Compound Vowels

Compound vowels are built by combining the basic vowels you learned in Lesson 1-1. ㅑ, ㅕ, ㅛ, ㅠ are simply ㅏ, ㅓ, ㅗ, ㅜ with an extra short stroke that adds a 'y' sound at the front — so ㅑ is 'ya', ㅕ is 'yeo', and so on. The wider compounds like ㅘ, ㅝ, ㅚ, ㅟ combine two simple vowels into a true diphthong.

The most confusing pair for beginners is ㅐ vs ㅔ. Historically these were two different sounds, but in modern Seoul Korean they have merged into a single sound roughly like English 'eh'. You will still see both spellings in different words (애 vs 에), but you do not need to worry about distinguishing them in pronunciation. Practice reading words that use the compounds you have already learned in syllable blocks — vowels become real as soon as you see them inside actual Korean words rather than in isolation.