Lesson 1 : 1과 The fundamentals, The Characters

~Beginner's Korean~

This post shall focus on the fundamental beginning of Korean. I shall focus on teaching the characters, that is called Hangul and the pronunciations and grammar structure. All my lessons shall be from what I have learned from various websites and books. I am not fluent in Korean but I am using this website as a review for myself and to help others along the way of their learning process.

~Lesson 1 : 1과  The fundamentals, The Characters~

Let's start with learning Hangul and their romanization counter parts. For every lesson I will write the lesson using Hangul, and really no body really uses romanization. So learning Hangul for starting should be top priority, if you want to get a firm grasp on the language.

Basic Vowels

Basic Vowels
Hangul	Pronunciation
ㅏ	a
ㅑ	ya
ㅓ	Ô
ㅕ	yÔ
ㅗ	o
ㅛ	yo
ㅜ	u
ㅠ	yu
ㅡ	Û
ㅣ	i

You may also want to check out this video where you can hear the pronunciations. Limiting yourself to only reading the pronunciations will not help you to speak the language properly. You also need to listen to audio and repeat what they are saying to get a more correct pronunciation. This video is geared towards children, but isn't that also the more entertaining way of learning a new language? A written practice worksheet can be found here.

Basic Consonants

Basic consonants
Hangul	Pronunciation
ㄱ	k/g
ㄴ	n
ㄷ	t/d
ㄹ	r/l
ㅁ	m
ㅂ	p/b
ㅅ	s
ㅇ	place holder(silent)/ng
ㅈ	ch/j
ㅊ	ch'
ㅋ	k'
ㅌ	t'
ㅍ	p'
ㅎ	h

Now that you have reviewed the consonants, remember the previous video, notice that ㅇ is used with the vowels. This is because it is being used as a place holder and does not carry a sound. Later when we learn syllable blocking you will see how it is used as a place holder and as a sound ng. Here is another video this video reviews vowels that you have already learned to pronounce and teaches you to pronounce the consonants.

Can you identify and pronounce the Hangul?  If not, make sure you are repeating the sounds after the videos. When possible, write the characters down on paper as you are practicing pronouncing them. Here is a little quiz to see if you can identify some of the Hangul so far. Next Lesson 2:2 과 will be a continuation of Hangul characters. I will introduce the next set of vowels, consonants and syllable blocking.

Identify the consonant/vowel