You may be interested in learning the Korean language, but you may also perhaps have a very little clue how to begin. If that’s the case then its a good idea to start with the Korean alphabet. By understanding how to read and write the Korean alphabet, you can literally begin reading the Korean characters in nearly half an hour, as offered as a quick course in many universities around the world.
It does not necessarily take a lot of time to learn how to read Korean, as it is a ‘phonetic language’. English is regarded as a phonetic language, but Korean is more so, as almost all the consonants and vowel in Korean have only a single sound.
There are 14 consonants and 10 vowels within the Korean language, and you’ll find extra 5 double consonants and 11 double vowels. Besides this, there are 11 last double consonants. It all might seem complicated when you begin to have a look at some of those doubles. However, once you know the basic consonants and vowels, you can actually read good many words in Korean as you become familiar with the sounds of each consonant and vowel in Korean.
I would recommend these methods to know how to read Korean.
Memorize basic consonants and vowels.
As soon as you’ve committed to memory the sounds of the consonants and vowels, you should learn how to form simple words. The most basic way is to attach a single consonant to a single vowel, to form a character. Every single character has one specific syllable. By using two characters, you can easily mix and match to make basic words, such as a lion (sa-ja) or a tree (na-mu) that will only require 2 consonants and 2 vowels each.
Create a list of essential vocabulary
Once you mastered how to read a lot of these simple words and phrases, you’d be more confident and motivated to learn about other easy and simple words. I recommend that you look for words that are only two or three syllables, that are easy to pronounce. You’ll likely to memorise them more quickly. Gradually, you’ll build a list of words you can use in your writing and dialogue.
Finally, listen to these words and practice speaking them
I suggest you employ online resources to read these Korean words and phrases. Online Korean dictionary and Google translate can help you how you can pronounce these key phrases, and if you can get yourself audio recordings or videos, view and listen to these to understand the proper pronunciations used by the native speakers.
There are many online Korean language already available on the net. You may want to try typing, ‘Korean listening exercise’ in the search engines, and you will find a number of helpful websites in which you can listen to these audio recordings in Korean.