Korean Alphabet Part

3: Final Consonant
and Syllable Blocks

by Linda McKenna // February 3

// 0 Comments

In this post about Korean alphabet, I

will be introducing the final consonant

and how it is added to a syllable. Up

to now, we’ve only been looking at

syllables that end in a vowel. The final

consonant is the last thing added to

the syllable block.

But before we continue, let’s first

review what we have learned so far.

Today's goals:

Let’s do a quick
review

You should now be familiar with all the

characters in the Korean alphabet,

Hangul:

Korean Consonants
(14 + 5)
Basic Consonants: ㄱ ㄴ ㄷ ㄹ ㅁ ㅂ ㅅ

ㅇㅈㅊㅋㅌㅍㅎ

Double Consonants: ㄲ ㄸ ㅃ ㅆ ㅉ

Korean Vowels (10 +

11)
Basic Vowels: ㅏ ㅑ ㅓ ㅕ ㅗ ㅛ ㅜ ㅠ

ㅡㅣ

Complex Vowels: ㅐ ㅔ ㅒ ㅖ

Compound Vowels: ㅘㅚㅙㅝㅞㅟ

Reminder About
Korean Vowels

All vowels start with a vertical or

a horizontal line and then more

line(s) added to it.

When there are two shorter lines

attached to the longer line (ㅑ ㅕ

ㅛ ㅠ ㅒ ㅖ), the vowels will begin

with a “y” sound like the words

“yes” or “yak.”

All compound vowels (ㅘ ㅚ ㅙ ㅝ

ㅞ ㅟ) begin with a “w” sound like

the words “we” or “way.”

One exception is the last

compound vowel “ㅢ,”

pronounced [eui]. There are no

English words with this sound

that I know of.

Reminder About
Korean Consonants
The consonants can be grouped into

three different types of sounds: plain,

aspirated, and tense. In the table

below, I will use the vowel ㅏ [ah] with

all the consonants so you can read

them out loud.

Notice that ㄱ, ㄷ, ㅂ, and ㅈ have both

aspirated and tense counterparts; ㅅ

has the tense counterpart ㅆ; and ㅇ

has the aspirated counterpart ㅎ.

Plain 가 나

Aspirate
카
d

Tense 까

You will need to train your ears to hear

the sound differences when listening,

as well as pay close attention to the

pronunciation differences when

speaking.

가 [gah] - Tongue and throat relaxed

(like the sound “ga” in Ghandi)

카 [ka] - Throat opens and expels air

(like the sound “ca” in car)

까 [kka] - Throat closed and back of

the tongue tense (like the sound “k” in

sky or scar)

Repeat these three sounds over and

over, paying attention to what your

mouth is doing when you say them

and what the differences are. Then

apply the same concept to the rest of

the consonants in the table.

I apologize if my explanations about

pronunciation seem frivolous and

repetitive. My goal is not to make you

sound like a native, because that is

very difficult to do when you learn a

second language beyond infancy. But

you still need to learn to distinguish

between all the different sounds in

Hangul in order to understand and to

be understood when communicating.

For example, the word 사다 means “to

buy,” whereas the word 싸다 means “to

be cheap.” Can you see where

someone could be completely

misunderstood when the listener

cannot hear the word clearly? You

can expect similar emphasis on

pronunciation in all of my future posts

as well. Stick with me, and your

pronunciation skills will be the envy of

all of your Korean-learning friends!

In my experience, English speakers

don’t seem to have as much trouble

with the aspirated sounds; but they

often have difficulty differentiating

between plain and tense consonants.

Just remember, practice makes

perfect!

Let’s now talk about the final

consonant. Finally!!

Final Consonants in
Korean

Remember the three syllable blocks

that we learned in the last post? They

represent all the syllables that end

with a vowel:

Syllable Blocks: Consonant +

Vowel

Syllable Blocks: Consonant +

Vowel + Final Consonant

As I mentioned in the beginning of this

post, when a Korean syllable ends

with a consonant, the consonant gets

added to that syllable block at the

bottom. The final consonant in a

syllable is called 받침 [baht-chim],

which literally means “support from

underneath.”

Let’s look at the English word “pencil”

phonetically written in Korean. Written

in Hangul, the word “pencil” will look

like this: 펜슬.

Both syllables end with a consonant.

The “n” (ㄴ) will be added at the

bottom of the first syllable, and the “l”

(ㄹ) will be added at the bottom of the

second syllable. Here we have the

next two syllable blocks:

I chose this word as an example

because these two syllables are great

examples of the next two types of

syllable blocks:

Next syllable block represents

syllables that have consonant +

compound vowel + consonant

pattern. An example is the word 원

[won], which is the South Korean

currency.

Syllable Blocks: Consonant +

Vowel + 2 Final Consonants

The last three syllable blocks

represent the syllables that end with

two consonants, which include the

double consonants that we have

learned. Some of the words that have

syllables ending with two consonants

are:

밖 [bahk] - means “outside.”

있어요 [it-suh-yo] -- means “does exist”

or “have.”

없어요 [up-suh-yo] -- means “does not

exist” or “have not.”

괜찮아요 [guen-cha-nah-yo] - means

“it’s okay” or “I’m okay.”

흙 [heuk] - means “dirt” or “soil.”

The last syllable block does not have

an example, because I could not find

any words that fit this type. I included

it just as a reference, because you will

probably see it in other Korean

language teaching materials and/or

websites. Following the logical

pattern, it is conceptually possible to

be written; but you likely will not

encounter such words. So mostly, you

will work with only remaining 8 types

of blocks.

Hangul Wrap-up

You now have all the information you

need to write any word in Korean, as

well as phonetically sound out any

single syllable block. You do have to

apply some additional pronunciation

rules when you read words with two or

more syllables or when you are

reading a sentence, but we will cover

that as we go.

Writing
One thing that I need to mention when

writing Hangul is that all strokes

should be written from left to right and

from top to bottom.

If you want to practice writing Hangul

as well as learn the proper sounds,

there is a great app you can download

to your mobile device. It is made by

the Language Education Institute at

Seoul National University. The app

guides you through the proper stroke

order and pronunciation and includes

tests for you to see your progress.

Go ahead! Give it a try!

SNU LEI App for Android

SNU LEI App for Apple iOS

Typing
If you haven’t done it already, you

should think about installing the

Korean Hangul keyboard on your

computer and your mobile devices.

Keep in mind that on a Korean

keyboard:

The consonants are on the left

half of the keyboard.

The vowels are on the right half

of the keyboard.

The shift key will give you the five

double consonants and two

vowels ㅒ and ㅖ.

You can get the compound

vowels by consecutively typing

the two vowels that make up the

particular compound vowel you

want.

Once you have mastered the

keyboard, you will be able to use more

study references online, such as the

Naver Korean Dictionary that I have

referenced before and to which I will

be regularly referring for word

pronunciation.

Word Practice

Now that we are able to read and write

more words, let’s add some words to

our vocabulary:

In the last post, we learned some

words in the categories of people,

body parts, and food. Now that we

have learned how to add final

consonants, we can make the lists

more comprehensive (some words are

repeated). But I will not overwhelm

you with too many. We will learn more

in future posts.

Immediate Family

엄마 um-ma Mom

아빠 ap-ba Dad

Older brother
오빠 oep-ba
(to a female)

Older sister
언니 un-nee
(to a female)

Older sister
누나 nooh-nah
(to a male)

Younger
동생 dong-seng
sibling

nahm-dong- Younger
남동생
seng brother

yuh-dong- Younger
여동생
seng sister

Mini Quiz: Notice that 동생 is younger

sibling, 남동생 is younger brother, and

여동생 is younger sister. What do you

think the words for male and female

are? Any guesses?

Yes! You’re correct! 남 is male and 여

is female (adjectives). The words for

“man” and “women” are 남자 (male

person) and 여자 (female person).

Body Parts

muh-ree

(sounds like

머리 American Head

pronunciatio

n of “muddy”)

oel-gul

(this is near

impossible to

romanize.

Please listen

얼굴 to the proper Face

pronunciatio

n HERE by

clicking on

the speaker

icon.)

눈 noon eye(s)

코 koe nose

mouth

입 eep (sometimes

lips)

입술 eep-sool lips

귀 gwee ear(s)

Fun Homework!
You might be familiar with the popular

song “눈, 코, 입" (Eyes, Nose, Lips) by

Taeyang (태양) from the K-pop group

Big Bang. Listen to it and see if you

can pick out those three words in the

song.

I think that’s enough vocabulary to

keep you busy until the next post.

Happy practicing! Be sure to also

practice reading and writing the entire

Hangul by putting the consonants and

vowels together in different

combinations.

What’s Next?

I am excited to announce that we are

now ready to advance into learning

some grammar and additional

vocabulary! In my next post, I will be