Learn Hangul - 한글
For now, I think it's time to begin! Why not start with the characters that make up Hangul .
The first character is
ㅎ
It has a couple variations. Generally, it is like an "h" sound. If it is at the beginning of a word, it will sound like an "h". There will be more on this one in Lesson 2. Next comes...
ㅏ
This is a vowel, and it is an "a" sound, as in father. It pretty much never varies and always has the same sound. Quite a simple character. This vowel will always be placed to the right of the first consonant. It does not fall below the consonant.
ㄴ
is a character that usually sounds like an "n". It only has one irregular form, which is in Lesson 2.
So far, we have a "h" sound, an "a" sound, and a "n" sound. Or, we have ㅎ, ㅏ, and ㄴ. Together, these form the first half of Hangul, 한.
Now let's break down the second syllable.
ㄱ
This is a light "g" or "k" sound. Don't push the air too hard or try and make this sound too heavy, it is a light sound. Don't emphasize the character. Especially at the end of a word, this character is very light. At the end of a word, it is almost as if you don't say the character.
ㅡ
This a little harder to explain. I think the best way to say it is, it sounds like the "oo" part in "good".
Let me phrase this another way...
It is like a short 'u', said in the back of the mouth. It is almost like a grunt! Be sure you don't actually grunt though when you say it :)
This vowel will always be placed below the first consonant. It does not fall to the right of the consonant.
ㄹ
This character might be the most complicated character you run into! But I'll be honest, you will have it down along with all the other characters before the week is over! Think of it as either a light "l" sound, or a rolling "r" sound, depending on where it is. If it falls between two vowels, it will most likely be a rolling "r" sound. If it is at the end of a syllable, it will usually be a light "l" sound. It does not come at the beginning of a syllable of any Korean word, but will be used at the beginning for borrowed words, like loanwords. If that is the case, treat it as it needs to be in order to say the loanword properly. This character is covered very well in Elementary Korean.
That's it! You now have learned 6 characters. You can now write
한글
and you can! You can write both in Hangul, and the word Hangul.
