Category: Dipthongs

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The Other Vowels – Dipthongs Part 2

There are other vowels in 한글 that i find complicated.  These are combinations of two vowels to form the sound starting ‘w’. There many combinations but these so far are the common to me:

  • ㅘ – sounds like ‘wa’ of want
  • ㅝ – sounds like ‘wo’ of won’t
  • ㅞ -sounds like ‘we’ weather
  • ㅢ -sounds like ‘wi’ winner

There are Korean words I encountered with these characters  specially on names.  One of my language exchange partner is name 지원 (Jee-won).  One of my favorite songs of se7en is 와줘 (Wa-juo) which is translated as ‘comeback’.

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Vowels and Dipthongs

2007년 8월 30일  

The following characters are also considered as vowel in 한글, the sound is very similar to the ‘y’ sound which is a consonant in the alphabet:

ㅑ (ya) as in yak

ㅕ (yo)  as in yolk

ㅛ (yaw) as in yawn

ㅒ(yae) close to yale

ㅖ(ye) as in yesterday

ㅠ (yoo) as in yultide

In my advance reading, there is a concept of postpositioning in words when using in a sentence.  This is when a a character is added in a word to properly identify it as subject or object in a sentence.  The character to be added depends on the final character of the word if consonant or vowel.  So it’s important that these characters be remembered as vowel.

Word for the day is 어머니 (o-mo-ni) . This is how you call mothers in Korea.