Korean looks dense and pictorial at first glance — like Chinese characters. It isn't. 한글 (Hangul) is a proper alphabet with 24 basic letters, invented in 1443 to be learnable in a morning. There is nothing to memorize picture-by-picture.
The one twist: instead of running letters left-to-right in a line, Korean packs each syllable into a square block. So 서울 (Seoul) is not two characters — it's two syllables, built from four letters.
Once you see the blocks come apart, Korean stops being a wall of symbols and becomes what it is: letters, stacked. That unpacking is the entire point of this lesson.
Before you can read anything, you need to know you're in Korea. Three tells, in order of reliability:
| Tell | What to look for |
|---|---|
| Circles & ovals | Hangul is full of ㅇ ㅎ — perfect circles. Chinese and Japanese have almost none. A page of text with lots of little circles is Korean. |
| Even, airy blocks | Korean blocks use few strokes and lots of white space. Chinese characters are dense and stroke-heavy. |
| Romanization below | South Korean road signs almost always print the Latin spelling underneath — a free answer key while you learn. |
North vs South: both use Hangul. If you're on GeoGuessr Street View at all, you're in South Korea — the North isn't covered. Green highway signs with white Hangul + romanization = South Korea.
A syllable block is read in a fixed order: first consonant → vowel → final consonant (if there is one). The slots are laid out differently depending on the shape of the vowel.
That's the whole system. Left-to-right, then top-to-bottom, and the bottom row is always the final consonant. The Korean name for that bottom slot is 받침 (batchim, "support") — it gets its own lesson later, because a few of those final letters change sound.
A block must start with a consonant. So when a syllable begins with a vowel sound, Korean parks a silent circle ㅇ in the first slot to fill it. It makes no sound at all there.
| Position | Sound | Example |
|---|---|---|
| First slot (top / left) | silent | 아 = just "A", not "nga" |
| Bottom slot (batchim) | NG | 강 = "GANG" (river) |
German anchor: at the bottom of a block, ㅇ is exactly the ng in Ring — never a hard G after it.
Each Hangul consonant is a sketch of the mouth or tongue making that sound — that's the visual hook for every card below.
ㄹ is the one sound with no German or English match. Aim between an L and a lightly tapped R: at the start of a syllable it leans R (로 = -ro, "street"), at the end it leans L (서울 = Seo-ul). Same letter, both times.
Vowels are built from three pieces: a long stroke (vertical or horizontal) plus a short tick. Which way the long stroke runs decides where the vowel sits in the block.
Merkhilfe: unten & oben. ㅗ and ㅜ are the same horizontal line in the same slot — only the tick differs, and that is the one confusion that will cost you real words. German gives you the hook for free: der Strich zeigt nach unten → U (ㅜ), der Strich zeigt nach oben → O (ㅗ). The first letter of the German word is the vowel. Say "unten & oben" every time you meet one of the two.
The two romanization traps. Korean road signs use the official Revised Romanization, where eo = ㅓ (an "uh") and eu = ㅡ. So Seoul is 서울 — "Suh-ul", not "See-oul". Same for Incheon, Daejeon, Gyeongju: every "eo" is that one vowel.
Twelve letters in, and you can already decompose the two most famous place names in Korea. Try it yourself on the drill below before scrolling for answers.
They aren't the first 12 in the alphabet — they're the 12 that unlock Korea's address system, which is plastered on every street corner, bus stop and building plate in the country.
| Block | Reads | Means |
|---|---|---|
| 시 | SI | city — suffix on every city name (부산시 = Busan City) |
| 군 | GUN | county — rural areas use this instead of 시 |
| 구 | GU | district — inside big cities (강남구 = Gangnam District) |
| 로 | RO | road — the ending of most street names on blue signs |
| 산 | SAN | mountain — ends countless place names in a very mountainous country |
| 강 | GANG | river — 한강 is the big one through Seoul |
Spot a 구 and you're inside a metropolis. Spot a 군 and you're in the countryside. That single distinction is worth real GeoGuessr points before you can read a word of Korean.
12 of 40 Hangul letters — and the structural rule that governs all of them.
Next up (Lesson 2): ㄷ ㅂ ㅈ ㅎ — which unlock 동 (neighbourhood), 부산 (Busan) and 한국 (Korea).
See a letter, say its sound aloud — then reveal to check.
Every word below uses only your 12 letters. Break each block into slots, then say it aloud.
Space to reveal
1/2/3 to score