Reading syllable blocks

Modern Hangul can form 11,172 different syllable blocks, yet they all follow six simple layouts.

You now know every letter in modern Hangul. This unit is about putting them together quickly, so that you read a block as one unit instead of spelling it out letter by letter. Every block is built the same way: a first consonant (the silent round letter if the syllable starts with a vowel), then a vowel, then sometimes one or two final consonants. What changes is the layout, and the layout is decided by the vowel. Standing vowels sit to the right of the first consonant. Lying vowels sit underneath it. The w vowels, which combine a lying and a standing part, wrap around it. A final consonant always goes along the bottom.

Reading order inside a block

Inside a block you read the way you write: top to bottom, left to right. Start at the top left with the first consonant, move to the vowel on the right or below, and finish at the bottom with the final consonant. Between blocks you read left to right along the line, and words are separated by spaces, as in English. Korean was traditionally written in vertical columns from right to left, and you can still see that on old books, temple signs and some shop signs, but modern text runs in horizontal lines.

Reading signs

The best practice material is all around Korea: station names, exits, shop signs. Subway stations show a number of exits and the word for exit, chulgu, appears everywhere. The word for entrance is ipgu, the word for toilet is hwajangsil, a hospital is byeongwon and a pharmacy is yakguk. Many signs are loanwords from English, which makes them good puzzles. Once you can read the block for keo and the block for pi, you discover that the sign says coffee. Bus is beoseu, taxi is taeksi and computer is keompyuteo. The extra eu vowels appear because Korean does not stack consonants such as s and t together without a vowel between them.

Place names

Korean place names are a good test because you already know them in Latin letters. Seoul is two blocks, the second ending in l. Busan is two blocks with a final n. Jeju, the southern island, has no final consonants at all. Incheon, where the main airport is, uses the vowel eo twice. Romanized names follow the official rules, so learning them also teaches the system: eo is written eo, eu is written eu, and a final g letter is k, as in the palace Gyeongbokgung. Read the names in the dictation below and check yourself against the romanization you already know.