Usually, we don’t discuss history when it comes to writing systems, but the history of Hangul is absolutely fascinating and you’ll surely want to find out more. A brief history of Hangul: how was the Korean alphabet created? *a featural writing system is one in which the shapes of the characters mimic their articulator’s shape and phonetic features when pronouncing them. Once you get used to Romanization, it’s really tough to give it up and learn to write Korean using Hangul. Not only it will give you the confidence to carry on learning, but it will also help you read most written texts in Korean.Īdditionally, if you start learning Korean using Korean Romanization (Latin script representation of the Korean alphabet), you’ll probably become addicted to it and that won’t do you any good. Whether you want to learn Korean because you’re planning to travel or move to South Korea, you are a BTS fan (aka the Bangtan Boys, a South Korean boy band), or simply passionate about the Korean culture, Hangul is a perfect starting point. Although the Korean language is one of the hardest languages to learn for English speakers, its alphabet has been praised by linguists for its featural* design and described as ”brilliant“ and ”a perfect phonetic system devised to withstand the tests of time and use“. This suggests that the Korean alphabet is actually easier than you’d think. A popular Korean saying about Hangul and its characters says: “a wise man can acquaint himself with them before the morning is over a stupid man can learn them in the space of ten days“.

Korean keyboard layout translator