Korean Keyboard

THE KOREAN KEYBOARD - page 3

... Identifying other keyboard patterns ...

- PAGE 1 - PAGE 2 - PAGE 3 - PAGE 4 - Worksheet -

Links to other Korean resources -- at the bottom of this page.

KEYBOARD PATTERNS

Logical Layout. When studying Korean, you will hear many praises for the logic of Hangul. That same logic appears in the keyboard layout. First of all, the consonants are on the left half and the vowels are on the right half. There are more logical patterns shown below.

Keyboard Pattern 1 shows which keys produce different characters when pressed at the same time as the "shift" key. The consonants, to the left, produce double characters. The vowels, to the right, produce "Y" vowels. The blank keys in the graphic (except for punctuation marks to the right) only produce one character, even when using the "shift" key.

Keyboard Pattern 2 shows which characters have a "Y" sound at the beginning of the character. Notice that only vowels have the "Y" sound at the beginning -- there are no consonants (characters on the left side of the keyboard) with a "Y" at the beginning.

Keyboard Pattern 3 shows the two vowels that do not have a "Y" component in Hangul.

Keyboard Pattern 4 shows the standing (vertical) vowels. The arrows also show the vowels among these standing characters that have a "Y" at the beginning.

Keyboard Pattern 5 shows the laying (horizontal) characters. The arrow between the top two characters shows from "Y" to "not Y." The arrows in the bottom row show from "Y" to "not Y" to a "flat line". The bottom row characters can also be thought of based on the number of vertical lines - "2, 1, 0."

Keyboard Pattern 6 shows the relationship from non-aspirated to aspirated consonants. When spoken, these characters frequently sound the same to unfamiliar ears -- although the aspirated consonants are actually pronounced with with a puff of air that makes the consonant sound 'stronger'.

There is only one set of keys not covered in any of the figures above. The five keys on the middle left row don't seem to have any identifiable pattern in relation to the other keys except for the fact that they are consonants, and therefore belong on the left side of the keyboard.

MORE PAGES

PAGE 4 - Some tips for practice and application of keyboard knowledge.

PAGE 5 - The final page in this web site provides a worksheet. Keep the mnemonic devices and keyboard patterns in mind when filling in the blank keys.

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If you have suggestions or questions....send e-mail to the keyboard@cjkboard.com

Last reviewed/updated March 11, 2006