What is hangul 한글?

Hangul, "한글" The Korean alphabet, known as Hangul has been used to write the Korean language since its creation in the 15th century by King Sejong. 

Hangul is very scientific and a character that is easier to learn and read than any other characters.

It may seem complicated and difficult for foreigners who are new to Hangul. But if you memorize some symbols and understand simple rules, you can learn just in a few hours.

Here are some interesting things to know before you learn Hangul.

Anyone can learn easily.


King Sejong of the 15th century thought people without letters made it easy for anyone to learn and use. It's designed to be easily understood by people with less education, so anyone can master it in just a few hours or a day or two.

Letters from shape of the mouth.

One feature of Hangul is that the shapes of its consonants seemingly mimic the shapes of the speaker's mouth when pronouncing each consonant.

<Source: Wikipedia>

Every symbol has its own sound.

Unlike Japanese and Chinese characters, Every symbol in hangul has a specific sound. So even if you don't know the word, you can sound it.

Lastly, the composition of Hangul is briefly introduced.

Hangul is composed of 21 consonants and 19 vowels. After you have learned all 21 consonants and 19 vowels, you can easily use them to form letters.
For example, consonants of ㄱ sounds [k]  and vowel of ㅏ sounds [a]. consonants and vowels of hangul form a unit. Like ㄱ + ㅏ → 가,  this sounds [ga].

Possible Syllable Structures in Korean are as the followings.

Vowel	V	ㅏ[a] → 아 [a]
Consonants+Vowel	CV	ㄱ [g] + ㅏ [a]→ 가 [ga]
Consonants+Vowel+Comsonants	CVC	ㄱ [g] + ㅏ [a] + ㅇ[ɲ] → 강 [gaɲ]

hope you can learn Hangul happily!