한글 모음 ㅐ ㅒ ㅔ ㅖ 쓰기 연습

What is the difference between ㅐ and ㅔ in Korean?

ㅐ and ㅔ are written as two distinct vowels, romanised “ae” and “e,” but most modern Seoul speakers no longer clearly distinguish them — both tend to come out as a single “e” sound. So unlike most of Hangul, where spelling tells you the sound, here the two are hard to tell apart by ear: which letter a word takes is something you largely memorise, not something you sound out.

The two letters look the way they do for a historical reason: ㅐ began as ㅏ + ㅣ (a diphthong “ai”) and ㅔ as ㅓ + ㅣ (“eoi”), which is why each is built from a vowel plus ㅣ. Over the 20th century these flattened into single vowels and, in the Seoul dialect that became standard Korean, gradually merged — a change essentially complete for younger speakers today. The clip drills the full set — ㅐ ㅒ ㅔ ㅖ — pairing each plain vowel with its y-glide twin (ㅒ yae, ㅖ ye), which have merged the same way. Even native speakers occasionally mix them up in writing, so beginners are in good company.