Hangul Chart

Hangul, the Korean alphabet, is famously logical: letters combine into square syllable blocks of an initial consonant, a vowel and an optional final consonant. This chart lists every consonant and vowel with its romanization, and the builder lets you click letters to assemble syllables, see how they are written and romanized, and hear them if your device has a Korean voice.

Korean consonants

Where two romanizations are shown, the first is used at the start of a syllable before a vowel and the second at the end of a syllable (for example ㄱ is g in 가 “ga” but k in 박 “bak”). ㅇ is silent at the start of a syllable and pronounced “ng” at the end. The five doubled letters are tense consonants, said with more tension and no puff of air.

Korean vowels

The first ten are the basic vowels; the rest combine them. Vertical vowels (ㅏ ㅓ ㅣ …) sit to the right of the initial consonant, and horizontal ones (ㅗ ㅜ ㅡ …) sit below it. A syllable that starts with a vowel sound uses the silent ㅇ as its initial, as in 아 “a”.

How syllable blocks work

Every Hangul syllable fits in a square block, which is why Unicode can list all 11,172 possible blocks in order. The builder computes each block from its parts the same way.

Revised Romanization and pronunciation

South Korea’s official Revised Romanization (2000) writes 한국어 as “hangugeo”, applying sound changes between syllables. The builder romanizes syllable by syllable — “han-guk-eo” — which shows the spelling clearly but not every sound change. For example, a final consonant often carries over to the next syllable when it starts with a silent ㅇ (liaison), and ㄴ next to ㄹ can become “ll”. Treat letter-by-letter romanization as a reading aid and listen to native speakers for pronunciation.

How to use the builder

1. Pick an initial consonant (use ㅇ for syllables that start with a vowel).
2. Pick a vowel.
3. Optionally pick a final consonant (batchim), or ∅ for none.
4. The block, its letters, romanization and Unicode code point appear.
5. Add syllables to build a word, or type Hangul directly, and press Say word to hear it if your device has a Korean voice.

Worked example

To write 한 (han, “one/Korean”), choose ㅎ, ㅏ and final ㄴ. Then 국 is ㄱ + ㅜ + ㄱ (guk) and 어 is ㅇ + ㅓ (eo). Together they spell 한국어, “Korean language”, romanized letter by letter as han-guk-eo; in official Revised Romanization it is written hangugeo because the final ㄱ of 국 links to the following vowel.

Letter shapes and their logic

Hangul was created in 1443 under King Sejong the Great to make reading and writing accessible to everyone. The basic consonants picture the speech organs: ㄱ shows the tongue touching the back of the mouth, ㄴ the tongue touching the ridge behind the teeth, ㅁ the closed mouth, ㅅ a tooth and ㅇ the throat. Adding a stroke makes a stronger sound (ㄱ → ㅋ, ㄷ → ㅌ). Vowels are built from three symbols: a dot for heaven (now a short stroke), a horizontal line for earth (ㅡ) and a vertical line for a person (ㅣ).

Common beginner words

The difference between letter-by-letter spelling and pronunciation in 감사합니다 shows why listening matters: ㅂ before ㄴ is pronounced like ㅁ.

Learning tips

• Learn the ten basic vowels and fourteen basic consonants first — that covers most words.
• Notice the shapes: consonants like ㄱ ㄴ ㅁ ㅅ ㅇ were designed to picture the mouth and tongue.
• Practise writing blocks by hand; stroke order runs top to bottom, left to right.
• Read signs, menus and song lyrics to practise decoding.
• Most learners can read Hangul within a few days of practice.

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