korean study

7/31/2019 Korean Study

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Lesson 1

Congratulations on your decision to start learning the Korean script! You will see that being able to read Korean will

baffle your friends and enrich your life. Also, you will no longer be an analphabet when travelling to Korea.

Even though Korean may look just like Chinese or Japanese to the untrained eye, it is actually much easier, because

the characters are a combination of just 24 letters and a few simple variations, rather than a few thousand more or

less random drawings. So even going at a relaxed pace of 4 letters per lesson, you will have learned everything youneed to read Korean after just a few lessons, while the Japanese or Chinese scripts take years to master!

Let's start!

The first Korean letter you should learn is Bieup:

This is a consonant and it's pronounced as p or b. Listen to Bieup.

Of course you can't read anything with just this one consonant, so here's a vowel to go with it:

This is the vowel a as in father. Listen to it here.

Now, in order to combine them into a Korean character, all you have to do is to try to fit them into an imaginary little

square box. This is done by writing the letter right next to, like this:

Can you guess how this character is pronounced?

Move your mouse cursor over it and you'll see: it's pronounced "ba" and it's the Korean word for a bar. Easy, isn't it?

Now, the next important letter is Nieun:

This is a regular n. Listen to Nieun.Can you guess how to write na now?

Every character represents one syllable, so if you wanted to write baba for example, you would need two characters,one for each ba.

Now it's time for a little exercise. Try to read and understand the following word. As before, hover over it in order to

see the solution

Every Korean syllable has to start with a consonant. That makes it easy to identify the beginning and end of syllables,

but what about syllables that start with a vowel, such as the beginning of the famous Korean greeting "annyong

haseyo"? Those syllables need a placeholder consonant that isn't pronounced. Since its influence on the

pronunciation of the syllable is zero, it is written like a zero, too. (That's how you can remember it anyway)

O

It is called Ieung. So the syllable a would actually be written as.


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Here are some words for practise:

name of a popular band

capital of Cuba

One more thing for today: it is possible to have syllables that end in a consonant. This typically occurs when there is

a cluster of two consonants in the middle of a word: one consonant then forms the end of one syllable and the other

forms the beginning of the next syllable. Fitting two consonants and a vowel into a little square box is a little more

tricky, but not impossible. In most cases you write the first consonant + vowel next to each other as before and then

put the final consonant below the two. For example, this is the syllable ban, which has no meaning of its own:

Time for another exercise. Can you read the following? It's a name.

personal name

Lesson 2

Welcome back! This is the 2nd lesson of "Learn to read, write and pronounce Korean". In the last lesson, you already

learned 4 letters:,, and O. In this lesson, you will learn 4 new ones and combined with the ones you learned

earlier they will open up quite a few Korean words to you.

The first new letter is Mieum:

This is pronounced just like a regular English m. Listen to Mieum. Be careful not to confuse its appearance with 'O',

which has rounded corners rather than straight.

As an exercise, try to read the following Korean words that contain the letter Mieum. You can see the solutions by

moving your mouse over the Korean word, as usual.

capital city of Bahrain

name of Vietnam before it became 'Vietnam'

capital city of Jordan

Are the As boring you yet? It's time to learn another vowel.

This is the vowel i. It is pronounced like the ee in meet. Listen to it here. The Korean letter looks much like the

English letter I, so it's easy to remember. It also looks like the Korean letter for a, except that the dash to the right is

missing. You will notice that a lot of Korean vowels are formed on the basis of one or two vertical lines with dashes

attached to them, so memorise them well and don't get confused.

Practise reading:

country in Africa

capital city of Austria


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Now for a very important letter that will unlock lots of words to you: Rieul

This letter is pronounced like r or l, typically somewhere in between in true Asian fashion. Listen carefully: this is

Rieul. According to the official Korean romanisation system, it is always transliterated as l.

Here are lots of words to practise with:

personal name

country that has been in the news much lately

capital of Peru

capital of the Philippines

country in Africa

big city in France

distance measurement

country on the North coast of Africa

The last letter for this lesson shall be Giyeok:

This letter is pronounced like g or k. Listen to Giyeok. Be careful not to confuse it with. When this letter is

combined with a vowel such as a or i, it changes shape slightly. See the syllable gi for instance:.

Words for practise:

country in Western Africa

another country in Western Africa

capital of Latvia

country in the Balkans

country in South America

country almost enclosed by Senegal

Did you have any major difficulty reading the practise words for this lesson? No? Very good! You have now learned 8

Korean letters already and the rest won't be difficult either. Feel free to continue with the next lesson.

Lesson 3

Welcome back! This is the 3rd lesson of "Learn to read, write and pronounce Korean". In the previous two lessons,

you already learned a total of 8 letters. In this lesson, you will learn 4 additional basic letters, many new Korean

words and you will begin to use your knowledge actively in writing, rather than just reading.


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The first new letter is the vowel O:

This is pronounced like the oa in boat. Listen here. Since this vowel is much wider than it is tall (unlike the vowels

you have learned so far), it would be difficult to fit it next to a consonant in a little square box. That is why it has to

go below the consonant, saving much space this way.

As an exercise, try to read the following Korean words that contain the letter O. As usual, move your cursor over the

Korean word in order to see the solution appear.

Arab country

city in Northern Italy

capital of Italy

capital of Comoros

capital of Kenya

state of the USA

Even when the vowel is already below the consonant, it is still possible to add another consonant below that vowel

in order to have a syllable that ends in a consonant. Examples:


city in Western Germany

music instrument

style of music

It is also possible to have o at the end of a syllable. "Wait a minute! Didn't you say that this consonant is just a

placeholder?" When it comes at the beginning of a syllable, it is just a placeholder enabling the syllable to start with

a vowel. When it comes at the end of a syllable, it is pronounced like the ng in ring. Practise reading these words

now:

country in Western Africa

country in Southern Africa

city in France

country north of China

hobby

Time for a new consonant: meet Digeut.

This letter is pronounced like a t or d. Here's a recording of Digeut.


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Practise reading:

a house, hall, skyscraper or the like

tiny country between France and Spain

big country in Asia, former British colony

extremely popular before there was television

now being replaced by DVD

And here's Shiot:

Shiot is pronounced like an s. Listen to Shiot.

Here are words to practise with:

capital of Yemen

country in the Middle East

state of the USA

country in Eastern Africa

former Iraqi ruler

The last letter for this lesson is:

This vowel looks just like an ordinary horizontal line. It is much wider than tall, so it is also written below the

preceding consonant rather than next to it. It's pronunciation is a bit strange, somewhat like the French u or the

German . It's between the English oo and ee sounds. The u in the English word mure is probably one of the closest

examples of the sound in English. It's hard to describe sounds like this, so why don't you just listen to it here. In

words of foreign origin, it is often an in-between sound used to make consonant clusters more pronounceable for

the Koreans. (i.e. It is used as a neutral vowel sound; it even sounds like schwa.) It is transcribed as eu.

Words for practise:

Balkan country

city whose main attraction is the Taj Mahal

European country

very cold country

also very cold country

country in South-East Asia

capital of Ethiopia


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capital of Pakistan

capital in Europe

another capital in Europe

another European capital

city in Australia

Having been able to read all these words, do you think you could guess how to write "Asmara"(the capital of Eritrea)

in Korean? Try to write it down. Hint: since syllables can't end in s, this name has four syllables in Korean: a-seu-ma-

ra. Here's another one to try to write down: "Madras"(ma-deu-ra-seu).

Asmara

Madras

Are you still with me? If you didn't have trouble with this lesson, you are ready to go on to lesson 4, where you will

learn the rest of the simple letters and continue practising your writing skills.

Lesson 4

Welcome back! This is the 4th lesson of "Learn to read, write and pronounce Korean". In this lesson you'll learn the

rest of the basic Korean letters and you will continue to use your knowledge actively in writing.

The first new letter is the vowel U:

This is pronounced like the oo in boot. Listen to it here. This vowel is also wider than it is tall, so it goes below the

consonant rather than next to it.

Here are Korean words that contain this letter. As usual, move over the Korean words in order to see the solution.

city in the United Arab Emirates


country in Eastern Europe

another country in Eastern Europe

country in Central America

country in Africa


And try to write the following words:

Rwanda (Ruanda)

Burundi

Busan (second largest city in South Korea)


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Brunei

Sudan

Ulsan (big city in Korea)

The next of the vowels you should learn is "eo". It makes a sound like the u in jug. Listen to it here.

Try to translate these Korean words.

capital of Ireland

capital of the United Kingdom

capital of South Korea

military ____

part of a central heating system

mum

Now try to write down the following words in Korean:

Samsung (samseung)

Oregon

bus

virus (remember what happens to 'v' in Korean!)

Now we'll learn about the vowel E. Since this vowel opens up really many new words, we'll use this for a big revision.

This is the Korean letter E. It is pronounced as in bed.

Here are many words with this letter. First, practise reading:

big city in India

children like it

letters

capital of Togo

big country in South-East Asia

country near the previous country

refreshing drink


multilingual country in Europe


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capital of Colorado

small country near India

Second, practise writing:

Kobe

Lebanon

Senegal

Maine

Belarus

Grenada

Buenos Aires

Venezuela

El Salvador

Next I'd like you to meet the vowel AE:

This letter is pronounced like the a in land.

Words for practise:

famous beach

city in Texas

person who likes to move

music style

sweet home

state known for gambling

And now write a few more:

Daegu

San Diego (another i after the e)

Maryland

Rhode Island

Second-to-last letter: hieut

Hieut is pronounced as an h. Listen to Hieut.


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Some words with hieut:

popular holiday islands

country in Europe

capital city of Zimbabwe

city in Hawaii

popular fast food

style of music

Practise writing Hieut:

Doha

Hanoi

Ohio

Shanghai

The very last basic letter left is Jieut:

This letter is pronounced like j in journalist or like ch in chair. Here's an example: Jieut.

Read the following:

country in Africa

picture

car part

something I have to tell you

city on the west coast of the USA

state on the east coast of the USA

they repair cars

drink

state on the Gulf of Mexico

state for lovers

Soju (traditional Korean drink)

Abuja

Nanjing

Beijing


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Daejeon

Niger (3 syllables)

Geneva

Lesson 5

Welcome back! It has taken me a while, but I finally found some time to work on this lesson again. Your positivefeedback convinced me that it would be worthwhile, that my lessons are read and appreciated. By the way, I'd like to

create similar lessons for other scripts, so if you know any, please contact me. Let's start with the lesson. In this 5th

lesson you are going to learn aspirated consonants and vowels with Y.

The first aspirated letter you are going to learn is Kiuek:

Kiuek is pronounced as a forceful /k/ sound, transliterated as k' . Appearance-wise it is based on the soft Giyeok (/g/

or /k/ sound), but with an extra horizontal line, making it look like a mirrored F.

Let's have a look at Korean words and names that you can read now:

country in America

country somewhere south of the above

country formerly known as Mesopotamia

unpopular with students

popular with students

sport

must-have for a tourist

country east of Africa

capital of Thailand

great city, if you like darkness

country near #2

country not too far from the above

Now practice your ability to write Korean. Keep in mind that any K-sound in these words will be an aspirated K, a

Kiuek.

bikini

ski

condo

disco

kilo


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Bamako

Cairo

Caracas

Kabul

Colombo

Hamburg

Hong Kong

The second aspirated letter you'll learn is Tieut.

Tieut is pronounced as an aspirated /t/ . Just like Kiuek it's based on its softer version (Digeut) with an extra

horizontal line, making it look like an E or like a E with a disconnected top line in some fonts.

Here are some words featuring Digeut:

like a door

sport

problem with having an important job

it's worldwide

worn by men

borough of a big city

country in the same area as Jamaica

origin of the Romans

home of many composers

home of some very old monuments

island country between Europe and Africa


Now some more straight-forward ones that you can write yourself. All Ts will be aspirated here.

Tirana

Boston

Rabat

Antananarivo

guitar


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country near Australia

Korean company

Korean capital

state of the USA

indispensable tool

And a final few words for you to write, involving the new letters:

news

Jordan

Tokyo

New York

Nova Scotia

This is it, for lesson 5. You have learned a lot in this lesson and now you are so close to being able to read everything

in Korean! In fact, the only thing missing are some diphthongs and doubled letters. Both concepts are quite easy and

will be taught in lesson 6. Take a break and then continue on!

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