First consonants: ㄱ ㄴ ㄷ ㄹ ㅁ

The circle gives up its seat

Play all three. The vowel is the same each time: the tall line with its stroke to the right, “ah”. What changes is the first seat. In 아 the silent circle sits there. In 나 and 마 a different letter has taken the seat, and this one has a sound.

The corner shape ㄴ is n. The closed box ㅁ is m. Both are close to the English sounds, so 나 is na and 마 is ma.

Three more shapes

ㄱ is ㄴ turned upside down. ㄷ is ㄴ with a lid on top. ㄹ has the most turns of all.

ㄱ and ㄷ are romanized g and d, but at the start of a word they have less buzz than English g and d and sit close to a soft k and t. Copy the audio, not the letters. ㄹ is a single quick tap of the tongue tip just behind the upper teeth, lighter than any English r or l. Many Americans make this tap in the middle of “water”.

Between two vowels ㄱ and ㄷ do sound like a clear g and d. Listen to the second block of 고기 later in this lesson.

Consonant first, vowel around it

The rule from the vowel lessons has not changed; only the first seat has. The consonant goes first. A tall vowel stands to its right: ㄴ + ㅏ = 나. A flat vowel sits underneath: ㄴ + ㅗ = 노.

Letters stretch or squash to fit the square. ㄱ is the clearest case: beside a tall vowel its downstroke swings to the left, as in 가; on top of a flat vowel it stays a neat corner, as in 고. It is the same letter.

Five consonants, six vowels, real words

With eleven letters you can already read real Korean. Go block by block, left to right, one even beat per block: na-mu, meo-ri, da-ri, go-gi.

Korean does not stress one syllable the way English does. Say “NA-mu” with a heavy first beat and it sounds foreign; give both blocks the same weight. In 고기 the same letter ㄱ appears twice. Notice that the second one, between two vowels, sounds softer.

Four more, including two you will need soon

어머니 has three blocks. The first begins with the silent circle, so the word starts straight on the vowel: eo-meo-ni. The same vowel ㅓ comes twice; keep the lips unrounded both times.

누구 means “who” and 거기 means “there”. They are short and common, and you will use both in sentences from the next unit on. Compare 거기 with 고기 from the last step: one vowel is the only difference between “there” and “meat”.