Syllables in Hangul

Unlike other alphabetic writing systems, Korean alphabet Hangul is written by the syllable. Korean syllable structure is V, CV, VC, and CVC, where C and V stand for Consonant and Vowel respectively. Hangul consonant and vowel symbols are grouped together to form sort of 'block' and this block corresponds to each syllable.

In the left picture where two cute Korean boy and girl are saying hello to you, can you find how many blocks of Korean syllables are? If you answered 'five', you will be able to read Korean Hangul sooner or later with a little practice. Of course those five blocks correspond exactly to the number of syllables in the word. A block of syllable usually consists of three parts; initial, medial and final part. The medial part is usually vowels. So the two parts before and after the medial vowel are syllable-initial and syllable-final consonants respectively. (click the picture to hear it in native Korean!)

Now let me tell you a little about the direction of writing. Take the second block or syllable for example. As you also see in figure 4, the second syllable is CVC in syllable structure. You write from left to right, but syllable-final consonant or final part is written below the other parts. From this, you should be able to know that the first block or syllable has also syllable-final consonant.

In figure 4, I gave a detailed description of how each syllable in the above picture is organized into a block. As you see in the figure, word initial o is silent and it's used mainly for esthetic reason. If you just follow the figure, you could easily pronounce the words. Korean words don't have a particular stress pattern, so you can just read aloud without any 'STRESS'.

If you learn one more consonant and three more vowels, you could read the words in the above picture aloud. Refer to figure 4 for the rest of the symbols not listed in figure 5, and you will be able to read it. (click the picture to hear it in native Korean!)

For its closeness to the phonemic value of Korean spoken words, Hangul is very easy to learn. No Koreans ask for the clarification of the spells of the word the other person says.

As you know, sounds will change and spoken Korean is no exception. But we make some minor changes to our spelling periodically. It does not happen frequently but once in several decades, a committee of scholars have meetings to determine the appropriateness and range of spell change. That way we Koreans try to make our Hangul as up-to-date as possible to our spoken Korean.