Basic Korean Consonants: ㄱ ㄴ ㄷ ㄹ ㅁ ㅂ ㅅ ㅇ ㅈ ㅎ
Korean writing looks complex at first, but it is built from a small set of simple building blocks. In this lesson you will meet the ten basic consonants of Hangul, learn how each one sounds, and see how they combine with vowels to form real syllables.
See the sound, tap the matching Hangul letter.
The Ten Basic Consonants
Hangul was designed in the fifteenth century so that ordinary people could learn to read and write quickly. The ten basic consonants are ㄱ, ㄴ, ㄷ, ㄹ, ㅁ, ㅂ, ㅅ, ㅇ, ㅈ, and ㅎ. Each letter represents a single consonant sound, and most of the shapes were originally drawn to resemble the position of the tongue, lips, or throat when making that sound. Once you recognize these ten shapes, you already know most of the consonants you will ever need for reading Korean words, names, and signs.
| Consonant | Romanization | Sound |
|---|---|---|
| ㄱ | g / k | like g in go |
| ㄴ | n | like n in no |
| ㄷ | d / t | like d in day |
| ㄹ | r / l | between r and l |
| ㅁ | m | like m in moon |
| ㅂ | b / p | like b in boy |
| ㅅ | s | like s in sun |
| ㅇ | silent / ng | silent at the start, ng at the end |
| ㅈ | j | like j in jam |
| ㅎ | h | like h in home |
How Consonants Combine With Vowels
A Korean syllable is not written letter by letter in a row like English. Instead, a consonant and a vowel are stacked together into a single square block that represents one sound. For example, adding the vowel ㅏ to the consonant ㄱ produces 가, and adding the same vowel to ㄴ produces 나. This lesson pairs each of the ten basic consonants with the vowel ㅏ so you can practice recognizing the shapes quickly. Later lessons will introduce other vowels so you can build many more syllables from the same set of consonants.
Practice Tips
- Say each consonant sound out loud before reading the whole syllable.
- Notice which letters look like the shape your mouth makes for that sound.
- Cover the romanization column and try to read the Hangul first.
- Practice writing each consonant a few times to remember its shape.
- Come back to this table whenever a later lesson feels unfamiliar.
With these ten consonants in place, you have the foundation for reading almost any Korean syllable once vowels are added. Move on to the round below to test how quickly you can match each consonant to its sound, and then continue to the next lesson to start learning the basic vowels that complete the picture.