Word Wednesday: Vowels

So, vowels are considerably easier than consonants.  First off, there are only 10 basic vowels.  Which means there are some irregular vowels, but those are pretty easy to understand too.  No fear, for today, we will just look at the basic vowels.

In Korean alphabetical order they are:

Easy, right?  Well, easier, at any rate. :)  My students told me that vowels order is one-plus-one...that is, the letter then the letter plus the "y" sound.  For example ㅏis the letter (one) andㅑ is the letter plus the "y" sound (plus one).  With me so far?

The story goes that Sejong and Company derived the vowel shapes from three components: sky (the "dot" because the sky is a sphere), earth (horizontal line because the earth is flat), and man (the vertical line, because men/humans stand upright).  Over time the "dot" has evolved to a dash, but the concept behind it remains.

Now. moving on to pronunciation:



ㅏ
Romanized as "a" and pronounced like the English "ah" sound.  Therefore, "bang" is not BANG like a gun, but "bahng"...and it means "room" if you are curious.

ㅑ
Easy one: Romanized and pronounced like "ya."

ㅓ
Romanized as "eo" and pronounced as a long o...like "oh."

ㅕ
So, this one should be (and officially is) Romanized as "yeo", but is very commonly spelled "you" like young (a common Korean name element).  Also, the pronunciation is like the "you" in young.  So, my Korean surname 경can be seen spelled a variety of ways, including "Gyeong", "Kyeong", "Gyoung", "Kyoung"...but all have the same pronunciation. Getting tricky, huh?

ㅗ
This one is harder...Romanized as o.  Most guides will tell you it is pronounced o like open, but my students tell me, and I have noticed in practice, that it is more of uh sound...like the u in uncle.

ㅛ
So, on the rule of one-plus-one...this is spelled yo.  I think it has a more "yuh" pronunciation, but some guides will tell you yo like yogurt.

ㅜ
Romanized as u...or sometimes oo.  The pronunciation is closer to oo like pool.

ㅠ
Romanized as yu or yoo...to me it sounds like the "u" in unit.

ㅡ
Ok, so this one is hard, as we don't have this sound in English.  I still have trouble with it and when I come across it in a word I actually have to stop and configure my mouth around the sound.

Romanized as "eu."  When I say it I feel like I am making a mock growling noise, but in the front of my mouth and not in my throat.  It seems to work anyway...Koreans seem to understand it...or they are just smiling and nodding...

ㅣ
Last one...Romanized as "i" but pronounced like long e...ee like free.