First off – let me start by saying – I am not an expert in the Korean language. (So I might not be able to answer grammar questions) Like you who is reading this post – I am trying to learn Korean.

한국어 학생이다.

So why am I doing this? As an English / Filipino speaker – learning Korean was a bit difficult at first. Even until now, there are times when I get confused with all the grammar and vocabulary. So I’ve decided to create some posts which I think are useful for Korean language students. I am sharing lessons that I think can help.

For this first post, I’ve decided to write about Korean vowels.

Pain Point: English Vowels and Korean Vowels sound differently.

When I enrolled in my Korean class, I’ve noticed that one of the difficulties for English / Filipino speakers is the pronunciation of Korean vowels. Although some Korean vowels have an equivalent English sound – there are some that don’t exactly have the equivalent – like 어 and 으 . Even most romanizations don’t do justice – some sounds are faintly different.

So how did my teacher teach us? She made us do the Korean Vowel Song:

What did my teacher do? She played this to us 5 times and then asked us to repeat it. Then she made each one of us (students) rap one by one.

Why do I think it’s effective? First – it’s in rap! Korean style rap! As a Kpop fan – this format reminded me of Korean rap songs that I liked. Also, songs do help learning languages and sounds – remember your ABC’s. Second – repetition! The more you repeat it, the more it get’s retained. The nice thing about this type of repetition though is I did not feel boring.

This song helped me learn the differences between Korean vowel pronunciation. I hope this helps you too.

Disclaimer for these post series..

I am not the one who created most of these materials and they are widely available online.
I only choose those which I have used myself and I found were effective for me.
Since people have differently learning styles, not all of these materials might work for you.

Credits: Kai_bunny@episode + Andrew Kim@youtube

-chipskjaa (“,)