Letters fit into blocks

Once you recognise a few consonants and vowels, you can start building written syllables. A Hangul block groups its letters together: ㄴ plus ㅏ becomes 나. You do not normally write a Korean word as a loose row of separated alphabet letters.

Begin this lesson after the basic consonant and vowel guides. You need ㄱ, ㄴ, ㄷ, ㅁ, and ㅇ, plus the vowels ㅏ, ㅗ, and ㅜ. We will use a small selection so you can focus on the arrangement rather than recalling the whole alphabet at once.

A basic block has an initial consonant position and a vowel position. It may also have one or two final consonant letters at the bottom. That final position is called 받침. This lesson starts with blocks without a final consonant, then shows where one can fit.

Put a tall vowel to the right

For a vowel built around a tall vertical line, place it to the right of the initial consonant. In 나, ㄴ occupies the left side and ㅏ occupies the right. The letters become narrower to share the block. They do not have to keep the full width they had when written separately.

This layout works for the basic vowels ㅏ, ㅑ, ㅓ, ㅕ, and ㅣ. Compare 나, 냐, 너, 녀, and 니. Read the initial consonant first and the vowel second, even though both sit inside one compact unit.

Practise 가, 나, and 다 in a mixed order: 나, 다, 가, 다, 나. Reciting the familiar alphabetical row is easier than recognising each block independently. Mixing them tells you whether you are reading or recalling the sequence.

Put a wide vowel below

For ㅗ, ㅛ, ㅜ, ㅠ, and ㅡ, put the vowel below the initial consonant. In 노, read ㄴ first and ㅗ second. “Below” describes the writing layout; it does not change the reading order to vowel first.

The same initial ㄴ can appear in 나 and 노 even though its proportions differ. When copying, leave enough room for the vowel and keep the whole block roughly balanced. Handwriting does not need to look like a computer font to be legible.

Later, combined vowels such as ㅘ use space both below and to the right. Learn those after the simpler layouts. Do not force every vowel into only one narrow vertical or horizontal slot.

Use ㅇ when the syllable begins with a vowel sound

What if the sound starts with a vowel? The written block still needs an initial consonant position. Put silent ㅇ there: ㅇ + ㅏ becomes 아, and ㅇ + ㅜ becomes 우. The initial ㅇ is a written placeholder here; it does not add ng.

Compare the bare letter ㅏ with the syllable 아. You may see the bare letter in a chart, a spelling exercise, or informal letter play. When writing ordinary words, use the complete syllable block. For example, 우유, “milk,” contains the blocks 우 and 유.

In 아이, “child,” the two initial ㅇ letters are both silent. Read the vowel in each block and join them: 아 + 이. There is no rule that every circular shape in Hangul means ng; position matters.

Notice the space for a final consonant

Compare 가 and 간. Both begin with ㄱ + ㅏ, but 간 has ㄴ at the bottom. Read the initial consonant, then the vowel, then the final consonant. The extra letter does not create a second syllable by itself.

The same arrangement works with a horizontal vowel: 고 becomes 곰 when ㅁ is added at the bottom. In 곰, the initial ㄱ is at the top, the vowel ㅗ is in the middle, and the final ㅁ is at the bottom.

For now, learn to locate the bottom letter. Its pronunciation needs a separate lesson because final consonants do not always sound like their initial versions. Do not add an extra vowel after the bottom consonant just to make it easier to pronounce.

Join blocks into words

Each example here has two written syllable blocks but is one word. Do not insert a space between the two blocks when copying the word. Korean uses spaces between words according to its own spacing rules, not after every syllable.

A block is not automatically a meaningful word by itself. In the chart, 무 is part of 나무. The syllable can appear elsewhere with a different role. Read the whole word and learn its meaning together rather than assigning one fixed meaning to every block.

Build, split, and explain

Finish by copying 나무, 우유, and 바다 once, then covering them and rebuilding each from memory. Check the letter positions before checking speed. Your next step is 받침: how the bottom consonant works when you read a word aloud.

A small listening check

Reference and listening

The examples and practice tasks in this guide were written for Korean With a Local. For reference and further study:

• How to Study Korean: Korean word structure — An additional explanation of syllable layouts and basic-letter recordings.
• National Institute of Korean Language learner dictionary — Look up 나무, 바다, 우유, and 아이 for whole-word recordings and meanings.

Reviewed September 3, 2026. Found a mistake? Send a correction.