ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a concise introduction to Hangul and the sounds of Korean that are associated to it and introduces the names of the characters and the way that they are written syllabically. It also provides basic guidelines regarding how each of the 40 Hangul letter shapes should most normally be pronounced. Korean is a language with approximately 82 million speakers which include 51 million in South Korea, 25 million in North Korea, and nearly 6 million outside of Korea – mainly in China, the United States, Japan, and central Asia. Korean has a number of characteristic features that distinguish it from other languages, particularly English and European languages. The linguistic affinity of Korean to other languages is still disputable. As in any language, Korean words can be classified into several different classes according to the way they are used. Every language has full sentences in which all constituents are present, and elliptical sentences in which certain words are dropped.
