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      The Korean Alphabet, Grammar and Pronunciation Guides

      The Korean alphabet consists of 10 vowels and 14 consonants, which are combined to create some 140 syllables, or “building blocks” that make up the language. The building blocks include 11 diphthongs (combinations of vowels and consonants) that are used to represent more complex sounds.

      These vowels, consonants, diphthongs and syllables have been rendered into romanized English phonetics by a number of individual scholars as well as by the Cultural Ministry, and there are some differences in them. In 2003, the Korean government issued a new set of rules for transcribing the sounds of the language into Roman letters in an effort to further rationalize the system.

      I have made choices from these phonetic versions and added some of my own in an attempt to simplify the pronunciations and still get close enough to the original Korean sounds so that they will be understood.

      There are six basic vowels in the Korean alphabet, plus four “y” vowels for a total of ten. Their approximate English sounds are:

      One or more of these 10 basic sounds are used in all of the syllables making up the language.

      The diphthongs and their approximate English sounds:

      The consonants and their closest English sounds:

      *The “correct” pronunciation of five of these consonants (k, t, r, p and ch) is very subtle. To the ears of native English speakers, the k sound is closer to g, the t sound is closer to d, the r is closer to l, the p is closer to b and the ch is best represented by the j sound. Koreans who have become fluent in English say there are some sounds in the Korean language that simply cannot be rendered into English phonetics. Fortunately, as with English and other languages, Korean spoken with an “accent” is still understandable.

      There are also five “double consonants” (kk, tt, pp, ss and tch):

      It is important to stress the pronunciation of consonants at the beginning of words. It is especially important to “hit” the double consonants hard. I have made attempts to account for the double consonants and other features of the language in the phonetics provided for each word and sentence in the book.

      Pronunciation Guide for

       Korean Syllables

      To clearly see and hear the repetitions of the 10 vowel sounds in all of the syllables, read the following lines vertically. [About a dozen of these syllables are seldom if ever used.]