Six Korean Complex Vowels Starting With W As In Wet Or Wheel

Dealing With These Six Korean Complex Vowels

If you're already familiar with Korean Hangul, then you might know about Korean complex vowels.

There are a total of eleven complex vowels, but in this post, we discuss the six complex vowels starting with the sound "w" as in wet or wheel.

The vowels are as follows (we have included the vowel on it's own and also as part of a syllable too.

While they might look difficult to deal with, the good news is three of them sound very similar with the sound we as in wet.

They have been color coded orange in the table above and are:

ㅙ which is written in a syllable as 왜 and often Romanized as wae
ㅞ which is written in a syllable as 웨 and often Romanized as we
ㅚ which is written in a syllable as 외 and often Romanized as wae

The sound formed by ㅚ does seem to be different to what would normally be expected.

One handy tip is to think of the ㅗ character as an upside down umbrella, so the second character can be thought of as a man  "ㅣ" with an upside down umbrella, which means he is getting wet from the rain.

To help you remember everything, we've included these flashcards for your to practice these complex vowels.

Flash Cards Below 

There are multiple options to choose from. We recommend starting with the flash card option. If you have any technical difficulties, the cards can also be accessed directly here.

Note: The Romanized sounds are just approximates and the sounds from Quizlet are for reference. It's always best to check your pronunciation with a professional Korean teacher.

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