my-korean1-2nd-ed

42
Other Pure Vowels
UNIT 2 한글
In English there are five pure vowels: ‘a’, ‘e’, ‘i’, ‘o’ and ‘u’. There are also
many combination vowels, like ‘ea’ in the word wheat, ‘oi’ in the word noise,
and ‘ou’ in house. The word Canada illustrates a major problem in learning to
pronounce English. The same letter, in this case ‘a’, can have more than one
pronunciation. But happily, in Korean each vowel symbol always represents
the same sound. So once you’ve learnt the symbols, you will always know
how to pronounce the correct sound.
There are nine pure vowels:
(1) ㅏ a (as in Canada)
(2) ㅐ ae (as in Canada)
(3) ㅓ eo (as in computer)
(4) ㅔ e (as in bed)
(5) ㅜ u (as in book)
(6) ㅣ i (as in see)
(7) ㅚ oe (as in wet)
The last two pure vowels are harder to pronounce as there are no direct
equivalents in English.
(8) ㅡ eu (If you say ‘the cat sat on the mat’ stressing ‘cat and
mat’, the sound of the unstressed ‘e’ in the ‘the’ is close
to this vowel.)
(9) ㅗ o (This is the hardest to get right. It is somewhere between
the ‘o’ in hope and the ‘or’ in horde. The sound comes
from the front of the mouth with your lips forming a
circle.)