Stacking Syllables

Here's how these syllables from the previous page are pronounced:
ma ha na
ma ha na

The last two syllables form an actual Korean word: hana which means "one." It's pronounced ha-na, as you probably already guessed. (Note: when we write Korean words in English letters, we'll separate the syllables with dashes.)

Here's another consonant: k It's pronounced somewhere between the k in king and the g in guess.

We can use this consonant to write the Korean word for a persimmon: "kam." It's a one-syllable word, but if we put all its sounds next to each other we won't have a square box any more:

This problem is easy to solve: we stack up the and on top of the so that it all fits into a square box:

kam

So, learning the Korean alphabet is a simple matter of learning the letters and learning how to stack them up into a square box.

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