Six basic vowels: ㅏ (a), ㅓ (eo, like the u in 'sun'), ㅗ (o), ㅜ (u, as in 'food'), ㅡ (eu, an oo with flat lips) and ㅣ (i). A second short stroke adds a y: ㅑ (ya), ㅕ (yeo), ㅛ (yo), ㅠ (yu). ㅐ and ㅔ both sound like the e in 'bed' for most speakers today. Many borrowed words that end in a consonant Korean can't put at the bottom of a block (s, z, f, th) gain ㅡ after it: 'news' becomes 뉴스 (nyu-seu).
Examples
- 뉴스
- news - ㅠ is yu, and the s gains ㅡ: nyu-seu
- 메뉴
- menu - ㅔ is e, ㅠ is yu: me-nyu
- 요가
- yoga - ㅛ is yo: yo-ga
The mistake to avoid
Don't read ㅓ as o: 버스 is beo-seu, with the u of 'sun'. The real o is ㅗ.
Where this fits in
한글: the Korean alphabet, Korean A1: Read Hangul block by block and sound out your first Korean words - many of them borrowed from English.