Compound Vowels Part 1 (ㅐ to ㅘ)

Welcome to Lesson 9! So far, you’ve mastered the basic vowels and all of the Hangul consonants. In this lesson, you’ll start to learn the remainder of the Korean vowels. We will cover 5 vowels in this lesson:

• ㅐ (ae)
• ㅒ (yae)
• ㅔ (e)
• ㅖ (ye)
• ㅘ (wa)

Design of the letters

When Hangul was invented (in 1443), the vowels we learn in this lesson were dipthongs (combinations of two vowels). The design of these letters thus took advantage of this fact:

• ㅐ (ae) looks like ㅏ + ㅣ
• ㅒ (yae) looks like ㅑ + ㅣ
• ㅔ (e) looks like ㅓ + ㅣ
• ㅖ (ye) looks like ㅕ + ㅣ
• ㅘ (wa) looks like ㅗ + ㅏ

However, in the 500 years since, Korean pronunciation has changed quite a bit. In modern Korean, these vowels are not diphthongs. However, it still helps you to remember all the vowels to know that visually these are simple combinations of the basic vowels.

애 (ae) and 에 (e)

Historically, these were two different vowels. Now, only certain dialects of Korean distinguish them. You do not need to pronounce them differently.

The tongue position of this vowel is somewhere between ㅏ (a) and ㅣ (i). It sounds similar to the [e] in bed.

They are romanized differently (애 -> ae, 에 -> e), but you really shouldn’t care about memorizing Korean romanization. Koreans themselves do not know the romanization rules.

얘 (yae) and 예 (ye)

Again, these two vowels are pronounced the same way in modern Korean.

This compound vowel is a combination of ㅑ (ya) and ㅣ (i). You can pronounce it the same as 애 or 에 , simply adding a y sound to the start.

Note: 계, 걔, 혜 and 햬

These vowels are quite common combined with a ㄱ (g) or ㅎ (h) consonant, forming the characters 계 , 걔 , 혜 , and 햬 .

However, since this is difficult to pronounce, they are often simplified by removing the y sound:

• 계 becomes 게
• 걔 becomes 개
• 혜 becomes 헤
• 햬 becomes 해

Examples:

애 vs. 에: The Subtle Difference

I already said you don’t need to worry about the difference between 애 and 에. But I know you might be curious anyway, so here’s a brief explanation.

Historically, 애 and 에 had distinct pronunciations. 애 was more open (like ‘a’ in ‘cat’), and 에 was more closed (like ‘e’ in ‘bed’). However, in contemporary spoken Korean, especially among younger generations, the distinction has largely disappeared. Most Koreans pronounce them almost identically.

와 (wa)

This letter is a combination of ㅗ (o) and ㅏ (a). It sounds like the ‘wa’ in water or watch.

The shape of ㅘ characters

In Lesson 1, we talked a lot about the shapes of Hangul characters.

We talked about how some vowels are placed beside the consonant:

• ㄱ+ㅏ = 가
• ㄴ+ㅣ = 니
• ㅂ+ㅓ = 버

and some vowels are placed below the consonant:

• ㄱ+ㅗ = 고
• ㄴ+ㅜ = 누
• ㅂ+ㅠ = 뷰

As you can see, with ㅘ, we have the ㅗ part placed below the consonant, and the ㅏ part placed beside the consonant:

• ㄱ+ㅘ = 과
• ㄴ+ㅘ = 놔
• ㅂ+ㅘ = 봐

When there is a final consonant, it simply goes below:

• ㄱ+ㅘ+ㄴ = 관
• ㄱ+ㅘ+ㄶ = 괂

Quiz 1: Diphthongs (애 to 와)

Let’s test your understanding of these diphthongs.

Final Quiz

This final quiz will test your knowledge of all the diphthongs covered in this lesson. Good luck!

All Words

Here is a chart of all the words in this lesson. I suggest spending some time trying to memorize these words. These are all very common words and studying them will help you remember the compound vowel sounds.