Basic Vowels

Goal: Read and write basic syllables with basic vowels

• 10 Basic vowels (ㅏ,ㅑ, ㅓ, ㅕ, ㅗ, ㅛ, ㅜ, ㅠ, ㅡ, ㅣ)

Basic Vowels – How it is composed

• The vowel is made up of three symbols. The dot represents the sky, Horizontal line represents the ground, the vertical line symbolizes a human. It makes many vowels by combining those.

Vowels – Meaning Summing rules are applied.
The basic characters (• , ㅡ, ㅣ) were combined once to create the four characters  ㅗ, ㅏ, ㅜ, ㅓ

Combine ‘•’ with ‘ㅡ’ up and down to make ㅗ, ㅜ

Combine ‘•’ twice to make ㅛ, ㅑ, ㅠ, ㅕ

10 Basic Vowels – Let’s Read

• A Korean syllable always starts with a consonant. A vowel is followed by a consonant. You may also notice the 3 symbols used (dot=sky, horizontal line=ground, and the vertical line=human). Because a syllable requires a vowel and a consonant, consonant “o” is used as a placeholder, which has no sounds.

 

10 Basic Vowels – Let’s Read (Shape of Mouth)

• When there’s a dot doubled, /y/ sound is added in the front of the sound.
  When ㅏ and ㅓ doubles its dots (they become ㅑ and ㅕ), /y/ sound is added in front of its ㅏ and ㅓ sound. So, it becomes ㅑ and ㅕ sound. Remember, the consonant ㅇ is a placeholder with no sound. In a written format, they’re written in 아, 야, 어, 여.

 

10 Basic Vowels – Let’s write

• Let’s write Korean vowels. The principle is writing it from left to right and top to bottom.

 

Basic Vowels – Let’s Practice

Read and write the syllables or Vocabularies below:

Picture	Vocabulary	Meaning	Romanization
	이	Number 2	/i/
	오	Number 5	/o/
	아이	Kid	/a i/
	오이	Cucumber	/o i/
	우유	Milk	/u yu/
	여우	Fox	/yeo u/
	아이유	IU	/a i u/