Hangul, the Korean alphabet, has 19 consonants and 21 vowels. Each letter has its own distinct pronunciation with little to no exceptions. This makes Hangul a very logic based language. There are several sounds that do not exist in the English language making it difficult for non-natives to learn the phonetics of the language. Despite being born in Korea, I was able to learn the phonetics of English well because I came at a young age. However for my parents, they are still unable to speak with proper phonetics because most pronunciations that exist in English do not exist in Korean.
Pronunciations with double letters such as ㄲㄸㅉㅃㅆ (k͈, t͈, tɕ͈, p͈, ɕ͈ respectively) are very hard to replicate in Hangul.
Another pronunciation I found particularly hard for me was ɰi which is pronounced somewhat like "ui".
Hangul is an alphabet based system but it is different from English because a single letter cannot hold meaning but must be combined with each other. My language partner is in the process of ordering textbooks so I have not yet been able to study the alphabet thoroughly. Through my studies, I hope to gain a more in-depth understanding of all the rules and exceptions in Hangul so that my writing becomes more proficient.
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