ㄱ + ㅏ

b. 노 = ㄴ + ㅗ

c. 디 = ㄷ + ㅣ

d. 무 = ㅁ + ㅜ

e. 야 = ㅇ + ㅑ

A note about the letter ‘ㅇ’ and vowels. If a word starts off with the
sound of a vowel, the letter ‘ㅇ’ must be placed in the front of the
word. It has no sound at the beginning, so you just pronounce the
vowel the same as if it was by itself. In the final position, this letter
has a ‘ing’ sound..

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In the beginning, we went over the vowels as sounds by
themselves. Now let’s look at them with the letter ‘ㅇ’ added in
front of them:

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Remember, this only applies to vowels!

Consonant + Vowel + Consonant

Now, we will take a look at the CVC combination. Here, we will

use three letters to make a syllable.

Let’s show you some examples!

● (​Track​ ​11​) 

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If we break each on down, we get:

a. 달 = ㄷ + ㅏ + ㄹ

b. 반 = ㅂ + ㅏ + ㄴ

c. 글 = ㄱ + ㅡ + ㄹ

d. 숲 = ㅅ + ㅜ + ㅍ

e. 역 = ㅇ + ㅕ + ㄱ

Consonant + Vowel + Consonant +

Consonant

Now in rare cases, you will have some words/syllables that

feature a CVCC pattern. These will typically have one of the
letters silent at or near the end of the word or syllable. Let’s look
at a few examples:

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 ● (​Track​ ​12​) 

We won’t get into many of the rules now, but in most cases when
the letter ‘ㄹ’ is in the third position like in the words above, it is
silent. There are just a few exceptions to this, and these rules
apply to a few other letters in the four block Korean words.

Let’s test you!

See if you can convert the Romanized Korean into Hangul:

1. sa - gwa

2. eum - sik

3. hae

4. ya - gu

5. sa - ja

6. chaek

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 7. bul

8. ja

9. chang - mun

10. hak - gyo

(Answers below!)

1. sa - gwa 사과 (apple)

2. eum - sik 음식 (food)

3. hae 해 (sun)

4. ya - gu 야구 (baseball)

5. sa - ja 사자 (lion)

6. chaek 책 (book)

7. bul 불 (fire)

8. ja 자 (ruler)

9. chang - mun 창문 (window)

10. hak - gyo 학교 (school)

How did you do? Remember we’re only using Romanization since
you are just learning, but once you get more familiar with the

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sounds and letters, you will learn much quickly and easily without
it.

CONGRATS YOU MADE IT!

Congratulate yourself on making it through this beginner lesson.
Now that you’ve got the basics down, you’re ready to move on to
learning basic words, sentences, and even grammar.

When I first learned Hangul, it took me only about 2 or 3 hours to

memorize the letters and sounds, but it helped that I reviewed
them over the next week or so since I would still periodically get
confused. The more you expose yourself to the language, the
more quickly you will learn.

We’ve also included a two-page cheat sheet for learning the

basics of Hangul and some special rules. You can print them out
and carry them with you for reference.

Once you feel confident in learning more, you can check out more
of our graphics on our blog, or get our learning package for
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Best,
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