This week, my language partner, Brenda, and I reviewed the alphabet that we learned last time. I also learned how to properly write the consonants. There is a certain order in writing the consonants.
This week we learned the vowels. There are ten vowels in total but I learned that you can combine certain base vowels to create nine more vowels. The ten base vowels are 아, 야, 어, 여, 오, 요, 우, 유, 으, 이. The ㅇ that is at the front of the vowels is a consonant that is blank because it doesn’t have a sound, but when you put it at the bottom of a consonant and vowel, it will make a -ing sound. In order, the vowels are pronounced, ah, yah, uh, yuh, oh, yoh, ooh, yooh, eu, ee. It was interesting to learn that when you add a line to the existing vowel, you add a “y” sound. For example, there is 아 (ah) and when you add a line to form, 야 it is pronounced yah.
I also learned how to write the vowels. The rule is that you always start from the inner to the outer. I learned that you can combine the vowels. The most confusing one for me was the vowel that makes the “eh” sound. There are three ways to write it but they all sound the same. You can combine 아 and 이 to make 애, 어 and 이 to make 에, and 여 and 이 to make 예. 예 can sound like ye and eh, depending on the context it is used.
Next, I learned that there can also be double consonants. There are 5 double consonants that are formed by doubling an existing consonant. ㄲ comes from ㄱ, ㄸ comes from ㄷ, ㅃ comes from ㅂ, ㅆ comes from ㅅ, and ㅉ comes from ㅈ. The double consonant makes the same sound as the consonant but it is like an accent. For example, ㅃ is like a double b/ p sound while ㅂ is a b sound.
I also learned how to write by combining consonants and vowels. If there is a sound at the bottom of the word, you also have to add a consonant to the bottom. I learned that you always write the consonant first, then the vowel, and finally the consonant if there is a sound at the bottom. I learned how to write hello which is 안녕.
Learning double consonants and combining vowels was difficult especially when some of the vowels same sound. One of the difficulties I had was the 어 sound. Because of my Chinese language background, I would put a tonal effect on the vowel. I also had difficulty differentiating between ㅈ and ㅊ. I would find myself writing ㅈ instead of ㅊ a lot of times. ㅈmakes a J sound while ㅊ makes a ch sound but in the context, they sounded very similar.
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