Build Hangul Syllable Blocks, Letter by Letter

How Hangul syllable blocks are formed

Korean is written in blocks, with the letters of the Korean alphabet stacked together instead of running along a line. Each block is one syllable: a first consonant, a vowel and sometimes a final consonant, packed into a square. There are 11,172 possible Hangul syllable blocks, and every one of them follows the same few layout rules.

The vowel decides most of it. Tall vowels such as ㅏ, ㅓ and ㅣ stand to the right of the first consonant, so ㄱ and ㅏ make 가. Flat vowels (ㅗ ㅛ ㅜ ㅠ ㅡ) lie under it, so ㄱ and ㅗ make 고. Combined vowels (ㅘ ㅙ ㅚ ㅝ ㅞ ㅟ ㅢ) are a flat vowel and a tall one together, so they wrap around the consonant, as in 와. A final consonant, called batchim, goes along the bottom, like the ㄴ in 한. And a syllable can't start with a vowel. When it sounds like it does, it's written with a silent ㅇ in front, which is why “a” is 아 and never ㅏ on its own.

Once you know those rules, learning how to write Hangul is mostly a question of where each letter goes. That's what the Hangul Block Builder trains. You tap the letters, the block builds itself as you type, and a diagram under it shows where each letter sits, with a one-line reason such as “ㅗ is a flat vowel, so it lies under ㄱ.”

How the Hangul quiz works

The Hangul quiz starts with what to practice. There are five kinds to pick from, running from simple Korean syllable blocks to whole words, and you can mix any of them:

• Consonant + vowel: 140 syllables such as 가, 노 and 미, made from the 14 basic consonants and the 10 basic vowels.
• More vowels and double consonants: 111 real syllables such as 개, 와 and 꼬.
• With a final consonant: 708 real syllables such as 한, 곰 and 밖.
• Double finals: 36 real syllables such as 닭, 값, 읽 and 없.
• Whole words: 728 beginner words with English meanings, such as 학교 and 사랑.

Then choose how you're prompted: the spelling in English letters, or the Hangul itself to copy. Copying is the gentler start, because you can see the block and only have to find its letters. The English prompt makes you put the block together yourself.

A round keeps going until you press Stop, with a running count of right and wrong answers. Get one wrong and the page shows the right block with its layout diagram. If you made one of the common mistakes, such as leaving out the silent ㅇ or typing the wrong final (or none), it tells you which. Stop shows your score and a list of the ones you missed, each with its letters, so 닭 appears as ㄷ ㅏ ㄹ ㄱ. The “Practice my mistakes” button gives you those again. A round of Hangul practice takes as long as you want it to, on a phone or a computer, and you can stop whenever you like.

Typing like a real Korean keyboard

The letters behave the way they do on a real Korean keyboard (the 2-set layout, called dubeolsik). You type a block in the order you'd say it, and the keyboard works out where each letter goes. A consonant typed after a vowel becomes the final. If a vowel comes next, that consonant moves on to start the next block, so 한 followed by ㅏ becomes 하나. It looks like a bug the first time. It isn't.

Vowels and finals can also combine. Two vowels typed in a row join, so ㅗ then ㅏ makes ㅘ. Two finals join too, so ㄹ then ㄱ makes ㄺ.

On a computer you can type on your own keyboard, with no Korean keyboard to set up: the keys follow the Korean layout by position, so R is ㄱ, K is ㅏ and Shift+R is ㄲ. Enter checks your answer and Backspace undoes. On a phone, tap the keys on screen.

Why 닭 is spelled dalg but said dak

The English prompt spells each block letter for letter, using Revised Romanization (RR) as a transliteration. It shows what's written, not what you hear. That can look wrong at first. 닭 is spelled dalg, because its letters are ㄷ ㅏ ㄹ ㄱ, but it's said dak. 곧, 곳 and 곶 all sound like “got”, yet they're spelled god, gos and goj.

There's a reason for this. If the prompt spelled by sound, three different blocks would get the same prompt, and you'd have no way of knowing which one we meant. Spelled letter for letter, every block has exactly one spelling, so there's always one right answer.

For whole words, the page shows both. 학교 is spelled hag gyo, one chunk per block, and said hakgyo. The spelling tells you what to type. The other line tells you how it sounds.

Batchim, double finals and the silent ㅇ

The page watches for two kinds of mistake: a wrong or missing final, and a missing silent ㅇ. Both are worth knowing before you start.

Batchim is the final consonant at the bottom of a block. In 한 it's ㄴ, in 곰 it's ㅁ, and in 밖 it's the double consonant ㄲ. A double final is two different consonants side by side along the bottom: ㄹ and ㄱ in 닭 and 읽, ㅂ and ㅅ in 값 and 없. They don't always sound like they're there. 닭 is said dak, so you hear the ㄱ but not the ㄹ, and typing what you hear leaves the ㄹ out.

The silent ㅇ is the second. A block can't start with a vowel, so a syllable that begins with a vowel sound gets an ㅇ in front, and that ㅇ makes no sound. Leave it out and you've typed a lone vowel, not a syllable: 아, not ㅏ.

What's included, and what isn't

The syllables and words come from the learner vocabulary list of the National Institute of Korean Language (NIKL). The English meanings come from Wiktionary. The 140 basic syllables are every pairing of the 14 basic consonants with the 10 basic vowels. The other sets hold only real syllables, not every block the Korean alphabet allows.

There's no audio. The tool teaches you to read and build blocks, and the “said” line on whole words is as close as it gets to pronunciation. It's free, with no signup and no app, and it works in the browser on a phone or a computer. We count page opens, rounds started and roughly how many answers each round had, never what you typed.

This is Hangul practice for building and typing blocks, not for handwriting. For stroke order, the Hangul worksheet generator makes printable sheets for single letters, the 가나다 chart and words by level. Write a sheet by hand, then practice online here until you can build the same blocks without looking. For the same exercises on paper, with an answer key, the Hangul block worksheets print fill-the-slots, split-the-block and batchim sheets.

Frequently asked questions

Licenses and credits

The Korean word list is the 한국어 학습용 어휘 목록 of the National Institute of Korean Language (KOGL Type 1), with English meanings from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA) and romanization by koroman (MIT).