Week 2 Review: Reading Practice

By the end of this lesson you can:

• Recall all 11 compound vowels from Lessons 6–7 (sound and formation) without prompts
• Name the 7 받침 sound groups and the consonants that belong to each
• Read 15 Korean words cold and match 8 more to the correct pronunciation rule (linking, nasalisation, tensing)

TOPIK 1 skills: Reading Hangul: pronunciation rules.

No new content. This lesson tests everything from the past four days: compound vowels, 받침, and pronunciation rules. The goal is to read Korean words the way they actually sound.

Review objectives

1. Recall all 11 compound vowels from Lessons 6 and 7 without prompts
2. Name the 7 받침 sound groups and which consonants belong to each
3. Apply the three pronunciation rules: Linking, Nasalisation, Tensing
4. Read 15 Korean words cold, producing the spoken (not written) pronunciation
5. Match 8 words to their correct pronunciation rule

RECALL: This lesson reviews everything from Week 2: Lesson 6 (Compound Vowels 1: ㅐ ㅔ ㅚ ㅟ ㅢ), Lesson 7 (Compound Vowels 2: ㅘ ㅝ ㅙ ㅞ ㅒ ㅖ), Lesson 8 (받침: the 7 final consonant sounds), and Lesson 9 (the pronunciation rules: Linking, Nasalisation, Tensing).

Part 1 · Compound Vowel Recall

All 11 compound vowels: say them first

Cover the Romanization and Formation columns. Say each vowel’s sound aloud, then name the two jamo that combine to make it, before checking. Mark any hesitations. Those need more drill time tonight. Remember: the letter itself is the jamo; the example syllable adds silent ㅇ in front.

TIP: Most common stumbles: ㅚ/ㅙ/ㅞ (외/왜/웨). All three sound like “weh” in spoken Korean. The distinction is only in spelling. And ㅢ (의) has three different sounds depending on position. If either of those felt uncertain, note them down.

Part 2 · 받침 Sound Groups

All 7 받침 sounds: name the group members

Cover the right-hand column. For each 받침 sound, name the consonants that produce that sound at the bottom of a syllable block before checking.

Part 3 · Cold Reading Challenge

Read these 15 words: produce the spoken form

Read each word aloud as a Korean speaker would actually say it. Apply linking, nasalisation, or tensing where needed. Only after you have read all 15 aloud, check both the spoken form and the meaning in the Answer Key at the end of the lesson.

Part 4 · Rule Match

Which rule? Written → Spoken

Each row shows a written word. Before checking the Answer Key, identify which of the three rules is at work: Linking (연음), Nasalisation (비음화), or Tensing (경음화). Then say the spoken form aloud.

Part 5 · Self-Assessment

How did Week 2 land?

Count your cold reading hits from Part 3: words where you produced the correct spoken form before checking the Answer Key. Be honest about the rule-match section too. That gives you a score out of 23.

Your Week 2 score (out of 23)

TIP: Pronunciation rules take time to become automatic. If the rules section felt hard, that’s completely normal at this stage. Linking, nasalisation, and tensing become instinctive through listening exposure, not through drilling rule tables. The priority right now is recognition: knowing why something sounds different. The automaticity follows.

CULTURE: 두 주 완료 (Two Weeks Complete). 두 (du) means “two” and 주 (ju) means “week”: 두 주 is two weeks. You’ve just completed Week 2 of a 28-week journey. In two weeks you’ve gone from zero to being able to read and sound out virtually any Korean word, knowing all 24 letters, all 21 vowels, 받침 structure, and the three core pronunciation rules that explain how written Korean becomes spoken Korean. Most learners reaching this point start to feel a genuine shift: Korean text stops looking like noise and starts looking like something readable. If that’s starting to happen for you, it’s real, and it’s going to keep accelerating from here.

Homework

1. Write all 21 vowels from memory (10 basic, 11 compound) with their romanization. This is your last pure Hangul drill. From Lesson 11, the focus shifts to vocabulary and real sentences.
2. Say these ten words aloud with correct spoken pronunciation (no peeking at the rules): 있어요 먹어요 학교 식당 국물 좋아요 한국어 음악 읽어요 입문.
3. Do a full deck review: all vocabulary from Lessons 1–9. You have around 30–35 words in your deck at this point. Clear out anything fully known; flag anything still shaky.
4. Week 3 preview: Lesson 11 is Greetings and Farewells, your first proper vocabulary lesson with 15 new words. You’ll finally start building phrases and understanding real Korean conversation. The script foundation work is done.
5. Celebrate a little. Two full weeks of foundation work is genuinely hard and most people who start Korean don’t get this far. You now read Hangul. That’s not nothing. That’s the thing.

Answer Key

Part 3 · Cold Reading Challenge

Part 4 · Rule Match