한글

Hangul — the Korean alphabet

How 한글 is built: 19 consonants, 21 vowels, and syllable blocks you can read in a weekend.

Why Hangul is learnable

King Sejong promulgated 한글 (Hangeul) in 1446 so common people could write Korean without classical Chinese. Letters are featural: the shapes of ㄱ, ㄴ, ㅁ echo the tongue, tooth, and lips. You do not memorize 2,000 characters to start reading menus and subway signs.

Modern Korean writes in syllable blocks. 한 is ㅎ + ㅏ + ㄴ stacked into one square. Once you know the 40-odd jamo, every block is just a recipe.

The inventory

Count 14 basic consonants + 5 tensed doubles, and 10 basic vowels + 11 compounds. That is the whole alphabet. 받침 (batchim) is a consonant sitting under the vowel — it changes how the next syllable starts, which is why we give it its own lesson.

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