Korean basics

The specific sounds English speakers get wrong in Korean, why they happen, and what to do instead — with examples you can test yourself on.

The final consonant in a Korean syllable follows different rules from everywhere else. Seven sounds, a lot of spellings, and the reason spoken Korean does not match what you read.

Textbooks say one marks the topic and one marks the subject, which does not help. Here are the four situations that actually decide which one a Korean speaker reaches for.

Korean consonants come in threes — plain, aspirated, and tense. Here is why that matters more than memorizing 19 letters, and how the shapes tell you how to say them.

Korean has 21 vowels, but only six you have to memorize. Here is how the rest are built, which ones sound identical in modern speech, and the three pairs that cause the most trouble.

Hangul was designed to be learned quickly. Here is the order that actually works: ten vowels, fourteen consonants, and the three ways they stack into syllables.