KONGLE
Level 0 · Unit 2 · Consonants · 6 min

Basic Consonants 1: ㄱ ㄴ ㄷ ㄹ ㅁ

Read and pronounce the consonants ㄱ, ㄴ, ㄷ, ㄹ, ㅁ and combine them with known vowels to read real words.

  1. Letter 1 of 5
    ㄱ
    기역 g

    A single stroke bending at a right angle, like a flag pole — a light 'k' at the start of a word, turning into 'g' as in go between vowels.

    고기 gogi meat
노래 norae song

노래 shows up everywhere in K-pop — a 노래방 (norae-bang) is a 'song room', the Korean word for karaoke room.

Say it out loud

어머니 eomeoni mother

Listen, then repeat aloud. Matching the rhythm matters more than perfection.

Why? Consonants finally make a sound

So far every syllable started with silent ㅇ — it was just a placeholder. Real consonants like ㄱ, ㄴ, ㄷ, ㄹ, ㅁ actually change the sound. Pair any of them with a vowel you already know — ㄱ + ㅏ makes 가 (ga) — and you can read a real syllable. One thing to know before you start: Korean has no b/p or g/k pair the way English does. Instead, the same letter sounds lighter at the start of a word and voiced between vowels. That's why 고기 ('meat') is written gogi but sounds closer to 'ko-gi' — the first ㄱ opens the word, the second sits between two vowels. You don't have to do anything about this; just don't be surprised when the romanization and the sound seem to disagree.

Common questions

Sometimes ㄱ sounds like 'g' and sometimes like 'k'. Which one is right?

Both — the position decides. At the start of a word ㄱ is the unvoiced 'k' of sky (no puff of air). Between vowels it becomes a voiced 'g' as in go. So 고기 (meat) is closer to 'ko-gi' than to 'go-gi'. Starting a word with a hard English 'g' is the single most common English-speaker habit in Korean, and it is hard to undo later — so it is worth getting right now.

Check yourself

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