LinguaShapes with a reason
The consonants of hangul are not arbitrary marks: each one is a picture of what the mouth does. ㄱ is the back of the tongue rising, ㄴ is the tongue tip touching behind the teeth, ㅁ is the closed lips seen from the front, and ㅅ is the narrow gap air hisses through. Once you see the picture, the letter stops being a shape to memorise.
Two strokes in one, and two strokes in one again. Both are drawn without lifting the finger.
The second is the first with a lid, and the third is the second with another turn – the letters grow out of each other.
A closed square: the lips shut, seen from the front. Three strokes, and the last one closes the floor.
| Letter | Sounds like | A block with it |
|---|---|---|
| ㄱ | g | 가 |
| ㄴ | n | 나 |
| ㄷ | d | 다 |
| ㄹ | r | 라 |
| ㅁ | m | 마 |
Put any of them in front of a vowel and you have a readable block. The consonant takes the left side when the vowel stands upright, and the top when the vowel lies flat: 가 and 고 are the same two letters in two different arrangements.
나무a tree
머리a head
Words in this lesson
| Word | Meaning | Example |
|---|---|---|
| 나무 | tree | 나무가 커요. The tree is big. |
| 머리 | head | 머리가 아파요. My head hurts. |
| 다리 | leg | 다리가 길어요. The legs are long. |
| 가구 | furniture | 가구가 많아요. There is a lot of furniture. |
| 라디오 | radio | 라디오를 들어요. I listen to the radio. |
| 나 | I | 나는 학생이에요. I am a student. |
Exercises
This lesson has 8 exercises in the app:
- multiple choice: 3
- trace the letter: 2
- fill the gap: 1
- match the pairs: 1
- listen and type: 1
Try the first one
Which letter is a picture of the closed lips?
The answer, the other exercises, the audio and your progress are in the app – free at A0 and A1.