How to Read Korean in 20 Minutes

Nowadays, with Korean culture taking off and K-pop becoming extremely popular than years before, more people are trying to learn how to read and speak Korean. There are many benefits of learning how to read Korean. If you're a K-pop fan, then you can read idol's Korean names, or if you're more into K-dramas, then you can read subtitles. More importantly, if you come across anything written in Korean, with a bit of effort, you'll be able to pronounce it easily. And if the word is English written in Korean, then you can easily understand it as well. Here in this video, I'll be teaching you how to read and pronounce Korean. Something you should know is that I'm actually Korean, I'm gonna be teaching you Korean in a pretty detailed fashion. The video could get a bit long, so make sure you have lots of time on your hands, because there's nothing worse than watching a half-hour long video while you're impatient. Alright, on with the video. First things first, we need to make sure you know a bit about Korean beforehand. Korean is actually pretty easy to pronounce. Now, this might seem obvious coming from a Korean, but trust me, it is. A Korean letter is made up of many characters, and those individual characters all have their own sounds. In other words, parts of a word have their own sounds, which make up the sound of the whole word. Now, this isn't the case with Chinese, for example. A letter's sound isn't really made up of the individual parts. Yes, I know Chinese as well. First of all, we need to learn the structure of a Korean letter. As I mentioned before, a Korean letter is made up of a bunch of characters, and they go in designated places. A Korean letter always has a consonant at the top, a vowel either on the right, the bottom, or both, and can also have up to two consonants at the very bottom. So, one thing we need to take away from this is that there can be top or bottom consonants and horizontal and or vertical vowels. Does it sound complicated? Don't worry, now we'll get to pronunciation. Make sure to remember the letter structure, though. There's also an order of which to write first. You always write the top consonant first, then the horizontal vowel, then the vertical vowel, and then the bottom consonant. Also, another thing for you to know is that a single letter is one syllable in Korean, which makes it really easy to count syllables in Korean, unlike English, where we have to sound the words out. So, let's learn 한글, or the Korean alphabet. The Korean alphabet is made up of 14 consonants and 10 vowels, very different from English, which has 21 consonants, including Y, and 5 vowels. Each character has its own name and sound, like how A is pronounced AH. For sounds, I'll use English to make it easier for you to understand. Let's start with the consonants first. The first consonant is 기어, which has a G sound for top and a K sound for bottom. So, for example, this letter would sound like 강. Same character, but different sounds for top and bottom. See what I mean? Remember, consonants can be at the top or the bottom, and sometimes the same character has different sounds, depending on its position. The second consonant is 는, which has an N sound for both top and bottom. So, this letter would sound like 난, because this character is pronounced the same for both top and bottom. The third consonant is 기그, which has a D sound for top and T sound for bottom. So, this letter would sound like 팥. For top, it sounds like D a lot, but of course, it's slightly different. In English, you would put your upper and lower teeth together and say D, like D. You can't see my tongue, because my upper and lower teeth are together. D, you can't see my tongue. But in Korean, though, you would kind of put your tongue in between your upper and lower teeth, like 비그, 비그, kind of, just slight, very slightly, 비그, 팥, 비그. So, it's kind of different than the English letter D. For the bottom sound, I know I said it sounds like T, but there wouldn't be much difference between D and T, because it cuts short anyways, like 팥. So, there's not really much difference between D and T. So, I guess you could just remember it as D to make it easier. The fourth consonant is 리을, which has a sound similar to L and R. It's kind of in the middle, and many foreign people have trouble pronouncing this, because it just doesn't exist in English. L and R are the closest to 리을, but they're not exactly the same. So, this letter would sound like 라을. Same L or R sound for both top and bottom, but remember, it's not the same as L or R. When pronouncing L in English, you would put your tongue against your upper teeth, but when you're pronouncing 리을 in Korean, you need to curl your tongue a bit. You need to curl it a bit. I can't really show it, obviously, because it's in my mouth. You don't really put it against the tongue, like L, but then you don't really curl it as much as R. Like R, you curl your tongue a lot. L, you don't curl it at all. You put it against your upper teeth, L. But 리을 is like in the middle. You curl it slightly. You don't put it against the upper teeth. So, it's a bit complicated for me to explain, because you can't see inside my mouth, but it's pretty hard, so you're gonna have to practice this a lot. The fifth consonant is 미음, which has an M sound for both top and bottom. This letter would sound like 맘, very straightforward and easy. The sixth consonant is 비읒, which has a B sound for top and a P sound for bottom. So, this letter would sound like 밥. As you can see, the ending of 밥 sounds like B or P, because it's such a short sound. So, I would just remember it as B to make it easier to remember. The seventh consonant is 시읒, which has an S sound for top and a T sound for bottom. So, this letter would sound like 살. This is one of those cases where top and bottom sound different. Remember that. The eighth consonant is 이응. This one is very, very unique. For top, it can be any vowel, A, E, I, O, or U. The sound actually depends completely on the Korean vowels the letter has. In other words, this character has no sound and is completely empty. For bottom, it has an NG sound, like 응. So, this letter would sound like 앙. The top sound is decided by the Korean vowel it has, which we will get into a bit, so don't worry. And as you can see, the bottom sound is like 응. This is pretty important to remember. Also, fun fact, if you're having trouble figuring out if an Asian language is Chinese, Japanese, or Korean, if it has a circle, it's Korean. Chinese characters are mostly made up of straight or slightly curved strokes, and Japanese characters, while there are some round characters, there are no circles. So, if there's a circle in an Asian language and you can't decide if it's Chinese, Japanese, or Korean, it's most definitely Korean. Just a fun fact for you to know. The ninth consonant is 지읒, which has a J sound for top and a T sound for bottom. There are a lot of consonants that has a T sound for bottom, and this is one of them. So, this letter would sound like 차. Top and bottom sound different. The tenth consonant is 치읒, which has a C-H sound, 치, for top, and a T sound for bottom. So, this letter would sound like 차. The eleventh consonant is 키읒, which has a K sound for both top and bottom. So, this letter would sound like 카. Fun fact, if you spam this character when you're texting, it's like the equivalent of LOL. The 크크크 sound imitates laughter, so Koreans use that in text every day. The twelfth consonant is 티읒, which has a sound similar to T for both top and bottom. Like 디귿, you have to put your tongue in between your upper and lower teeth like I showed you earlier, but just pronounce it stronger. Not 다, but 타. So, this letter would sound like 타. Sounds a lot like T. The thirteenth consonant is 피읒, which has a P sound for both top and bottom. So, this letter would sound like 파. And finally, the fourteenth and final consonant is 히읒, which has an H sound for both top and bottom. So, this letter would sound like 하. Fun fact, you can actually remember each character's sounds if you just remember their names. The character's names are spelled with their own characters for both top and bottom consonants. Take this as an example. This character's name is 히읒. So, right away, you know that top sound is G, and bottom sound is K. Seriously, if you spell it out in English, the first letter would be the top sound, and the last letter would be the bottom sound. Let's just take one more example before moving on. This character is 지읒. In English, it sounds like it starts with a J and ends with a T. So, that's it. The top sound is J, and the bottom sound is T. Remembering each character's name is probably the best way to remember the top and bottom sounds. Trust me. So, try this for all 14 consonants, and remember the sounds. 키읒 has a K sound for both. 티읒 has a T sound for both. 피읒 has a P sound for both. And 히읒 has an H sound for both. So, there we go. You learned the basic consonants, which are pretty simple to pronounce. You might need to memorize them well, though. But we actually have a bit more consonants to learn. Don't worry, they're not really new. They're based on the consonants we learned already. So, Korean has double or pair consonants. In Korean, this is called 쌍장, which literally means double or pair consonants. As you can see, this letter 쌍, which means double, has two of the same consonants at the top. The first double consonant is 쌍ㄱ. Now, we learned a bit ago that ㄱ sounds like G for top. Now that there's two, the top sound for 쌍ㄱ is GG. This might be hard to grasp, but let me explain. It's just simply ㄱ with a bit more strength and emphasis. That's it. And the bottom sound is still K. So, this letter would sound like 까. One consonant at the top would sound like 가. Double is 까. See the difference? Double just makes it stronger and harder. Nothing more. The second double consonant is 쌍ㄷ. Since ㄷ has D as a top sound, 쌍ㄷ has DD for top. No bottom sound. 쌍ㄷ just doesn't exist as a bottom consonant. So, this letter would sound like 따. Single is 다. Double is 따. You can probably tell the difference. The third double consonant is 쌍ㅂ. Since ㅂ has B as a top sound, 쌍ㅂ has BB for top. No bottom sound again because it just doesn't exist in Korean. Single is 다. Double is 빠. The fourth double consonant is 쌍ㅅ. Since ㅅ has S as a top sound, 쌍ㅅ has SS for the top sound. Bottom sound is still T. So, this letter would sound like 싸. Single is 싸. Double is 싸. The fifth and final double consonant is 쌍ㅈ. Since ㅈ has J as a top sound, 쌍ㅈ has JJ for top. Bottom sound doesn't exist. Single is 자. Double is 짜. These five are the only double consonants made up of the same consonant. So, things like 쌍ㄴ or 쌍ㄹ don't exist in Korean as its own character. The sounds exist, you know. I can say 나 and 라 harder like 나 and 라. But these won't exist as a double consonant character. It would exist as separate letters. Here's what I mean. Take this word as an example. It has a ㄴ on the bottom of the first letter and at the top of the next one. So, technically, the N sound of the ㄴ is doubled. This word is pronounced 안나. Hear that strong N sound? 안나. It is different from 아나, which is what it would sound like with only one ㄴ. Another example is this word. This time, it has two ㄹ, so the R sound or the L sound is stronger and heavier. 알라. See, the R sound is much more emphasized and heavier. One ㄹ would sound like 알아. Sounds like different than 알라. This is how consonants that aren't double consonants could still sound like it. Anyways, the five double consonants I showed you are the only double consonants that can go at the top. There are plenty more double consonants that can go at the bottom, which I'll teach you later on in this video. So, now you basically learned all the 14 consonants and the 5 special double consonants in the Korean alphabet. There is a kind of an easy way to remember the sounds of the characters, other than remembering names, of course. For this, I'm gonna take the Korean keyboard as an example, and this is gonna get really interesting. This is an old 10-key Korean keyboard for phones. Back when there were no touchscreens, these keyboards were on flip phones. I used to use this keyboard long ago before smartphones were a thing. But now, of course, most Korean keyboards look like the QWERTY keyboard, which is how you can type Korean on computers. But on phones, you can choose the old or new Korean keyboard still. I've seen people still use the old one, so there are probably still people out there who think the old keyboard is easier to use. Really, it just depends on individual taste. So, why am I talking about the old Korean keyboard? Well, as you can see here, the 14 consonants are arranged in pairs. And for most of them, the characters in each pair look really alike. You can use this information to easily remember the sounds of each character. Look at the first pair, which has ㄱ and ㄱ. ㄱ has a G sound, and ㄱ has a K sound. Let's be honest here, ㄱ and ㄎ sound really similar. In one way, K does sound like a stronger G. But ㄎ and ㄎ shouldn't be mixed up. They sound different. Another pair is ㄷ and ㄌ. ㄉ and ㄉ sound really similar, don't they? ㄉ just sounds stronger than ㄉ. Again, not to be confused with 大, which sounds different. Another pair is ㅂ and ㅍ. ㅂ and ㅍ. Don't confuse it with ㅃ, which is stronger in a different way. The last pair on the keyboard is ㄷ and ㄷ. ㅈ and ㅈ definitely sound similar. Of course, don't confuse it with ㅈ. Now, even though this pair isn't on the keyboard, it's kind of a pair. ㅇ and ㅅ. ㅏ and ㅏ sound similar. Anyways, the characters in each pair look and sound similar, meaning that it will be slightly easier for you to memorize the sounds of each. You know, you can also use the names of the characters, as I've told you earlier. But for those that aren't in pairs, just remember them. You can't really do anything about them, and you can't really learn a language without memorizing much. There is an easy way to remember these pairs as well if you don't have an old Korean keyboard. On a Korean standard keyboard or the QWERTY keyboard, the pairs are organized in a pattern. These are pairs, these are pairs, these are pairs, and these are pairs. Top goes right to left, bottom goes left to right. Now let's move on to vowels. As I've mentioned in the beginning, there are horizontal vowels and vertical vowels. If the vowel has a long vertical part, then it's a vertical vowel, which goes on the right of the letter. And if it has a long horizontal part, then it's a horizontal vowel, which goes on the bottom. Essentially, there are five of each, making ten vowels total, but we'll learn them right now. The first vowel is ㅏ. The second vowel is ㅑ. Yes, it looks really similar to ㅏ. It has one extra stroke, and it sounds similar as well. One thing you can take away from this is that the extra stroke usually adds a Y to the sound. You know, ㅏ and ㅑ, there's an extra Y. The third vowel is ㅓ. The fourth vowel is ㅑ. Again, it looks really similar and sounds really similar. The extra stroke, as I've mentioned before, adds a Y to the sound. The fifth vowel is ㅗ. The sixth vowel is ㅛ. The seventh vowel is ㅜ. The eighth vowel is ㅕ. The final two vowels are unique. The ninth vowel is ㅡ, and the tenth vowel is ㅣ. They don't sound similar at all, but they're in pairs for a reason. These are the building blocks for Korean vowels. If you've noticed, Korean vowels are made up of horizontal or vertical bars with extra strokes. These last two vowels really make up all the Korean vowels. Let's go back to the old Korean keyboard for easy reference. I'm pretty sure you see that dot on the keyboard, and no, it's not a period. It's actually the extra stroke in Korean vowels that I was talking about. With this dot and the final two vowels, you can make any Korean vowel, based on how you write Korean in handwriting. See here, if you add the stroke before ㅣ, you get ㅓ. Two strokes before is ㅕ. One stroke after ㅣ would be ㅏ, and two strokes would be ㅑ. Similarly, a stroke before ㅡ would be ㅗ, and two strokes would be ㅕ. One stroke after ㅡ would be ㅜ, and two strokes would be ㅕ. This is a great way to remember how to write Korean. I'm just showing you how the last two vowels are related to all the other vowels, and it will be much easier for you to remember. So there we go! You learned the Korean vowels ㅏㅑㅓㅕㅗㅜㅣㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡ, which is how the Koreans say it, quickly. For vowels, just remember that you can add the first stroke before or after ㅡ or ㅣ to make other vowels, and then you can add another stroke to add the ㅘ sound. Before we move on, since we learned the vowels, I just want to point this out. When Koreans recite the Korean alphabet, they don't really say ㄱ, ㄴ, ㄷ, and so on. That's really slow, and that's going to take a really long time. Since we want to say it quickly, we just combine the consonants that we learned with the first vowel and just say That is how Koreans say the Korean alphabet out loud. So the equivalent of ABC would therefore be the first three, Like consonants, there are combinations of vowels as well. These are quite easy to remember, to be honest. You'll see why. The first pair is They sound almost exactly the same. ㅐ, as you can see, is made up of ㅏ and ㅣ, and combine those sounds together and you get ㅐ. This isn't quite it for ㅔ, but the pair looks similar, and they sound similar, so just remember that. The second pair is ㅒ and ㅒ. Again, they sound basically the same. ㅒ is made up of ㅑ and ㅣ, so those sounds combined makes ㅒ. Similar to the other one as well. They look similar, and they sound similar. So some of you might go ahead and ask, Well, if they sound similar, how do you know which one's right? Well, you need to remember that. Yes, even Korean people get it wrong sometimes, so don't feel bad at all. All you need is read a lot of Korean words and remember which vowel is right or wrong. You'll get the hang of it. Of course, there are some more combined vowels. ㅘ is a combination of ㅗ and ㅏ, so the sound becomes ㅘ. ㅚ is a combination of ㅗ and ㅔ, so the sound is ㅚ. ㅝ is a combination of ㅜ and ㅓ, so the sound is ㅝ. ㅚ is a combination of ㅜ and ㅔ, so the sound is ㅚ. ㅟ is a combination of ㅜ and ㅣ, so the sound is ㅟ. ㅢ is a combination of ㅡ and ㅣ, so the sound is ㅢ. Finally, there's ㅚ. You can see that it is a combination of ㅗ and ㅣ, but it isn't pronounced ㅗㅣ. This is an exception, it's pronounced ㅚ. So right now, you learned the consonants, double consonants for top, and all the vowels in the Korean alphabet. Now there's just one more, double consonants for bottom. This might be the easiest, though. As you can see here, there are pairs of consonants again, but these are exclusively for bottom. Pronouncing these is easy. Take this as an example. You see ㄴ and ㅈ together, so it would automatically have an NJ sound. So what would this sound like? Let's take a real Korean word as an example. The word you see means sit down. And as you can see, there is the double consonant at the bottom of the first letter. The ㅇ has an empty sound, remember? And this is the first vowel ㅏ, combined with ㄴ and ㅈ. This word is pronounced 앉아. Since the ㅇ in the second letter is empty, the right consonant from the pair, which is ㅈ in this case, carries over to the second letter. So really, it sounds like 앉아. Remember, the right consonant from the letter moves over to the next letter. Another example is this. This word means to read. There is ㄹ and ㄱ at the bottom. You know the drill. The right consonant, which is ㄱ here, moves over to the next letter. It's pronounced 읽어, which sounds a lot like 읽어. Final example. This word means there is. There is a 상시옷 at the bottom. Previously, you would have pronounced this as 잇어, because you learned that the bottom sound for 상시옷 is T. But here, when the double consonant is made up of the same two consonants, the entire pair moves over. In other words, the entire 상시옷, the two of them, move over. So since ㅇ is empty once again, it gets replaced by the 상시옷. This word is pronounced 있어, which sounds a lot like 있어. Now, of course, some of you might be asking again, well, what if the next letter didn't have ㅇ? What if it wasn't empty? What if it had a different character? Then, nothing moves over. Let's take this word as an example. This means thinly. You can see the double consonant made up of ㄹ and ㅂ, and you can see that the next letter isn't ㅇ, but instead, it's ㄱ, the first consonant. Well, let's go step-by-step here. The ㅇ is empty, so it depends on the vowel. This vowel is 야. The bottom consonants are ㄹ and ㅂ, so you can immediately tell by their names that the bottom sounds are R and B. The next letter has ㄱ, which you can tell has a G sound for top, and the vowel is ㅐ. The word is pronounced 얇게. How easy is that? You just put them together, and you get it right away. And, of course, for the other double consonants that I really haven't pointed out yet, you would do basically the same thing. So, I'll just skip over them right now. Great! You're basically done with the Korean alphabet now! Obviously, there are some exceptions you need to remember. I'm just gonna point some out right now. Look at this word. The first letter has ㅂ, which has a B sound, and the vowel is ㅓ. The next letter has 시옷, which has an S sound, and the vowel is ㅡ. So, you would think this word would be pronounced ㅓㅅ, but you're wrong. It's pronounced much stronger. Yes, it means bus in English. Here's another exception. This word means good. The first letter has ㅈ, which has a J sound, the vowel is ㅗ, and the bottom is ㅎ, which has an H sound. The next letter has ㄷ, which has a D sound, and the vowel is ㅏ. You might pronounce this as 조다, but that'd be completely wrong. The H from the first letter affects the second letter, and makes the ㄷ sound more like a ㅌ, with a T sound, but more stronger. So, instead of 조다, it sounds like 좋다. Here's another one. This means June, as in the month. The first letter has ㅇ, which is empty, and the vowel is ㅛ. It has a ㄱ at the bottom, which has a K sound. The second letter has ㅇ, which is empty again, and it has two vowels, ㅜ and ㅓ. Just put them together, and you get ㅘ. And at the bottom, there is ㄹ, which has an R sound, or an L sound, whatever you might prefer. So, you might pronounce this as 육월, but it really isn't. To make it sound more fluid, Koreans don't really pronounce the ㄱ in the first letter, so it sounds like 유월. This is how pronunciation could be slightly different than how the words are spelled. Obviously, I can't tell you all these exceptions right now, because that would take forever, and this video is just for you to get a basic start. You will encounter and learn more exceptions like these when you read more Korean. I can tell you that there are much more exceptions in English, like Indictment, Island, and Arkansas. They're not pronounced exactly the same as they're spelled. Other than that, you know how to read Korean now, so that's the good part. Now, let's practice pronouncing some real Korean words. Here's the first word. The first letter has ㅍ, which you can tell right away from the name that it has a P sound, and the vowel is ㅣ, so it's ㅍ. The second letter has ㅈ, which has a J sound, and the vowel is ㅏ, so it's ㅈ. Put them together, and you get 피자. And yes, this does mean pizza. The next word is this. The first letter has ㅇ, which is completely empty, and the vowel is ㅔ, so it's ㅔ. The second letter has ㅍ, which has a P sound, and the vowel is ㅡ, and the bottom is ㄹ, which has an R or L sound, so it's ㅍ. Now, put them together, and you get 에플. And yes, it means apple, the company. It doesn't mean the fruit, because we have a separate Korean word for that, which is this one. The first letter has ㅅ, which has an S sound, and the vowel is ㅏ, so it's ㅅ. The second letter has ㄱ, which has a G sound, and there are two vowels, ㅗ and ㅏ. Remember what to do with these? You just put them together, because this isn't an exception. The vowel is ㅘ, the word is ㄱ. Put them together, and you'll get the entire word, 사과, which means apple, the fruit, not the company. This one is for K-pop fans. This is the Korean name of a member in TWICE. More specifically, the youngest member, or the 막내, and this is the English spelling of her name. A lot of foreign people have trouble pronouncing her name in English, and they say it like, 수수유, or something like that. Well, in this case, if you knew how to read Korean, you would've had no problem pronouncing her name, right? See here. The first letter has ㅃ, which has a JJ sound. The vowel is ㅡ, so the first letter is ㅉ. The second letter has ㅇ, which is completely empty, and there are two vowels again, ㅜ and ㅣ. This isn't an exception, so just put the two together and get 위. The second letter is, therefore, 위. Now, put them together, and you'll get 쯔위. Yeah, it doesn't really sound like 쯔수유, after all. Which is why some fans call her 쯔위 as her nickname, because it sounds similar to her actual name, you know? 쯔위, 쯔위. It's just how Chinese works. The ㅇㅇ part sounds like 유 in Chinese, but 유 in English, which is why a lot of foreign fans have a lot of trouble pronouncing this. Moving on. Next word is this, which means 8 in the native Korean counting system. Yes, there are two counting systems in Korea, but that's a different story for probably a different video. The first letter has ㅇ, which is empty, and the vowel is ㅛ, so it's ㅛ. The second letter has ㄷ, which has a D sound, and the vowel is ㅓ. It has double consonants at the bottom, ㄹ and ㅂ, so the second letter is ㄷ. Put them together, and you'll get 여달. To be honest, people don't really pronounce the ㅂ in the second letter when pronouncing, so I guess it's kind of an exception. They say 여달, not 여달. Final example, because I'm pretty sure you all get this by now. This is a long word, so let's tackle it step by step. The first letter has ㄱ, which has a K sound, the vowel is ㅓ, and the bottom consonant is ㅁ, which has an M sound. Put it together, and that's ㄱ. The second letter has ㅍ, which has a P sound, and the vowel is ㅛ, so it is ㅍ. The final letter has ㅌ, which has a T sound, and the vowel is ㅓ, so it's ㅌ. Put it all together, and you'll get 컴퓨터. You guessed it, the word means computer. Amazing, you can read Korean now. I'm not kidding, you managed to learn how to read Korean in a single video. This video was incredibly detailed, pointing out some exceptions that you need to know, and to be honest, probably one of the most detailed videos out there. Of course, you will come across exceptions on your own, but you shouldn't think exceptions in Korean are hard. I can tell you, again, that there are much more exceptions than English, but all in all, I hope that you saw Korean is a really easy language to learn and pronounce. Other parts in Korean, like grammar, eh, not so much, but at least you know how to read basic Korean now. In fact, by watching this video, you will be able to go to Seoul and read every sign and billboard in the city, basically. There are a lot of words that are made into Korean in Korea, so if you're able to read them, you will know exactly what they mean. So again, if you're a K-pop fan, you can pronounce every idol's name. If you like watching K-dramas, you can read the subtitles, literally. Slowly, but accurately. Now that you know how to read Korean with enough memorization and practice, you'll become good at it now. Anyway, that was the end of the video. I hope I helped you guys with this video, and if it did, then click the like button on the video so that I know I helped you guys out with learning Korean. If you wanna say something or tell me something, leave a comment in the comment section below. Recommend me what videos I should make, And if you want to see more videos like this, then subscribe to the channel. I hope you guys enjoyed, and I will see you guys later in the future. Bye.