Understanding the Korean Alphabet, Hangul consonants

Hello and welcome. Today, we're going to talk about the Korean alphabet, Hangul. Hangul is the official writing system of Korea, and is composed of 24 letters. It was created in the 15th century by King Sejong the Great, and is designed to be easy to learn and use.

The Korean alphabet is based on the principle of combining consonants and vowels to form syllables. Let's start with the consonants.

The first consonant is ㄱ (giyuk). It's pronounced like a "g" sound in English, as in "go" or "get".

The second consonant is ㄴ (nieun). It's pronounced like an "n" sound in English, as in "no" or "now".

The third consonant is ㄷ (digeut). It's pronounced like a "d" sound in English, as in "do" or "day".

The fourth consonant is ㄹ (rieul). It's pronounced like an "r" sound in English, but with the tongue touching the roof of the mouth, as in "red" or "run".

Next is ㅁ (mieum). It's pronounced like an "m" sound in English, as in "me" or "my".

The sixth consonant is ㅂ (bieup). It's pronounced like a "b" sound in English, as in "boy" or "book".

The seventh consonant is ㅅ (siot). It's pronounced like an "s" sound in English, as in "see" or "set".

The eighth consonant is ㅇ (ieung). It's a unique consonant in that it doesn't have a sound of its own, but is used to indicate the absence of a consonant sound, or as a placeholder at the beginning of a word.

The ninth consonant is ㅈ (jieut). It's pronounced like a "j" sound in English, as in "jump" or "jacket".

Next is ㅊ (chieut). It's pronounced like a "ch" sound in English, as in "chat" or "chip".

The eleventh consonant is ㅋ (kieuk). It's pronounced like a "k" sound in English, as in "kite" or "key".

The twelfth consonant is ㅌ (tieut). It's pronounced like a "t" sound in English, as in "time" or "talk".

The thirteenth consonant is ㅍ (pieup). It's pronounced like a "p" sound in English, as in "pie" or "pill".

The last consonant is ㅎ (hieut). It's pronounced like an "h" sound in English, as in "help" or "hot".