코리아
Korea · official romanization Koria
Watch it come together
The short video for this post. Tap play to watch it from Facebook.
Build it step by step
The letters of each block, then the block they build. Tap a play button to hear it.
Red first consonantBlue vowelBlack final consonant (batchim)
Block 1: 코 [ko]
2 letters
First consonant
키읔 kieuk
[k]k with a strong puff of air
Vowel
[o]o as in “go”, without the w glide
Built block · vowel underneath
ㅋ + ㅗ =
코
Block 2: 리 [ri]
2 letters
First consonant
리을 rieul
[r]r as a quick tap of the tongue
Vowel
[i]i as in “see”
Built block · vowel on the right
ㄹ + ㅣ =
리
Block 3: 아 [a]
2 letters
First consonant
이응 ieung
[silent]silent at the start: it only holds the place
Vowel
[a]a as in “father”
Built block · vowel on the right
ㅇ + ㅏ =
아
All blocks together
코 + 리 + 아 =
코리아
Spelling vs. sound
Koreans call their own country 한국 (Hanguk). 코리아 is the English name written in Hangul, used in names like 팀 코리아 (Team Korea). Its official romanization is Koria.
Say it ko-ri-a, three even beats instead of the English kuh-REE-uh. ㅋ is a k with a strong puff of air, ㄹ between vowels is a quick tap like the “tt” in American “better”, and the ㅇ at the start of 아 is silent, so the last block is just the vowel a.
Why write 아 and not just ㅏ? Every block has to start with a consonant, so a silent ㅇ fills the first slot when a syllable starts with a vowel sound.
Read any Korean word like this
Learn all 40 Hangul letters and how they build blocks, then paste any Korean sentence into LingoLab Korean for its meaning, grammar and pronunciation.