ㅞ
Korean vowel · /we/
ㅞ is /we/ — the we in wet. It is the one vowel left out of the 20-vowel syllable chart, because it is the rarest of the 21 and barely occurs in real words. 4 of the 568 words in the dictionary behind this site contain it.
| Name | 웨 |
|---|---|
| Sound | /we/ |
| Romanized | we |
ㅞ in the syllable chart
It has no row of its own. The chart used in Korean classrooms lays out 20 vowels and leaves ㅞ out, so you will meet it in two other places instead: inside individual words, and as the second reading the standard allows for ㅚ — Article 4 lets 괴 be read either [괴] or [궤].
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.
Questions people ask
- How do you pronounce ㅞ? +
- ㅞ is /we/. In English terms it is the we in wet. It never appears on its own in writing — it always sits inside a syllable block with a consonant.
- How many strokes does ㅞ 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 ㅞ? +
- Rarely. Of the 568 words in the dictionary behind this site, only 4 contain ㅞ. It is worth recognising by sight, but you will not meet it often as a beginner.