What are the letters of the Korean alphabet? Do you know how the alphabet of the Korean language works? Do you know the origin of Hangul? Now we will see everything about the alphabet used in the language of Korea!
There are more than 70 million speakers of the Korean language worldwide, both in South Korea and North Korea. Not to mention thousands of people who learn the language out of passion for Korean culture.
The Korean language is called Hangul, it consists of 14 consonants and 10 vowels, and the rounded writing consists of syllabic characters similar to the Japanese language, but very original.
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The Origin of the Korean Language
Hangul is an alphabet invented during the reign of King Sejong around the 15th century (15), who commissioned the alphabet to scholars, as until then only Hanja (Chinese characters) was used in Korea, just as Japan uses Kanji.
All of this happened because the king thought about the frustrations of his subjects who could not read and write. Most had no way to express their complaints to the authorities through letters or written statements. This problem troubled the king, famous for being attentive and always thinking about the population.
Thus, King Sejong organized the creation of an alphabet called “Hangul” [한글] with the aim of being easy to learn and use. In 1446, an announcement was made that the project had been completed and was ready to be applied in society.
In the preface of his edict, King Sejong declared the following words:
“Because they are of foreign origin, Chinese characters do not faithfully reproduce the distinct meanings of Korean. Thus, many common people have no way to express their thoughts and feelings. Sympathetic to their difficulties, I created a set of 28 letters. The letters are very easy to learn, and I sincerely wish that they improve the quality of life for all people.”
Characteristics of the Korean Hangul Alphabet
The Korean alphabet consists of a syllabary similar to Japanese. Although it is a syllabary, its structure is completely different from the Japanese hiragana and katakana. In Korean, we have 24 pure letters consisting of 10 vowels and 14 consonants that together form a syllable.
When we observe the Korean characters, we end up thinking that everything is a letter, but in fact, it is a syllable formed by the combination of letters. This is called “jamo,” blocks where letters are combined to form syllables.
A single syllable, or “jamo,” can be composed of up to 4 letters. The characters can also undergo changes, raising a total of 40 characters in the Korean alphabet. The syllables form words separated by spaces, unlike Japanese, which has no spaces in sentences.
In summary, the Korean language is a mix of Japanese and Chinese, where syllables are used to speak, but the ideograms are made only with 24 forms and having only 4 in each, while in Chinese and Japanese we have thousands of radicals to form ideograms.
Have you thought about how cool it would be if Japanese ideograms were simplified like Hangul? The pronunciation of Japanese is very easy, but the mix of archaic Chinese ideograms still greatly hinders the learning of the language.
A certain scholar who helped create the Korean alphabet said the following about Hangul: “The wise can learn it in one morning, and even the fool can learn it in 10 days.”
The Hangul alphabet allowed illiteracy to be practically eradicated from Korea.
Characters and Letters of the Korean Alphabet
How to read the Korean alphabet? How to write the letters in Korean? How many letters are there? The Korean alphabet has a total of 24 letters, consisting of 14 consonants and 10 vowels.
First, you don’t need to be scared of the 10 vowels. This is nothing more than a variation of our AEIOU similar to the accents we use in the Portuguese language.
The table below does not detail the Korean, but you can already know the main vowels and consonants:
The 14 Consonants of the Korean Alphabet
| ㄱ | (g, k) |
| ㄴ | (n) |
| ㄷ | (d, t) |
| ㄹ | (r, l) |
| ㅁ | (m) |
| ㅂ | (b, p) |
| ㅅ | (s) |
| ㅇn | g Voiceless consonant |
| ㅈ | (ch, j) |
| ㅊ | (ch’) |
| ㅋ | (k’) |
| ㅌ | (t’) |
| ㅍ | (p’) |
| ㅎ | (h) |
The 10 Vowels of the Korean Alphabet
| ㅏ | (a) |
| ㅑ | (iá) |
| ㅓ | (ó) |
| ㅕ | (ió) |
| ㅗ | (ô) |
| ㅛ | (iô) |
| ㅜ | (u) |
| ㅠ | (iu) |
| ㅡ | (eu) |
| ㅣ | (i) |
Pronunciation of the Korean Alphabet
Perhaps you are wondering how to pronounce the Korean Hangul alphabet. In the video below, you will see how to pronounce each of the syllables in Korean:
Curiosities about the Korean Language
Did you know that some consonants in the Korean language have their shape based on how the sound is generated? For example: ㄱ(k) refers to the back of the tongue covering the epiglottis. ㄴ(n) refers to the tip of the tongue touching the roof of the mouth. Not to mention that ㅅ(s) has the shape of a tooth, ㅁ(m) has the shape of a mouth, and ㅇ(ng) has the shape of a throat.
The basic shapes of the vowels are based on elements of nature according to Neo-Confucianism, where the vertical line represents Man, the horizontal line represents the earth, and the dot represents the sky.
Hangul can be written both in vertical columns, from top to bottom, and in the direction from right to left or the opposite, from left to right. The person just needs to read block by block to understand the word.
Hanja (漢字) refers to the use of Chinese characters to write in Korean. It is not used today, but some still learn it to be able to read old documents and texts. Hanja was used until around the 1990s.
Just like Japanese, when Korean is written with Latin characters, it is also called Rōmaji (로마자) which literally means “Roman characters.”
I hope this small article serves as an introduction to the Korean language. If you liked the article, don’t forget to share it with friends and leave your comments.
Hangul Course – Learn the Korean Alphabet
Perhaps you are looking for a way to learn the Alphabet of Korea simply and quickly. You can find some videos on the internet, but we also recommend some Korean courses.
The Kyoto Institute has a great complete Korean course that will teach you all the basics of the language in an accessible and professional way, with a complete member area and gamification system.
We have other Korean courses, but they open classes on specific dates. When the enrollment for these other courses happens, we will notify you. We also recommend checking out some books and dictionaries about the Korean language below:
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