A character in Korean can be a combination of more than two parts. Let's take a look at the following sentence:
| 에릭이 뭐 해요? | What is Erik doing? erigi mwo haeyo? |
There are a couple of new characters here, let's take a look.
- 릭 consists of ㄹ(r/l), ㅣ(i), and ㄱ(k/g) and provides a rik sound.
에릭 = Erik, and the 이 marks 에릭 as the subject of the sentence. - 뭐 consists of ㅁ(m), ㅜ(u), and ㅓ(eo) and provides a mwo sound.
뭐 = what - 해 consists of ㅎ(h) and ㅐ(ae) and provides a hae sound.
해다 = to do
A character can even be composed of four parts. See the following sentence:
| 에릭이 읽어요 | Erik is reading. erigi ilgeoyo |
Here we have a new verb, 읽다, which means to read. The character 읽 consists of four parts.
- ㅇ, marking that there is no initial consonant (the word starts with a vowel)
- ㅣ(the i sound)
- ㄹ(the r/l sound)
- ㄱ(the k/g sound)
All these symbols may be a bit much at the moment, but if you just stick with with us a little while longer, it will feel natural soon. That's a promise!
In the next lesson we'll learn how to type these Korean characters, but for now let's get started learning to read some new words!
