Reading Korean signs: start with letters and syllable blocks

Learn how consonants, vowels and final consonants form Korean syllable blocks, then compare a saved business name with a real sign.

Reading Korean signs: start with letters and syllable blocks

A Korean sign may initially look like a complicated drawing. Yet 김밥 has two large written blocks, and 우유 has two as well. Finding the consonants and vowels inside each block gives you a way to compare a saved Korean business name with the sign in front of you, one block at a time. The aim here is a first step towards recognising names—not a lesson that will let you interpret every sign or read Korean fluently.

One block represents one syllable

Hangeul has separate consonant and vowel letters, but groups them into syllable blocks. Instead of writing ㄱ, ㅣ and ㅁ in a line, it combines them as 김. The first consonant occupies the initial position, the vowel the medial position, and a consonant at the bottom the final position, called batchim. Some blocks have no batchim.[1]

Find the vowel first, then look around it. In 기·바, with vertically oriented vowels ㅣ·ㅏ, the initial consonant sits on the left and the vowel on the right. In 우·유, with horizontally oriented vowels ㅜ·ㅠ, the initial is above the vowel. A final consonant, when present, goes beneath that combination. These are the layouts used in our examples; not every block with a compound vowel divides into just two compartments.[1]

You may encounter the description “24 basic letters”. That counts the basic inventory. The National Institute of Korean Language discusses compound letters separately, and also lists 19 letters used in the initial position and 21 in the medial position. Different categories are being counted, so different totals are not a contradiction. For today's sign comparison, examining a few letter positions is more useful than memorising every list.[1]

김밥: include the letters at the bottom

The sign shows two syllable blocks: 김 and 밥.

김밥 is the name of the food made by rolling rice and other ingredients in dried seaweed and slicing the roll.[3] In this photograph, the different background colours do not change the letters' internal arrangement.

• 김 = ㄱ + ㅣ + ㅁ: ㄱ is at the upper left, ㅣ on the right, and final ㅁ at the bottom.

• 밥 = ㅂ + ㅏ + ㅂ: the first ㅂ is at the upper left, ㅏ on the right, and the second ㅂ is the final at the bottom.

In the photograph's bold lettering, strokes tilt and come close together. Start by identifying the boundary 김 | 밥, then separate the vowel and final within each block. If you notice only the upper ㅂ and miss the lower one in 밥, you will be comparing the wrong written block. Seeing the food name 김밥 does not identify an entire business name: many shops can put the same food name on their signs.

The ㅇ in 우유 and the ㅇ in 방 do different jobs

우유 means cow's milk.[4] Its blocks are 우 = ㅇ + ㅜ and 유 = ㅇ + ㅠ. Neither has a final consonant. The ㅇ at the top fills the initial position without making a sound. A syllable beginning with a vowel is not written with that position left empty.[1][2]

In 방 = ㅂ + ㅏ + ㅇ, however, the lower ㅇ is a final consonant. One meaning of this word is “room”, a space where people live or work.[5] Final ㅇ has the sound [ŋ]; it is not silent. Do not treat both the upper ㅇ in 우유 and the lower ㅇ in 방 as silent.[2]

Finding batchim and learning accurate pronunciation are separate steps. Other final consonants also have pronunciation rules when they meet a following syllable. The equations here show written composition, not pronunciation. Rather than inventing a Roman-letter spelling to read aloud, use the listening feature in an official dictionary entry such as 우유 in the Korean Basic Dictionary.

Match a saved 우산전기 to a real sign

The yellow business name on the blue sign is 우산전기.

We will use 우산전기, visible in this photograph, for a matching exercise. This is not a recommendation to visit or a claim that the business is currently operating. Imagine that you have saved 우산전기 in a phone note, and compare it with the large yellow lettering.

• Split the note into four blocks: 우 | 산 | 전 | 기. The separators are for practice; do not insert them into the actual name.

• The first block, 우 = ㅇ + ㅜ, has a circle above ㅜ. The next, 산 = ㅅ + ㅏ + ㄴ, has final ㄴ at the bottom.

• 전 = ㅈ + ㅓ + ㄴ also has final ㄴ. The short stroke of its right-hand vowel ㅓ points left; the short stroke of ㅏ in the preceding 산 points right.

• The last block, 기 = ㄱ + ㅣ, has no final consonant underneath. The photograph shows these four blocks in the same order as the note.

우산 and 전기 both have entries in the official dictionary.[6][7] That does not mean you should interpret 우산 in this business name immediately as “umbrella”. This is not an exercise in discovering the name's origin. It is an exercise in checking whether the Korean name you saved is the one written in the photograph.

When actually looking for a business, copy and save the complete Korean name from the business or your booking information. Do not stop after finding two prominent matching blocks: compare the rest of the name and any branch designation. Even the same name can belong to another branch, so checking the address and entrance remains a separate task. If handwriting or decorative lettering makes one block hard to identify, show a staff member the saved original rather than guessing and changing it.

There is a concrete exercise to do with these photographs: find the finals in 김밥, distinguish the initial ㅇ in 우유, then match the four blocks of 우산전기 to your note in order. You can use this visual comparison even before you can say the name perfectly. Meaning, pronunciation and grammar are further things to learn separately.

Official references

• [1] National Institute of Korean Language: Hangeul composition

• [2] National Institute of Korean Language: the sound value of ㅇ

• [3] Korean Basic Dictionary: 김밥

• [4] Korean Basic Dictionary: 우유

• [5] Korean Basic Dictionary: 방

• [6] Korean Basic Dictionary: 우산

• [7] Korean Basic Dictionary: 전기

Photo credits

• Cover: Choi Kwang-mo — 송학순대국 sign · CC0 1.0 · Whole-image reduction and JPEG recompression.

• 김밥: Hippietrail · CC0 1.0 · JPEG recompression.

• 우산전기: Choi Kwang-mo · CC0 1.0 · Camera orientation applied; whole-image reduction and JPEG recompression.