Pronouncing it the Right Way ~ Sequel to Simple Korean Survival Phrases

It's not difficult to pick up Korean writing (Hangul) as there are only these many number of characters that makes up the entire system. What makes learning Korean a little challenging, I would say, is the pronunciation. The way you pronounce the alphabets are slightly different from how you would pronounce them in English. 

Here are the names of the Hangul alphabets. Notice that the Double consonants contain the word "Ssang". Eg: Ssang Giyeok. The word "Ssang" basically means twin or double. 

At the beginning, I also had a hard time with the pronunciation but this video actually helped me a lot. Check out more of her videos on learning Korean. Most of her videos are short but well-explained. Short and sweet eh? :P

The song was really an effective way to learn pronouncing the alphabets correctly. Not only it's fun but sometimes it just gets stuck to your head and you'll be humming it the whole day. Ah well, practice makes perfect, right? ヽ(•‿•)ノ

I realized that many people had a hard time pronouncing this particular consonant and there aren't many images that I could find to depict it better. Therefore, I decided to modify an image I found online and added the right way to pronounce the "Rieul" character. Basically, you should place your tongue between the positions where you would normally do when pronouncing alphabets "L" and "R". It has a slight rolling sound in it, as explained in the video but it won't sound like the way you pronounce "R". Hope this helps!

Another thing is that, the following alphabets sound really similar to one another (left and right). The only way to differentiate them is by the intonation. The ones mapped on the left have a lower intonation as compared to the ones on the right column. 

Low  ↓	High ↑
ㄱ(giyeok)	ㅋ (kieuk)
ㅈ(jieut)	ㅊ(chieut)
ㅂ(bieup)	ㅍ(pieup)
ㄷ(digeut)	ㅌ(tieut)

To further improve your pronunciation and vocabulary, I would suggest watching more Korean programs, like dramas or variety shows. Listen to how they speak and slowly, you'll be able to pick up several words which are often used. Listening to Korean songs will also help with the language. When you are better equipped, you can start to practice writing sentences. Start with something small, simple and short and then gradually learn to build longer sentences and paragraphs. You can also try to read Korean children's storybooks. I'm currently struggling with this part as there are so many words! A dictionary definitely helps but it's a lot of work, translating word by word to understand the meaning. 

Check out my previous post on Simple Korean Survival Phrases for phrases you can use while travelling around in Korea. Hope this helps and Hwaiting!! (화이팅!!)
 ☆*:.｡. o(≧▽≦)o .｡.:*☆