Fourteen consonants and ten vowels. Everything else in Korean writing is these letters combined — there is no second set to memorise later, and no characters beyond them.
Hangul Orthography (한글 맞춤법), Article 4Learn Hangul
You can learn to read Korean this week.
Not a claim — an arithmetic fact. Korean writing has 24 letters, and those 24 are built from 8 shapes. Below is where each shape came from, and what to do with it.
The numbers
Five consonant shapes drawn from the mouth, and three vowel marks — heaven, earth, person. Every other letter is one of these with a stroke or a dot added. Learn eight and the rest follow.
Hunminjeongeum Haerye (훈민정음 해례본), 144619 initials × 21 medials × 28 finals. You never learn a syllable as a unit — you assemble it, the way you assemble a word from letters in English.
Unicode Hangul Syllables, U+AC00–U+D7A3Most writing systems drifted into their present shape over centuries. Hangul was designed by King Sejong and his scholars, and the reasoning behind every letter was published in 1446 — so we can read why each shape is what it is.
Hunminjeongeum, promulgated 1446 (created 1443)The Hunminjeongeum Haerye — the book explaining the design — is on the UNESCO Memory of the World Register. UNESCO also names its global literacy award after King Sejong.
UNESCO Memory of the World Register (1997); UNESCO King Sejong Literacy Prize (est. 1989)A letter maps to a sound, and the mapping barely changes. Once you know the 24, you can read a Korean word aloud correctly without knowing what it means — something English spelling does not allow.
Revised Romanization of Korean (국어의 로마자 표기법)A featural alphabet
In most alphabets the shape of a letter tells you nothing about the sound. In Hangul it does twice over: the basic shape tells you where in the mouth the sound is made, and an added stroke tells you it is made harder. Linguists call a writing system with that property featural — Hangul is the one in everyday use.
ㄱgㅋkone stroke = one puff of air, in every family
Geoffrey Sampson, Writing Systems (1985), ch. 7Six words you will be able to read first
See all나무namutree
아기agibaby
오이oicucumber
우유uyumilk
코konose
비birain
The path, start to finish
14 consonants · 10 vowels1Consonants14 letters from 5 mouth shapes. See where each sound is made.2Vowels10 letters from 3 marks — heaven, earth, person.3Build a syllableStack the letters into a block. Then read the whole 14 × 10 chart aloud.4Final consonantsThe letter under the block. Twenty-seven of them, seven sounds.5Sound changesWhy 학교 is said 학꾜. Nine rules, and a box for your own words.6Read real wordsNo final consonant, then one, then the few sound changes.7Type itAn on-screen 두벌식 keyboard. No IME to install.8Particles and grammarTwenty short notes on where beginners actually get stuck.9PractiseMarked as you type, and anything you miss comes back.10Say it out loudRepeat a line after the voice, or hold a short conversation turn by turn. Your browser listens — nothing is recorded.