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The Korean alphabet

24 letters, each with its name and roughly the sound it makes. The sounds are English approximations — enough to sound a word out, not enough to pass for a local.

🇰🇷 Hangul · A featural script: a letter's shape shows how the sound is made.

Fourteen consonants and ten vowels, invented in 1443 and designed rather than inherited: a consonant's shape shows where in the mouth it is made. Letters are not written in a line but packed into square blocks, one per syllable, which is why Korean looks dense and is in fact the quickest script here to learn.

New to it? Our beginner's guide to the Korean alphabet explains how the script works and gives you a plan to learn it.

Consonants

• ㄱ giyeok g or k
• ㄴ nieun n
• ㄷ digeut d or t
• ㄹ rieul between r and l
• ㅁ mieum m
• ㅂ bieup b or p
• ㅅ siot s
• ㅇ ieung silent at the start, ng at the end
• ㅈ jieut j
• ㅊ chieut ch
• ㅋ kieuk k with a puff of air
• ㅌ tieut t with a puff of air
• ㅍ pieup p with a puff of air
• ㅎ hieut h

Vowels

• ㅏ a a in father
• ㅑ ya ya in yard
• ㅓ eo u in but
• ㅕ yeo yu in yummy
• ㅗ o o in more
• ㅛ yo yo in yodel
• ㅜ u oo in boot
• ㅠ yu you
• ㅡ eu oo said with a flat mouth
• ㅣ i ee in see

Now read something in it

The letters are the smaller half. The 5,927 commonest Korean words are where they start meaning something.

Reading it is one thing.

Being understood when you say it is another. That takes a person.

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