read Hangul – Fresh Korean

In the Korean (Hangul) alphabet there are 14 regular consonants and 10 regular vowels. Many months ago we produced both an Alphabet chart and a practice writing series looking at these 140 consonant and vowel pairings. However there are also 11 commonly used combined vowels which if added to the 14 regular consonants makes an additional 151 pairings (291 in total). Below we have made both a guide to the creation and pronunciation (in English) of Korean combined vowels plus also a full combined vowels vs. consonants alphabet chart.

Korean Combined Vowels Creation and Pronunciation

Korean (Hangul) combined vowels can be split into two sections the 4 A sound combined vowels and the 7 W sound combined vowels.

Firstly the A sound vowels, here is a chart showing how each one is created:

As you can see from the chart each vowel combination ends in a ㅣ(E sound) and so when combined with the ㅏ,ㅓ,ㅑ and ㅕ make the following sounds; ㅔsounds like A (similar to the saying the letter in English),ᅢsounds like Ae (like the start of the English word End). Next we have ㅖwhich sounds like yeh & ㅒsounds like yah.

Secondly the W sound combined vowels, once again here is a chart showing how each vowel is created:

The first two combined vowels are ᅪ which sounds Wa (like in Wario) and ᅯwhich sounds like Wo (like in Water). The next three ᅫ, ᅰ and ᅬare 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 is also ᅱ which sounds the same as Wii as in the Nintendo Wii. Finally we have ᅴ which has a unique double sound like in the word “Gooey”.