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Korean, explained
Longer pieces on how Korean actually works — written for English speakers, starting from what your own language already does without you noticing. Published when they're ready rather than on a schedule.
Pronunciation
- The Korean Sounds English Doesn't HaveYou already make two of Korean's three p-sounds — English just uses the difference automatically instead of meaningfully. A plain-English guide to the three-way consonant contrast, the vowel ㅡ, and why ㄹ is not an r.
- Batchim (받침) — Why 옷, 낫 and 낮 All Sound the SameEnglish has final consonants, so batchim isn't a new idea for you. What's new is that Korean allows only seven of them, never releases three of them, and keeps spelling distinctions the sound has already thrown away.
- Liaison (연음화) — You Already Do This in EnglishYou say 'an apple' as a-napple without thinking about it. Korean does the same thing, does it inside words as well as between them, and never changes the spelling to show it.
Vocabulary
- Sino-Korean (한자어) — Learn One Word, Get Three MoreAbout half of Korean vocabulary is assembled from a small set of one-syllable parts that each carry a fixed meaning — the same way English builds words out of Latin and Greek roots. You don't need to learn a single Chinese character to start using this.
- Loanwords (외래어) — You Already Know These Words, You Just Can't Hear Them YetKorean has borrowed a large amount of English, but it rewrites every borrowed word to fit Korean syllables — and the rewrite follows rules. Learn to run it backwards and a whole category of vocabulary stops needing to be memorised.
- Suffixes (-적, -화, -성, -률) — Four Endings That Build Formal KoreanThese four endings turn nouns into descriptions, processes, qualities and rates. They are productive, they are everywhere in the news, and one of them changes its spelling depending on the sound in front of it — for a reason you can learn in a minute.