The alphabet consists of
!ATTENTION! Letters are always written from left to right And top down
And now, take a notebook in a cage, write down and at the same time pronounce the pronunciation about 10 times (+\- infinity) for each letter in the correct spelling order as written in the tables, we try to get into a square of 4 cells.
ㅏㅗㅓㅜㅣㅡ J)
ㅏ + ㅣ = ㅐ ;
ㅣ + ㅐ = ㅒ ;
ㅓ + ㅣ = ㅔ
ㅕ + ㅣ = ㅖ
ㅗ + ㅏ = ㅘ
ㅗ + ㅐ = ㅙ
ㅗ + ㅣ = ㅚ
ㅜ + ㅓ = ㅝ
ㅜ + ㅔ = ㅞ
ㅜ + ㅣ = ㅟ
ㅡ + ㅣ = ㅢ
*Tables taken from Won Gwan's textbook.
P/S, if you really want to, you can study in one evening. Good luck!
Vowel letters in Korean are divided into “light” and “dark”. For “light” people, the short line is located to the right or above the main line (ㅏㅗ ) for “dark” ones, the short line is located on the left or bottom, respectively (ㅓ ㅜ ). There is a principle that “dark” is combined with “dark”, and “light” with “light”. According to which diphthongs are constructed from “simple” vowels. (Vowelsㅣ ㅡ , are neutral or something J)
ㅏ + ㅣ = ㅐ ;
ㅣ + ㅐ = ㅒ ;
ㅓ + ㅣ = ㅔ
ㅕ + ㅣ = ㅖ
ㅗ + ㅏ = ㅘ
ㅗ + ㅐ = ㅙ
ㅗ + ㅣ = ㅚ
ㅜ + ㅓ = ㅝ
ㅜ + ㅔ = ㅞ
ㅜ + ㅣ = ㅟ
ㅡ + ㅣ = ㅢ
Many people believe that Koreans write in some kind of “Korean characters.” This is wrong. In everyday life, Koreans, both northern and southern, use simple phonetic writing, which I personally was able to master on my own in a couple of days. Along with learning the rules of reading, this process lasted for a week, no more. Hieroglyphs (they came from China and are called “hanja” in Korean, that is, “Chinese characters”) were abolished in North Korea in the middle of the last century, and in the South, although they are still officially preserved, they are used mainly in specialized literature . Therefore, if you do not need to read scientific articles, you can easily get by with the Korean alphabet.
The Korean alphabet was invented in the 15th century by a group of scholars from the Chipyeongjong Court Academy on the orders of King Sejong the Great. Initially it was called “Hongmin Jeongum”, but then, already in the 20th century, it was renamed “Hangul” (“great letter”). The Korean alphabet still bears this name. The shape of the letters goes back to the style Chinese characters"zhuan".
Hangul consists of forty letters. We will study them gradually. Let's start with the consonants. Remember that the letter is written from left to right and from top to bottom.
You have already noticed that some letters can be read dull or loud. Their reading depends on their position in the word. At the beginning and end of words, paired consonants are always read unvoiced, for example in the words “param” (wind), “chip” (house), “pap” (boiled rice). In the middle of a word they are voiced between two vowels, for example in the words “kagyok” (price), “kaban” (bag), “kadzhok” (family) and after voiced consonants (n, m, r/l, nъ), for example “ namja" (man), "salda" (to live); "ange" (fog).
Letter r/l reads like l at the end of a word, for example “mal” (speech), “tal” (moon, month) and in the middle of a word before a consonant, for example “ulda” (cry), “alda” (know) or when condensing two r/l, for example “mollayo” (I don’t know). Between two vowels r/l reads like r, for example in the words “saram” (person), “kurym” (cloud). At the beginning of words r/l found only in borrowings from European languages and always reads like r, for example "radio" (radio), "raitho" (lighter).
Let's pay attention to the pronunciation of three letters. B/J in its voiced version (j) is read softly, like the English j for example in the word jeans. In the deaf version, it is also read softly, like the Russian “ch”. Letter nb reads like a nasal n in the word song. In transcription, this sound is usually designated “нъ”. Letter X reads like a faint aspiration.
Now let's move on to vowels. Let's study simple vowels first.
Perhaps the difference between the sounds designated by the letter “o” requires comment. These sounds do not exist in the Russian language. "O" with a diacritic on top (in transcription, will be further denoted as O) can be described as a sound between "o" and "e". To form it, move your tongue back and try to pronounce “o”. Do the same in order to pronounce the sound ё, the middle one between “e” and “e”.
The second of these sounds is the middle one between "o" and "u". You should pronounce "u" with slightly more open lips than you do when speaking Russian. Repeat the same with the sound “yo”, middle between “e” and “u”.
If you don't succeed, don't be discouraged. Many people, even fluent Korean speakers, pronounce these sounds as Russian “o” and “e”. That doesn’t prevent them from understanding each other with Koreans.
Sound s is the average between our “y” and “s”. But you can pronounce it simply as the Russian “y” if you do not strive to be mistaken for a purebred Korean when speaking.
However, it's not that simple. The fact is that the Korean letter is not alphabetic, like the Cyrillic or Latin alphabet, but alpha-syllabic. This means that the letters of Hangul are formed into syllabic signs according to certain rules. One syllable can have from two to four letters. We will not consider the last case for now. Let's focus on two- and three-letter signs.
The modern Korean alphabet consists of 40
letters - 24 main and 16 compound. Of these 19
- consonants and 21
vowels.
In the Korean language, there are 14 simple and 5 compound letters to represent consonants sounds. Among vowels There are 10 simple and 11 compound letters in the Korean language.
Total:
Consonants - 19
(14 main and 5 constituent).
Vowels - 21
(10 main and 11 diphthongs).
자음
The creation of consonants is based on 5 initial letters:
ㄱ
(To- at the beginning / Gㄴ (n )
ㅁ (m )
ㅅ (With )
ㅇ (not at the beginning / eyn- in the middle or at the end of a syllable)
Next, the remaining consonants were formed:
ㄷ (T- at the beginning of a syllable / d- in the middle or at the end of a syllable)
ㄹ (r- at the beginning of a syllable / l- in the middle or at the end of a syllable)
ㅂ (n- at the beginning of a syllable / b- in the middle or at the end of a syllable)
ㅈ (zh )
ㅊ (h )
ㅋ (kh )
ㅌ (tx )
ㅍ (ph )
ㅎ (X )
These were 5 basic consonants and 9 consonants formed from them, but there are also 5 double consonants:
ㄲ (ky )
ㄸ (You )
ㅃ (py )
ㅆ (ss )
ㅉ (tsy )
As we can see, each double consonant is formed from two main consonants. The pronunciation of these consonants is very short but stronger than that of ordinary consonants. In total we got 19 consonants, 14 main and 5 double.
모음
____________________________________________________________________________________________
The creation of vowels is based on 2 letters:
ㅡ
(s
)ㅣ (And )
Next, the remaining main vowels were formed:
ㅗ (oo )
ㅛ (e )
ㅜ (at )
ㅠ (yu )
ㅏ (A )
ㅑ (I )
ㅓ (O )
ㅕ (yo )
These are the basic vowels. There are also so-called diffthongs, these are complex vowels:
ㅐ (uh )
ㅒ (yeah )
ㅔ (e )
ㅖ (yeah )
ㅢ (th )
ㅚ (oh )
ㅘ (oa )
ㅙ (oe )
ㅟ (ui )
ㅝ (woah )
ㅞ (ye )
Everything is simple here, diphthongs are formed in the same way as double consonants. So, in total we have 21 vowels, of which 10 are main and 11 are diphthongs.
ATTENTION: Before moving on to the next lesson, learn Korean alphabet. It can be downloaded and printed in . Practice in writing letters. A simple 5 minute workout will help you master reading in Korean.
P.S. The materials on learning the Korean language posted on the site were written by one of our users who is studying at a Korean school. Since such lessons were created by an unprofessional teacher, they may contain errors (typos in Russian) and discrepancies (in the rules of the Korean language, such as “zh” and “j” or “ua” or “va”). We ask you to treat such materials as an additional tool to test your knowledge. These lessons are mainly published on the site for users who cannot attend Korean language courses in their hometown.
For many, the Korean language seems mysterious and super complex, because it is so different from ours. In front of you 8 interesting facts about the Korean language, which will help you understand it a little better.
- There are only 24 letters in the Korean alphabet.
Many people imagine the Korean alphabet to be very complex with a large number characters, but it only has 24 letters. Moreover, 10 of them are vowels.
For example, recall that there are 5 vowels in the English language, but most of them have several sounds. So in in different words letters can be read in different ways. But each Korean vowel corresponds to only one sound.
It turns out that there are only 14 consonants in the Korean alphabet, and many sounds that exist in English or Russian are simply not there (for example, “Z” or “F” from English).
2 . The Korean alphabet (HANGEUL) can be learned in just 90 minutes.
The Korean alphabet was invented for the specific purpose of making it easy to learn. All consonants have a shape that will help you learn them using almost just one lip shape. The spelling of vowels is also easy to remember.
3. 80 million people around the world speak Korean
The bulk of them, of course, live in South and North Korea, and in addition, one of the provinces of China uses the Korean language. You will find people speaking Korean in Japan, USA, Russia and other countries.
4. D The dialects of the regions in Korea are very different from standard Korean.
The Korean spoken in Seoul is called "standard Korean". The media uses it and important government statements are made on it. But since Korea is a country of mountains, many regions are very isolated from each other. Because of this, the language in different areas can vary greatly. This is why many Seoulians have a hard time understanding the man from Busan.
5. There are many borrowed words in the Korean language.
Most loanwords come from English language or directly from Japan. So for example, the word "motorbike" — "oto-bai" from the word "auto-bike".
Other languages can also be found in Korean, such as "bbang"(bread) from Portuguese, and "arubaituh"(part-time job, part-time job) from German.
6. Many of the remaining words have Chinese roots.
At one time, Chinese culture made a huge contribution to the formation of an active vocabulary of the Korean language.
7. There are two counting systems in Korea
One of the counting systems is based on the Korean language, the other has Chinese roots, the numbers here have a similar sound to the Chinese ones. Often, Korean language learners get confused about how to apply each of these systems in practice. But don't give up or despair!
8. The North Korean language is gradually becoming an independent language.
Despite the fact that a large difference in pronunciation and dialects existed even before Korean War, the languages truly became alien after the separation. Significant influence foreign languages into South Korean and the isolation of North Korea has led to the fact that now many words that have the same meaning on one side and the other have become completely different. For example words "ice cream", "rainbow", "friend", "lunchbox"— the two Koreas sound completely different.
Which fact did you find most interesting? And what unusual facts Do you know about the Korean language?
