Hangeul 1 – Single Vowels

Korean Characters

Hangeul 1- 8 Single Vowels 

There are 40 characters in Korean, which are 21 vowels and 19 consonants.  The vowels can be divided to the single vowels and the double vowels.  There are 8 single vowels and 13 double vowels.

We are going to learn the single vowels in this page.

* Single vowels
You should not move your mouth or tongue while you are pronouncing single vowels. 

1) ㅏ  ‘a’ as in ‘father’, ‘spa’
[Click here to watch a video for ㅏ]

2) ㅓ ‘awe’ as in ‘awesome’ and ‘au’ as in ‘August’
[Click here to watch a video for ㅓ]

3) ㅗ ‘o’ as in ‘ghost’, ‘sofa’, however you shouldn’t move your mouth shape.
[Click here to watch a video for ㅗ]

4) ㅜ ‘oo’ as in ‘zoo’, ‘too’. You should make your lips as a round shape. 
[Click here to watch a video for ㅜ]

5) ㅡ There is no pronunciation in English that is similar to this, however you can think of an extremely freezing day, you can make this sound 🙂
[Click here to watch a video for ㅡ]

6) ㅣ’e’ as in ‘me’, ‘see’
[Click here to watch a video for ㅣ]

7-8) ㅔ/ㅐ ‘에’ is similar to ‘e’ as in ‘set, bed’ and ‘애’ is similar to ‘a’ as in ‘dad’, ‘bat’. But many Koreans don’t recognize the difference.
[Click here to watch a video for ㅔ and ㅐ]

Hangeul 2 – Double vowels

2)  double vowels

1)ㅑ ‘ya’ : single vowel ‘ㅣ’ and single vowel ‘ㅏ’ combined

2)ㅕ ‘yeo’ : single vowel ‘ㅣ’ and single vowel ‘ㅓ’ combined

3) ㅛ ‘yo’: single vowel ‘ㅣ’ and single vowel ‘ㅗ’ combined

4) ㅠ ‘ yu’ : single vowel ‘ㅣ’ and single vowel ‘ㅜ’ combined

5-6) ㅖ/ㅒ’ye’ : single vowel ‘ㅣ’ and single vowel ‘ㅔ/ㅐ’ combined

7) ㅘ ‘wa’ : single vowel ‘ㅗ’ and single vowel ‘ㅏ’ combined

8) ㅝ’wo’ : single vowel ‘ㅜ’ and single vowel ‘ㅓ’ combined

9-10) ㅙ / ㅞ ‘wae’, ‘we’ : single vowel ‘ㅗ’ and single vowel ‘ㅐ’ combined, single vowel ‘ㅜ’ and single vowel ‘ㅔ’ combined

11) ㅚ’oe’ :It was originally a single vowel, but many people recently read this as a double vowel like ‘ㅙ/ㅞ’

12) ㅟ ‘wi’ : single vowel ㅜ’ and single vowel ‘ㅣ’ combined

13) ㅢ’eui’ : single vowel ‘ㅡ’ and single vowel ‘ㅣ’ combined