Phrases for beginners #2

In the last post, we began dissecting our first phrase:

How are you?
안녕하세요?
an-nyeong ha-se-yo?

You'll remember that the phrase above begins with the syllable 안 (or an, pronounced like the syllable hon in honest. This syllable comprises three "letters" or characters: ㅇ + ㅏ + ㄴ. The ㅇ is silent, ㅏ is pronounced like the o in got, and ㄴ is the equivalent of the English n. The characters are combined in a clockwise fashion, beginning with the upper-left character followed by a character "on the right" and terminating with a character "on the bottom." The result is 안 an.

We also went over the next syllable 녕 (nyeong, pronounced like nyoung). It begins with ㄴ, followed by a new vowel ㅕ(eo, pronounced like the ou in young), and followed by ㅇ, pronounced as a trailing ng when it is the ending character of the syllable.

These two syllables formed our first Korean word: 안녕 an-nyeong, which means hello or goodbye.

The next word is 하세요 (ha-se-yo, polite form of the verb 하다 hada, which means to do. The first syllable 하, begins with ㅎ, pronounced like the English h, and 아, which we learned earlier. So the first syllable is pronounced like the ho in hot.

The next syllable 세 begins with the letter ㅅ, the equivalent of the English letter S, followed by another new vowel ㅔ, pronounced in a manner similar to the beginning of the diphthong ai in main.

The final syllable 요 follows a different form. The syllables we've seen so far consisted of characters combined in a clockwise fashion, beginning with an upper-left character followed by a character "on the right" and terminating with a character "on the bottom." Syllables such as 요 are formed by just an initial character above a final character. You will learn to quickly recognize the two forms during your studies. In this example, the syllable begins with a silent ㅇ and ends with ㅛ yo, pronounced more like the Spanish o than the English o, sort of between aw and o.

We have now covered our first Korean phrase: 안녕하세요? Don't worry about the literal translation. Just think of it as the standard, polite way to say hello in Korean.

ㅎ
ㅏ
ㅅ
ㅔ
ㅇ
ㅛ