Script guide › East Asian
How to recognize Korean (Hangul)
Korean (Hangul) is one of 3 languages in Grafle's East Asian group. Here's what it looks like, where you'll see it on signs, and how to tell it apart from its lookalikes.
Spot it fast
- Circles and ovals (ㅇ) inside neat syllable blocks — circles mean Korean.
What Korean (Hangul) looks like
모든 인간은 태어날 때부터 자유롭고 평등하다.
안녕하세요, 만나서 반갑습니다.
한국어는 아름다운 언어입니다.
East Asian scripts: Dense square characters (Chinese, Japanese kanji) or tidy syllable blocks built from circles and lines (Korean).
Where you'll see it on signs
- South Korea
- North Korea
Easy to confuse with
- Chinese (Mandarin) — Korean is built from circles and straight lines in tidy syllable blocks; Chinese characters are dense with no circles.
- Japanese — Hangul: circles and straight strokes in neat syllable blocks — its circles are full-size letter parts. Japanese: dense kanji mixed with curvy kana like の and は; its only circles are tiny accent marks at a kana's top-right corner.