ㄱ ㄴ ㄷ ㄹ ㅁ ㅂ ㅅ ㅈ ㅎ — where the blockage happens, and why some of these letters look like the inside of your mouth.
Reference only — we recommend against learning from it. Here is why.
A vowel is air escaping freely. A consonant is air being interfered with. So for every consonant there are only three questions: where is the blockage, how complete is it, and what happens to the air afterwards.
ㄱ
[k] · [ɡ] between vowelsga
The blockage is as far back as your tongue can reach.
Hump the back of your tongue upward until it presses against the soft part of the roof of your mouth, well behind the hard part.
The seal is complete — for a moment, no air moves at all.
Drop the tongue and let the air go. Gently. Very little air should come out.
Your throat stays relaxed through all of this.
Check yourself
Paper strip in front of your lips. It should barely twitch. If it jumps, you are making the aspirated letter from lesson 5.
Where English gets in the way
English “g” switches your vocal folds on before the release; Korean ㄱ at the start of a word has no buzz at all. And you do not have to do anything about it later — sitting between two vowels, this letter picks up a buzz automatically.
Read these
gagufurniture
gogimeat
ㄴ
[n]na
Tongue tip forward, and the air is redirected out of your nose.
Put the tip of your tongue on the ridge of gum just behind your top front teeth.
Let the soft flap at the back of your palate drop, opening the passage up into your nose.
Turn on your voice. The air leaves through your nostrils, not your mouth.
Check yourself
Pinch your nose shut while holding the sound. It should stop dead. If it keeps going, the air is coming out the wrong way.
Where English gets in the way
Almost the same as English. This one is nearly free.
Read these
naI, me
nunaolder sister (of a male speaker)
ㄷ
[t] · [d] between vowelsda
Same tongue position as ㄴ, but the nose is shut and the air is trapped.
Tongue tip on the same ridge as ㄴ.
Keep the passage to your nose closed this time.
Air builds for an instant behind the tongue, then you drop the tip and release it — lightly.
Check yourself
Paper strip: barely a twitch, same as ㄱ.
Where English gets in the way
English “d” buzzes from the start and English “t” explodes with air. Korean ㄷ does neither: no buzz, almost no air.
Read these
dasiagain
dosicity
ㄹ
[ɾ] at the start · [l] at the bottomra
Not an English R and not an English L. It is a single, fast tap.
Flick the tip of your tongue up so it brushes the ridge behind your top teeth — and immediately leaves.
The contact lasts a fraction of a second. The tongue never settles there.
Your tongue does not curl backward, and your lips do not round.
Check yourself
If you can hold the sound, it is wrong. This one physically cannot be held — it is a single movement.
Where English gets in the way
English R curls the tongue back and rounds the lips; English L parks the tongue and holds. Korean ㄹ at the start of a syllable does neither — it is closest to the quick tap in the middle of American “water”. At the bottom of a syllable it behaves differently, and lesson 8 covers that.
Read these
radioradio
uriwe, us
ㅁ
[m]ma
Lips shut, nose open. The letter is a picture of the closed mouth.
Press your lips together.
Drop the soft flap at the back of your palate so the air can go up into your nose.
Voice on. The sound comes out of your nostrils while your mouth stays shut.
Check yourself
Pinch your nose: the sound must stop.
Where English gets in the way
Nothing to unlearn. Same as English.
Read these
meorihead; hair
eomeonimother
ㅂ
[p] · [b] between vowelsba
Same closed lips as ㅁ, but the nose is shut, so pressure builds.
Lips together, firmly but not hard.
Passage to the nose closed.
Part your lips and let the small amount of trapped air out. Lightly.
Check yourself
Paper strip: a twitch, not a jump.
Where English gets in the way
English “b” buzzes; English “p” at the start of a word blasts air. Korean ㅂ sits in between, and closer to neither than you think.
Read these
badasea
bumoparents
ㅅ
[s] · [ɕ] before ㅣsa
The only one so far where the air never stops. It is squeezed, not blocked.
Bring the tip and front of your tongue close to the ridge behind your top teeth — close enough to leave a narrow slit, not close enough to touch.
Push air through the slit continuously. You should hear a thin, steady hiss.
Your throat stays relaxed and a little air leaks through with it.
Check yourself
You should be able to hold this sound for as long as your breath lasts. If it stops instantly, you are touching when you should be leaving a gap.
Where English gets in the way
English “s” is tighter and stronger. Korean ㅅ is softer and breathier — which is exactly why it needs a tense partner, coming in lesson 5. Also: in front of ㅣ, the body of your tongue rises toward the hard palate and the hiss turns into a hushing sound. You do not have to do that on purpose; it happens because the vowel pulls your tongue there.
Read these
saithe space between
socow
ㅈ
[t͡ɕ]ja
A blockage and a hiss glued together into one sound.
Press the front surface of your tongue — the blade, just behind the tip — up against the ridge and the front of the hard palate.
Stop the air completely for an instant.
Release, but only partway, so that the air comes out through a narrow slit for a moment. The result is a stop followed immediately by a short hiss.
Check yourself
Try it slowly and you will feel two events in one letter: a block, then a scrape. If you only feel one, you are producing a plain stop.
Where English gets in the way
English “j” buzzes from the very start. Korean ㅈ has no buzz at the beginning of a word — and, like ㄱ ㄷ ㅂ, it picks one up between vowels without you doing anything.
Read these
jariseat, place
jidomap
ㅎ
[h]ha
Nothing in your mouth blocks anything. The friction happens down in your throat.
Set your mouth up for whatever vowel is coming next — do not move your tongue for the ㅎ itself.
Push a breath up through your open throat so it rasps slightly on the way past.
Then let the vowel start.
Check yourself
Hand in front of your mouth: you should feel warm air, and nothing inside your mouth should have moved.
Where English gets in the way
Between two vowels, Korean speakers weaken this to almost nothing and sometimes drop it entirely. That is normal speech, not sloppiness — lesson 10 covers when.
Read these
hanaone
haruone day
Same vowel, different blockage
Every pair below changes only the consonant. If you can hear and produce these four, the place-of-articulation system is in your body.
navsda
Same tongue tip on the same ridge. The first sends air out the nose; the second traps it and releases.
mavsba
The same thing again, up at the lips.
gavsda
Same manner, different place: the back of the tongue versus the tip.
savsja
Continuous hiss versus block-then-hiss.
Practice this with an AI tutor
HanDa corrects every sentence you write or say — in real conversation, not flashcards.