Dotori Hangul Origins

Dotori Collector

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About this app

Dotori Hangul Origins teaches the Korean alphabet the way it was explained when it was made. In 1446 King Sejong's scholars published the Hunminjeongeum Haerye, a book that says why each letter looks the way it does. This app follows that book, quotes it, and links to the institutions that keep its record.

Dotori Hangul Origins is an independent app. It is not made by, affiliated with or endorsed by any government agency or by the institutions it links to.

Six short steps:

1. The story of Hangul — King Sejong, 1443 and 1446, the preface, and how the Haerye was found
2. Five basic consonants — ㄱ ㄴ ㅁ ㅅ ㅇ, each drawn from the shape of the tongue, mouth, teeth or throat, with an animation that turns the speech organ into the letter
3. Adding strokes — one more stroke for a stronger sound (ㄱ to ㅋ), the five sound groups, and the letters that break the pattern
4. Heaven, earth and human — every vowel built from a dot, a flat line and an upright line, how the original 28 letters became today's 24, and a three-key keyboard that works the same way
5. Building syllable blocks — how letters stack into a square, final consonants, the seven final sounds, and a block builder to try your own
6. Reading real words — loanwords such as 커피 (coffee) and everyday words such as 감사합니다 (thank you)

Each step ends with a short multiple-choice quiz, and a mixed review draws from all six. Every step is open from the start. There are no locks, streaks or accounts.

Key features:

- Quotes from the original Classical Chinese text, each with a translation
- Stroke-order animation and a tracing pad for every letter
- Sounds for letters and words, bundled with the app so they play offline
- Links to the sources and to the Basic Korean Dictionary for every word
- English, Korean, Japanese, Traditional Chinese, Vietnamese and Spanish, chosen in the app or taken from your phone
- Dark and light themes, and a screen-orientation choice

Sources the app links to:

- UNESCO Memory of the World: https://www.unesco.org/en/memory-world/hunminchongum-manuscript
- National Hangeul Museum: https://www.hangeul.go.kr/lang/en/main.do
- National Institute of Korean Language: https://www.korean.go.kr/front_eng/main.do
- Korea Heritage Service: https://english.khs.go.kr/

Known limits:

- The letter and word sounds are synthesized speech prepared in advance, not recordings of a native speaker
- The tracing pad shows you how to write a letter; it does not grade your handwriting
- The animations follow the Haerye's description of the letter shapes, while the pronunciation notes follow modern standard Korean. Where the two differ, the app says so
- The colors of the five sound groups follow a traditional association; the Haerye itself does not assign colors

What’s new

First release.

- Six short steps based on the Hunminjeongeum Haerye of 1446
- Animations that turn the speech organs into the five basic consonants
- Vowels from heaven, earth and human, with a three-key keyboard
- Stroke-order animation, tracing pad and syllable block builder
- A quiz for every step and a mixed review
- English, Korean, Japanese, Traditional Chinese, Vietnamese and Spanish