How to Write Korean

Stroke orders: It is important to learn correct stroke orders from the beginning. Let’s begin with two general principles of Korean writing.
a) Everything “horizontal” moves from “left-to-right”. This applies to the movement of individual strokes, as well as to writing a sequence of letters (e.g. the consonant first, then the vowel).
b) Everything “vertical” moves from “top-to-bottom”.

How to combine a consonant with a vowel: Any written syllable in 한글 must begin with a consonant sign. This means that even when the syllable contains no spoken consonants (i.e., when it begins with a vowel in pronunciation), you still have to start the syllable with the little circle ㅇ representing a “zero” consonant, as you have learned already. A vowel letter is placed to the right of, or below the initial consonant. Possible patterns, therefore, are as follows:

The final consonant of a syllable (if it has one) is placed directly below the preceding consonant and vowel, regardless of how they are arranged (i.e., whether horizontally or vertically). The possible combinations are:

A block forming a syllable with three letters (C – V – C) will naturally be more congested than a block with two letters (C – V). However, each syllable (or block) should be approximately of the same size, regardless of the number of letters contained in it. It is, therefore, necessary to make the size of the letters smaller when a syllable contains three or four letters, as you can see in the examples below (don’t worry about how to pronounce these for now – they are here to demonstrate written syllable composition). Those syllables with four signs in them will have the shape:

Structure of Written Syllables

These notes concern the written structure of syllables, that is, how syllables are recorded and dealt with in the writing system, not how they are pronounced.
a) If the vowel letter has a long vertical stroke, then the vowel letter is written to the right of the initial consonant sign.

b) If the vowel letter has a long horizontal stroke, then the vowel letter is written below the initial consonant letter.

c) If the vowel letter has both a long vertical stroke and a long horizontal stroke, then the (diphthong) vowel letter is written in such a way as to fit under and to the right of the initial consonant letter.

d) It is possible to have a written syllable with two consonant letters filling the final position.

But note that in the pronunciation, the double ss, double kk, nc( and lm at the end of each syllable are reduced to –t, –k, –n, –m respectively. This is because no vowel yet follows, and so the Korean is “stuck” on a consonant which he or she cannot yet release.

Structure of Pronounced Syllables

The following notes concern only the structure of pronounced syllables, not written forms.a) Sometimes, Korean pronounced syllables follow Korean written syllables closely (if we ignore the technicality that an initial ㅇ is a consonant, but not pronounced):

b) But other times, the written structure tries to preserve consistency where, in pronunciation, changes occur. Thus, the final consonant of a preceding syllable is pronounced as the initial consonant sound of the following syllable when the following syllable begins with a vowel:

Note that in earlier times, when the Korean spelling system was less consistent, these would have been written 바다요 and 머거요.

c) If the syllable has two different final consonants before a vowel-initial syllable, then the first of these closes the first phonetic syllable, and the second begins the following phonetic syllable:

(1) Republic of Korea (South Korea)

(Read from left to right.)

Consonant Order

Vowel Order (within the Zero ‘consonant’ sign –/ng ㅇ )

There are three variations on the South Korean ordering:
a) Ignore double consonants except where entries are otherwise the same.
b) Ignore double consonants except where entries are otherwise the same, but  keep a difference for final double consonants analogous to that of the singlets:

c) Recognize double consonants both initially and finally, making separate places for the initial double consonants (as in parentheses above), and keeping the final double consonants in the order shown in (2).

(2) Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea)

In North Korea, they place the doubled consonants and all the vowel signs at the back of the dictionary:
Consonant Order

 Vowel Order (within the Zero ‘consonant’ sign –/ng ㅇ )