한글 (Hangeul)
Hangul, the Korean alphabet, has 24 basic letters: 14 consonants and 10 vowels. The letters are grouped into square blocks, one block per syllable: ㅎ + ㅏ + ㄴ = 한.
Tap a letter to hear it; the small ▶ plays the example word. Practice mode hides names and sounds until you tap a card.
Many consonants sound different at the start of a word, between vowels and at the end of a syllable. The romanization follows the sound: ㄱ is g in 가방 gabang but k in 책 chaek.
Doubling a consonant makes a tense sound: said with a tight throat and no puff of air. Romanization doubles the letter: kk, tt, pp, ss, jj.
A vowel is never written alone: at the start of a syllable it follows the silent ㅇ, so the vowel ㅏ is written 아. Adding a short stroke adds a y sound: ㅏ a → ㅑ ya.
These vowels are combinations of two basic vowels, such as ㅗ + ㅏ = ㅘ (wa).
Each block is one syllable: a consonant, then a vowel. Tall vowels (ㅏ ㅓ ㅣ) go to the right of the consonant, flat vowels (ㅗ ㅜ ㅡ) go below it.
| a | eo | o | u | eu | i | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ㄱ | ||||||
| ㄴ | ||||||
| ㅁ | ||||||
| ㅅ | ||||||
| ㅇ |
A final consonant (batchim) is written at the bottom of the block.
| Block | Letters | Romanization | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 한 | ㅎ + ㅏ + ㄴ | han | |
| 국 | ㄱ + ㅜ + ㄱ | guk | |
| 말 | ㅁ + ㅏ + ㄹ | mal | |
| 밥 | ㅂ + ㅏ + ㅂ | bap | |
| 강 | ㄱ + ㅏ + ㅇ | gang | |
| 옷 | ㅇ + ㅗ + ㅅ | ot |
Hangul was created in 1443 under King Sejong the Great and published in 1446 as Hunminjeongeum, “the correct sounds for the instruction of the people”. Before that, Korean was written only with Chinese characters (hanja). South Korea celebrates Hangul Day on 9 October.
Letters are not written in a row but grouped into blocks, one per syllable. Every block starts with a consonant; when a syllable begins with a vowel, the silent ㅇ fills the first place: 아 a, 이 i. A block may end with one or two final consonants: 한국 Hanguk (Korea).
Only seven sounds can end a syllable: k, n, t, l, m, p and ng. So 옷 (ot, clothes), 낮 (nat, daytime) and 꽃 (kkot, flower) all end in a t sound. Before a vowel the final consonant is read with the next syllable: 옷이 is said o-si.
Korean has three kinds of stop consonants: plain (ㄱ ㄷ ㅂ ㅈ), aspirated with a strong puff of air (ㅋ ㅌ ㅍ ㅊ) and tense with a tight throat (ㄲ ㄸ ㅃ ㅉ). The difference changes meaning: 불 bul (fire), 풀 pul (grass), 뿔 ppul (horn).
Unlike Chinese and Japanese, Korean puts spaces between words. Particles and endings are attached to the word before them without a space. Today Korean is written left to right in horizontal lines.
South Korean dictionaries put the double consonants after their plain partners: ㄱ ㄲ ㄴ ㄷ ㄸ ㄹ ㅁ ㅂ ㅃ ㅅ ㅆ ㅇ ㅈ ㅉ ㅊ ㅋ ㅌ ㅍ ㅎ. North Korea uses a different order and some different letter names, such as 기윽 (gieuk) for ㄱ.
This page uses the Revised Romanization of Korean, the official system in South Korea since 2000 and the one on road signs. It writes 한글 as Hangeul. Older books use McCune–Reischauer, which writes Han’gŭl.
Audio is synthetic speech generated with Google Cloud Text-to-Speech (Chirp 3: HD voices). Letter inventory checked against Unicode CLDR.