Fourteen basic consonants and five tense ones. Only five of them are original shapes — ㄱ ㄴ ㅁ ㅅ ㅇ, each a picture of the mouth making it — and every other consonant is one of those five with a stroke added or written twice.
Each letter below shows its stroke order, both of its sounds (Korean consonants do different work at the start and end of a syllable) and the commonest real words that begin with it.
Read across, not down. Each row is one place in the mouth and three amounts of air — and the letters say so.
| Where | 예사소리 Plain | 거센소리 Aspirated | 된소리 Tense |
|---|---|---|---|
| Back of the tongue | ㄱ | ㅋ | ㄲ |
| Tongue tip | ㄷ | ㅌ | ㄸ |
| Lips | ㅂ | ㅍ | ㅃ |
| Teeth | ㅈ | ㅊ | ㅉ |
| Teeth (fricative) | ㅅ | — | ㅆ |
Two letters that are not on this ladder: ㄴ and ㅁ are nasals — air through the nose, no plain/aspirated/tense series at all — and ㄹ is the single liquid. ㅇ and ㅎ are the throat pair.
The tongue root against the soft palate — ㄱ draws it.
ginitial kfinal [k] / [ɡ]sound
Between English g and k. Unvoiced at the start of a word, so 김치 sounds closer to “kimchi”, but a true g between vowels: 아기 is agi.
The shape is the tongue root rising against the soft palate — look at it side-on.
2,094 words start with ㄱ
kinitial kfinal [kʰ]sound
ㄱ with a puff of air — the k of “kite”.
ㄱ plus one stroke. ㅋㅋ is also how Koreans laugh in writing.
129 words start with ㅋ
The tip on the ridge behind the teeth — ㄴ draws it.
ninitial nfinal [n]sound
The n of “no”, with the tongue tip on the ridge behind the top teeth.
The shape is that tongue tip, touching the ridge and dropping away.
562 words start with ㄴ
dinitial tfinal [t] / [d]sound
Like d, but unvoiced at the start of a word — 대구 sounds nearer “Taegu”. Voices between vowels.
ㄴ with a roof: same place in the mouth, stopped instead of nasal.
950 words start with ㄷ
rinitial lfinal [ɾ] / [l]sound
One letter, two sounds English keeps apart. Between vowels it is a flap — the tt of American “butter”, not an English r. At the end of a syllable it is a clear l: 물 is mul.
The hardest letter for English speakers, and the only one worth practising in isolation. 라면 starts with a flap; 발 ends with an l.
60 words start with ㄹ
tinitial tfinal [tʰ]sound
ㄷ with a puff of air — the t of “top”.
ㄷ plus one stroke.
297 words start with ㅌ
ㅁ is a closed mouth seen from the front.
minitial mfinal [m]sound
The m of “moon”. The one consonant that sounds exactly like its English counterpart in every position.
The shape is a closed mouth, seen from the front.
950 words start with ㅁ
binitial pfinal [p] / [b]sound
Like b, unvoiced at the start of a word — 부산 sounds nearer “Pusan”, which is exactly how it used to be spelled in English.
ㅁ with the lips opening: two strokes rising out of the closed mouth.
1,284 words start with ㅂ
pinitial pfinal [pʰ]sound
ㅂ with a puff of air — the p of “pot”.
ㅂ turned on its side and opened out.
425 words start with ㅍ
ㅅ is the shape of a tooth.
sinitial tfinal [s] / [ɕ]sound
s — but 시 is “shi”, not “si”. Before ㅣ and the y-vowels it palatalises on its own, which is why 신 is shin and 사 is sa.
The shape is the teeth. As a 받침 it is not an s at all: 옷 ends in an unreleased t.
1,792 words start with ㅅ
jinitial tfinal [tɕ]sound
j as in “jam”, but lighter and unvoiced at the start of a word.
ㅅ with a lid — the same teeth, closed off first.
1,689 words start with ㅈ
chinitial tfinal [tɕʰ]sound
ㅈ with a hard puff of air — the ch of “church”. Hold a hand in front of your mouth: ㅊ moves it, ㅈ does not.
ㅈ plus one stroke. That stroke means aspiration everywhere it appears.
730 words start with ㅊ
ㅇ is the open throat, drawn as a circle.
—initial ngfinal silent / [ŋ]sound
Silent as an initial and ng as a final. 아 is just “a”; 강 is gang.
The single most confusing letter for a beginner, and the single most useful. A syllable block must start with a consonant, so when a syllable really starts with a vowel, ㅇ holds the slot and says nothing.
2,444 words start with ㅇ
hinitial tfinal [h]sound
The h of “hat”, and often barely audible between vowels — 좋아요 comes out joayo, with no h left in it at all.
ㅇ with a hat. As a 받침 it almost never survives: it either disappears or fuses with the next consonant into an aspirate.
986 words start with ㅎ
Each is its plain partner written twice: throat tight, no puff of air. These are the pairs the difference is easiest to hear on.
| Letter | Name | From | Sound | The pair to practise |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ㄲ | 쌍기역 ssanggiyeok | ㄱ + ㄱ | kk | 가다 to go · 깎다 to cut |
| ㄸ | 쌍디귿 ssangdigeut | ㄷ + ㄷ | tt | 달 moon · 딸 daughter |
| ㅃ | 쌍비읍 ssangbieup | ㅂ + ㅂ | pp | 불 fire · 뿔 horn |
| ㅆ | 쌍시옷 ssangsiot | ㅅ + ㅅ | ss | 사다 to buy · 싸다 cheap |
| ㅉ | 쌍지읒 ssangjieut | ㅈ + ㅈ | jj | 자다 to sleep · 짜다 salty |
If a tense consonant sounds identical to its plain partner to you, you are hearing it correctly — the difference is tension and pitch, not a different sound. It becomes audible after a few weeks of listening, and until then context does the work.
Nineteen: fourteen basic letters and five tense ones written as doubled versions of a basic letter. Of the fourteen, five are the original shapes — ㄱ ㄴ ㅁ ㅅ ㅇ — and the rest are those five with strokes added.
Because ㅂ, ㄷ, ㄱ and ㅈ are unvoiced at the start of a word. They are not b, d, g and j there — they are somewhere between the English voiced and unvoiced pairs, and an English ear rounds them to p, t, k and ch. Between two vowels they do voice, which is why 부산 starts like “Pusan” but 아버지 has a real b in the middle.
Air. ㄱ is plain — no puff. ㅋ is aspirated — a hard puff you can feel on your hand. ㄲ is tense — no puff at all, throat tightened, and it sounds clipped and hard. English has only two of these three, which is why the tense series takes the longest to hear.
Both, decided by position. Between vowels it is a quick flap made with the tongue tip — the tt in American “butter”, not an English r. At the end of a syllable it is a clear l: 물 is “mul”. Doubled across a syllable boundary (설날) it is a long l.
Because of 두음법칙, the initial-sound rule: native Korean words do not begin with ㄹ, and Sino-Korean ones that historically did shifted to ㄴ or ㅇ — 리유 became 이유. Only 60 of the 14,988 headwords here start with it, and nearly all are loanwords like 라디오 and 레몬.