The Vowels

Korean has the following vowel signs:

a		a as in father
eo		aw as in thaw, uh as in uh-oh
o		o as in poke (push your lips out!)
u		oo as in boot (push your lips out!)
ae		a as in bat
e		e as in bet
eu		u as in pull (don’t push your lips out!)The vowel ㅡ is pronounced with your tongue in the position for ㅜ u, but with no lip-rounding (smile!)
i		ee as in feet
we		we as in wetThe vowel ㅚ is therefore pronounced exactly the same as ㅞ by most Seoul speakers. (Pursed lips at the start only).
wi		French oui
euy		u as in pull followed by ee as in feet, pronounced as one sound. At the beginning of a word, pronounce ㅢ as Korean ㅡㅣ, with two vowels run together in a row. When not at the beginning of a word ㅢ is pronounced as Korean ㅣ (some speakers use ㅣ everywhere). 의자 [으이자] chair, 주의 [주이] attention

By adding a stroke to the first six vowel signs above, the Koreans produced the combination y + VOWEL. So, for example, e (as in get) becomes ye(as in yes):

ya		ya as in yard
yeo		yo as in yonder
yo		yo as in yoga (push your lips out!)
yu		yu as in yuletide (push your lips out!)
yae		ya as in yap or Yankie
ye		ye as in yep

Finally, the following combinations give w + VOWEL:

wa		the first vowel sound of wide or wow
weo		wo of wonder
wae		wa of wax
we		we of wet (that is, it has the same pronunciation as ㅚ above)

This concludes all the vowel sounds possible in Korean. Any written syllable in 한글 (Han’gul) must begin with a consonant sign. In order for these vocalic signs to form the nucleus of a syllable (remember that the Koreans write in syllable blocks), they must attach to the side of or below a consonant sign. This means that even when the syllable contains no spoken consonants (when it begins with a vowel in pronunciation), you still have to start the syllable with the ulittle circle ㅇ representing a “zero” consonant. To put it another way, when a spoken syllable begins with any of the vowel sounds above, Han’gul treats the initial consonant as a ZERO, and writes it as such: