ㅙ
Korean vowel · /wɛ/
ㅙ is /wɛ/ — the we in wet, with a more open vowel than ㅞ. It appears in 19 cells of the syllable chart, 1 of which have audio you can play here. 5 of the 568 words in the dictionary behind this site contain it.
| Name | 왜 |
|---|---|
| Sound | /wɛ/ |
| Romanized | wae |
| Hear it | Recorded by a native Korean speaker |
ㅙ in the syllable chart
1 cells have their own recording, 0 borrow one from an identically pronounced syllable, and 18 have none yet.
괘gwae
꽤kkwae
놰nwae
돼dwae
뙈ttwae
뢔rwae
뫠mwae
봬bwae
뽸ppwae
쇄swae
쐐sswae
왜wae
좨jwae
쫴jjwae
쵀chwae
쾌kwae
퇘twae
퐤pwae
홰hwae
Letters it gets confused with
ㅙ · ㅚ · ㅞ
All three are pronounced [we] by most speakers today, but the standard separates them: ㅚ is a monophthong [ø], ㅙ is [wɛ] and ㅞ is [we]. Article 4 allows ㅚ to be read as a diphthong too, which is why the ㅚ cells on this site show two readings.
In real speech: In everyday speech the three are hard to tell apart. Spelling still distinguishes them, so they are worth recognising by sight even if not by ear.
Words that use ㅙ
- 돼요is possible
- 돼지pig
- 쇄국isolation
- 왜why
- 왜곡distortion
Questions people ask
- How do you pronounce ㅙ? +
- ㅙ is /wɛ/. In English terms it is the we in wet, with a more open vowel than ㅞ. It never appears on its own in writing — it always sits inside a syllable block with a consonant.
- How many strokes does ㅙ have? +
- 5. They are written top to bottom and left to right, the same order used for every Korean letter.
- Do Korean words actually use ㅙ? +
- Rarely. Of the 568 words in the dictionary behind this site, only 5 contain ㅙ. It is worth recognising by sight, but you will not meet it often as a beginner.