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Text Box: Isaac’s 3rd News Letter How to read Hanguel (The Korean alphabet)

Hi~! Everyone!! This is Isaac’s 3^rd Newsletter!! I’m very happy to meet you in this newsletter~!! The winter which is a terrible season for me has come. Additionally, Charlottetown’s winter is very cold, windy and snowy. I think that every student and teacher at SAC should be at home because of the weather. So, if you feel that your life is boring these days, let’s learn how to read the Korean alphabet!! Wow~!!

The Korean alphabet’s name is Hanguel. It’s very easy to learn. If you read my last newsletter (the october newsletter of SAC), you already know about the following; Hanguel, the Korean alphabet is the best alphabet which can be written the most easy to pronounce in the world. It consists of 10 vowels and 14 consonants that are arranged in characters, so it’s very easy to learn and can express more 11,000 sounds. Also the Korean alphabet needn’t to distinguish capital letters and small letters and each letter has one pronunciation. For example in English, the pronunciation of ‘ea’ of “head” is different from ‘ea’ of “speak”. In the case of “knee”, ‘k’ isn’t pronounced. In the case of the English language we can’t pronounce some words which we don’t know. But in the Korean language, we can pronounce all of the words. Because of these, UNESCO is offering the Korean alphabet to some countries which have no alphabet. In fact, some countries of Africa are using the Korean alphabet these days. Anyway, let’s start to learn now!!

Beautiful Hanguel

Hanguel has 10 vowels and 14 consonants. Each syllable is formed with a vowel and 1 or 2 consonants. For example, I’ll show you how to write ‘Han’.

In this example, you can find out that the form is so similar with English’s. But the different thing is to put the 3^rd letter under the 1^st and 2^nd letters. So, you must make it a square. And all the syllables of Korean are formed with 2 of 3 letters. This is just an example. Let’s see the letters, now!

These are the letters of Hanguel. But it might be so difficult to you, because there is no explanation. I found those from internet, but it’s not enough. So, I’m going to explain it more easily for you! Before you study the upper table, look at the following table. After read the following table, the upper table should be very useful.

I’ll start to explain about those!! Go to the next page!!

Go to the next page!!

ㅎ	ㅏ	ㄴ	ㅎㅏㄴ	한
H	a	n	H a n	Han

Basic Vowels		“Y series” composite vowels
ㅏ	ah as in “car”	ㅑ	yah as in “yacht”
ㅐ	a as in “bat”	ㅒ	ya as in “yak”
ㅓ	aw as in “law” or uh as in “nut”	ㅕ	yaw as in “yawn” or yuh as in “yuck”
ㅔ	eh as in “get”	ㅖ	yeh as in “yes”
ㅗ	o as in “go”	ㅛ	yo as in “yo mama!”
ㅜ	oo as in “food”	ㅠ	yoo as in “you”
ㅡ	No sound
ㅣ	ee as in “feet”

Lax (Basic) Consonants		Aspirated Consonants
ㄱ	g as in “girl”	ㅋ	k as in “kill”
ㄴ	n as in “nail”
ㄷ	d as in “dog”	ㅌ	t as in “top”
ㄹ	l as in “lemon”
ㅁ	m as in “meat”
ㅂ	b as in “boy”	ㅍ	p as in “pop”
ㅅ	s as in “sun”
ㅇ	no sound	ㅎ	h as in “hat”
ㅈ	j as in “jail”	ㅊ	ch as in “cheese”

Ending Consonants (When it is put under a vowel)
ㄱ, ㄲ, ㅋ	k as in “pick”
ㅂ, ㅃ, ㅍ	p as in “top”
ㄷ, ㄸ, ㅌ, ㅅ, ㅆ, ㅈ, ㅉ, ㅊ	t as in “pot”
ㅇ	ng as in “ring”