Thank you for taking some time out of your day to learn some more Korean (Hangul). If you haven’t already checked out the 1st part of this 3 part series on Korean Alphabet basics please click here “Part 1 – How to read Hangul“. In this second part of the series we will look at the 11 different vowel combinations which make up the different complete Korean characters. Vowel combination as you might expect take 2 of the 10 basic vowels (which were discussed in part 1) and turn them into new combined vowels, bringing the total to 21 possible Korean vowels.
“A” Korean Vowel Combinations
Firstly we will look at the 4 “A” sound vowels which are all quiet similar.
The first 2 symbols both have an “A” type sound, as in “at” or “end”. The second two symbols have a “Y+A” sound, such as in “yak” or “yes”. When listening to them spoken quickly it can be quiet difficult to tell which one or which, basically ᅢand ᅤ are spoken a little stronger.
“W” Korean Vowel Combinations
Next will be look at the 7 “W” sounding vowels, again a number of them are quiet similar.
The first two vowels (ᅪ & ᅯ) are pretty unique and don’t sound like any of the others. The next three (ᅫ, ᅰ & ᅬ) however are all similar and require the use of different tones. ᅫ sounds like the start of “Wag”, ᅰ sounds like the start of “Wedding” and ᅬ sounds like the start of “Weight”. There are also ᅱ which is the same as Wii as in the Nintendo Wii and also the ᅴ which has a double sound like in the word “Gooey”.
For a full combined vowels to Korean Consonants alphabet chart and more: CLICK HERE
I hope that this start sense and that you’ve learn something new today and please check out the final part, part 3 where we look at the tensed consonants final consonants and double consonants. Korean Alphabet Basics – Tensed Consonants, Final Consonants, Double Consonants (Part 3).
For some FREE Learn Korean Resources, we would suggest that you check out: http://www.freshkorean.com/free-resources/Modern Seoul