Korean Vowel Stroke Order: How to Write Hangul Vowels
Hangul vowels look deceptively simple — a couple of straight lines each. The part that trips learners up is not the shape but the order and the direction: which line goes down first, and which way the short tick points.
The animation writes each vowel the standard way, with a numbered dot at every stroke's starting point. Watch ㅏ and ㅓ back to back — they are mirror images, and their stroke order flips accordingly.
Tap a vowel to jump to it · “Slower” halves the writing speed
Vertical vowels, horizontal vowels
Every Hangul vowel is built from three pieces: a long vertical line, a long horizontal line, and short ticks. Which long line a vowel uses decides where it sits inside a syllable block — and that matters the moment you start writing real words.
- Vertical vowels (ㅏ ㅑ ㅓ ㅕ ㅣ ㅐ ㅒ ㅖ) stand to the right of the consonant. 한 = ㅎ + ㅏ side by side, with ㄴ underneath.
- Horizontal vowels (ㅗ ㅛ ㅜ ㅠ ㅡ) sit below the consonant. 구 = ㄱ on top, ㅜ underneath.
- The long line is not always first. For ㅏ the vertical line leads and the tick follows; for ㅓ the tick comes first, because it sits to the left. Left before right wins over "big stroke first".
- Ticks are written top to bottom. In ㅑ and ㅒ, the upper tick always precedes the lower one.
The basic vowels
| Vowel | Romanized | Sounds like | Position | Strokes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ㅏ | a | a in “father” | right | 2 |
| ㅑ | ya | ya in “yard” | right | 3 |
| ㅓ | eo | uh in “duh” | right | 2 |
| ㅕ | yeo | yu in “young” | right | 3 |
| ㅗ | o | o in “go” | below | 2 |
| ㅛ | yo | yo in “yoga” | below | 3 |
| ㅜ | u | oo in “food” | below | 2 |
| ㅠ | yu | yu in “you” | below | 3 |
| ㅡ | eu | no English match — lips flat, tongue back | below | 1 |
| ㅣ | i | ee in “see” | right | 1 |
| ㅐ | ae | e in “bed” | right | 3 |
| ㅖ | ye | ye in “yes” | right | 4 |
| ㅒ | yae | yae in “yeah” | right | 4 |
In modern speech ㅐ and ㅔ have merged for most Korean speakers, so 개 and 게 sound effectively identical — but they are still spelled differently, and still written differently.
Now write it yourself
Pick a vowel and trace the faint guide, starting at each numbered dot. Pay attention to the direction of the short ticks: writing ㅏ's tick right-to-left instead of left-to-right is the single most common beginner habit to unlearn.
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Keep going
- Consonant stroke order All 14 basic consonants, ㄱ to ㅎ, plus the five rules behind them.
- Whole words 한글, 안녕, 하늘, 대박 — how letters stack into syllable blocks.
Vowels are step one. Then comes real Korean.
KorKers checks your handwriting stroke by stroke, trains your pronunciation, and moves you on to the Korean people actually speak — slang, memes, and everyday phrases.