Korean Dipthongs: Complex Vowels

In the previous lesson, you learned some more letters in the Korean alphabet. You also saw some crazy tables that
presented some Korean syllables that be made by matching up Korean consonants and vowels. You may have noticed
that this page is wider than a normal page here at HowtoStudyKorean. Why is it like this? Well, we have an even crazier
table to show you in this lesson, and we need all the space we can get.
In this final lesson of Unit 0, you will learn the remaining vowels that you will need to be able to read Korean. Most of these
letters are called dipthongs which is just a fancy way of saying that there are two vowels in one. After learning these
final letters, you will be able to apply these letters to words and start learning simple sentences and grammatical
formations.
Luckily, all of the letters you will learn in this lesson are based off vowels that you have already studied. You should
remember these letters from before:
= a
= eo
= u
= o
There are four more vowels that can be made by adding one extra line to each of the previous vowels. By adding this
extra line, a Y sound gets added to each vowel:
= ya
= yeo
= yu
= yo
If we were to make some syllables with these new vowels, they would look like this:
= yak
= yeok
= yuk
= yok
Two more common vowels are:
= ae (a combination of and )
= e (a combination of and )
Though these two vowels have different Romanizations, they sound identical to one another. They both sound like eigh
in weigh
If we were to make syllables with these new letters, they would look like this:
= bae (sounds like bay)
= be (also sounds like bay)
The remaining vowels to study are all composed of adding two vowels together to make a sound. The pronunciation for
each of these is simply the sound of putting the two vowels together. For example:
+ = = wi (example: )
+ = = wo (example: )
+ = = oe (sounds like way) (example: = waygook)
+ = = wa (example: )
+ = = ui ()
+ = = ye ()
When one of these double vowels is used, notice that the first consonant of the syllable is added on top of the
horizontally aligned letter and to the left of the vertically aligned letter at the same time. For example:
, , ,
When there is no horizontally aligned vowel, the first consonant simply goes to the left of the vertically aligned vowel. For
example:
, ,
In addition, there are three more of these types of vowels, but they are much less common than the any of the letters
already taught. Of course, you should know these letters, but worry more about the other letters first:
= wae (the most common of the three, it is most commonly seen in the word meaning why)
= yae (most commonly seen in the word meaning to talk with)
= we (probably the most uncommon letter in Korean. I know 8000 words in Korean, and this letter is only in 3 of the
words that I know. Most commonly in the word meaning wedding).
In this lesson, you learned 14 more vowels that you can use on top of the 6 other vowels and 19 consonants you
learned previously. The following table will show you all of the Korean consonants and vowels, and how they can
pair up to form syllables without the use of a third consonant.

Keep in mind that, as you move towards the right of this table (specifically the bottom right), the constructions become less
and less common. Also keep in mind that (almost) every one of the examples shown below could also be matched up with
a final consonant. Only a crazy man would want to see all of those possibilities.
Again, the whole point of showing you this table is just so you can be familiar with formation of syllables and in no way to
I recommend memorizing them.





















In addition to everything you have learned in these first three lessons, it is also possible for a syllable to have four letters:
one vowel and three consonants. This additional consonant gets added as the third consonant in a syllable. Using the
same description and image that you learned in Lesson 1, these syllables essentially look like this:

If the vowel being used in these cases is horizontally aligned, (, ,, , ),the syllable looks like the structure on the
left. If the vowel being used is vertically aligned (, , , , ), the syllable looks like the structure on the right. In
either case though, notice that the third consonant simply gets placed beside the second consonant. While technically
possible to use more complicated vowels (, , , etc) I cant think of any words that actually have syllables with a
third consonant and a complicated vowel. The only reason I say technically possible is because the computer allows me
to type these syllables. So, while technically possible, they are either not used or very rarely used. Most of the time, when
a word has a fourth letter, the vowels are one of the following: , , , , , .

Five of the most common examples of this fourth letter in use for a beginner are:
= to sit
= to read
= to not have
= chicken
= to scratch
Pronouncing syllables that contain this fourth letter is slightly more complicated but nothing to worry about. With the
addition of this fourth letter all one needs to do is pronounce the fourth letter along with all the other letters. For example:
= pronounced as dal
= pronounced as dalk
= pronounced as il
= pronounced as ilk
= pronounced as keulk
However, there are some pronunciation rules that you should learn about. Specifically, how the pronunciation of these
syllables differs when the following syllable starts with a vowel or a verb. These will be discussed in
the Pronunciation Lesson of this Unit.
Also note that this fourth letter does not refer to the complicated vowels (, , , , , etc). These letters should be
thought of as one letter. Therefore, if you see the syllable: there are only three letters: + + . The fourth
letter refers to the addition of a third consonant.
Also, the double consonants you learned in the previous lesson (, , , ) should also be thought of as one letter.
Therefore, if you see the syllable: there are only three letters: + + . A fourth letter will never be added on to a
double consonant.
Thats it! Youre finished! Congratulations, you can now read Korean!
Why not try making some more syllables now that you know all of the letters in the Korean alphabet. The more you
practice, the faster you will be able to recognize the letters later on.
In the meantime, because you dont know any words, but you do know how to read, here is a small list of words in Korean
that are actually English words. They are all words that have made their way into the Korean language because of the
influence of English. Try to see if you can read each one:
= hotel
= sofa (notice Korean has no f sound)
= television
= radio
= switch
= game
= shopping
= orange
= team
= taxi
= pizza
= hamburger
= shower
= card
Keep in mind, Korean sound structure is vastly different from English, so sometimes these Korean words sound weird
compared to their English counterpart. Eventually you will come to terms with the Korean pronunciation, it just takes
practice.