Korean Braille (Hangul Jeomja): Chart, Rules and Examples

Korean braille, called hangeul jeomja (한글 점자), writes Korean one jamo at a time: every consonant and vowel inside a hangul syllable gets its own cell, read left to right. Unlike English braille, the same consonant has one cell when it starts a syllable and another when it ends one, and abbreviations for common syllables such as 가 ga are the standard way to write, not an advanced shortcut. The word jeomja (점자, braille) itself is ⠨⠎⠢⠨: four cells for two syllables.

We wrote this page in English for people learning Korean, for parents and teachers of a child who reads Korean braille, and for anyone who has come across Korean braille and wants to read it. Every cell here comes from the Korean braille engine behind braillito.com, which is tested against the examples in the official commentary of the National Institute of Korean Language (NIKL). If you read Korean, the same chart in Korean is on our Korean site. If the six-dot cell is new to you, start with what braille is.

Key points

• One cell per jamo, not per syllable. 한 han is ㅎ + ㅏ + ㄴ, so a syllable takes two or three cells unless an abbreviation shortens it.
• Initial and final consonants have different cells. ㄱ is ⠈ (dot 4) at the start of a syllable and ⠁ (dot 1) at the end.
• The silent ㅇ at the start of a syllable is not written. 아이 ai (child) is just two vowel cells: ⠣⠕.
• Abbreviations (약자, yakja) are the standard form. 가 ga is one cell, ⠫, and 것 geot (thing) is ⠸⠎.
• Seven common words have short forms (약어, yageo), such as 그리고 geurigo (and): ⠁⠥.
• Numbers use the number sign ⠼ (dots 3-4-5-6) and the cells of a to j, as in English braille.

Korean braille and English braille at a glance

How a hangul syllable becomes cells

Print hangul stacks its letters into square blocks: 한 is ㅎ, ㅏ and ㄴ drawn together. Braille can't stack, so it writes the jamo of each block in a row, in reading order: initial consonant, vowel, then final consonant if there is one. The NIKL commentary puts it this way: print hangul is written in blocks, while hangul braille is written out letter by letter.

That's why each consonant needs two shapes. If the initial ㄱ and the final ㄱ shared a cell, the commentary notes, 북이 and 부기 would look the same in braille. With two shapes they don't. 북이 is ⠘⠍⠁⠕ and 부기 is ⠘⠍⠈⠕: only the third cell changes, from final ㄱ to initial ㄱ.

The cells are also shaped so you can tell a vowel from a consonant by touch. According to the commentary, every vowel cell has at least one dot in the top row and one in the bottom row, and at least one in each column. Initial consonants use only the top two rows, or only the right column.

The ㅇ at the start of a syllable has no sound in modern Korean, so braille skips it and the syllable starts with its vowel. 우유 uyu (milk) is ⠍⠩: ㅜ, then ㅠ.

Consonants: one cell at the start, another at the end

These are the 14 basic consonants. The sound column uses the official romanization; ㅇ is silent at the start of a syllable and ng at the end.

There is a pattern, and the commentary spells it out. ㄱ, ㄹ, ㅂ, ㅅ, ㅈ and ㅊ are built from dots 4, 5 and 6 at the start of a syllable; as finals, the same shape moves to the left column, so ㅂ ⠘ becomes ⠃. The others sit in the top two rows at the start and drop one row as finals: ㄴ ⠉ becomes ⠒.

Tense consonants. ㄲ, ㄸ, ㅃ, ㅆ and ㅉ at the start of a syllable are written with the tense sign, dot 6, before the plain consonant: ㄲ is ⠠⠈ and ㅉ is ⠠⠨. Dot 6 on its own is also ㅅ; it counts as the tense sign when ㄱ, ㄷ, ㅂ, ㅅ or ㅈ follows instead of a vowel. 쓰기 sseugi (writing) is ⠠⠠⠪⠈⠕.

Double finals. A final ㄲ is two final ㄱ in a row, ⠁⠁. A final ㅆ, which is very common, has an abbreviation of its own, ⠌, as in 있다 itda (to be, to have): ⠕⠌⠊. That is also the cell of the vowel ㅖ, so the rules add a hyphen when 예 comes right after a vowel. Mixed finals such as ㄺ are simply their two finals: 읽다 ikda (to read) is ⠕⠂⠁⠊.

The 21 vowels

The ten basic vowels come in mirror pairs. ㅏ ⠣ and ㅑ ⠜ are left-right mirror images, and so are ㅓ and ㅕ, ㅗ and ㅛ, ㅜ and ㅠ, ㅡ and ㅣ. ㅏ and ㅓ are also upside-down images of each other, like ㅗ and ㅜ. As the commentary notes, once you know ㅏ, ㅗ and ㅡ, you can work out the rest.

Four compound vowels take two cells: ㅒ, ㅙ, ㅞ and ㅟ all end with the cell of ㅐ, ⠗.

Abbreviations: the standard way to write

In English braille, contractions belong to contracted braille, and a beginner can start without them. In Korean braille the rules make the abbreviated forms the standard, so you meet them from the first word.

A consonant plus ㅏ

가 and 사 have cells of their own. The other nine drop the ㅏ and keep only the consonant, so 나 na is the cell of ㄴ. 라 is not on the list: 나라 nara (country) is ⠉⠐⠣, with 라 written in full.

There is one catch. When a vowel follows right after one of those nine in the same word, the ㅏ comes back, or the word would be misread. The commentary's example is 다음 daeum (next): without its ㅏ it would read as 듬 deum. So 다음 is ⠊⠣⠪⠢, while 듬 is ⠊⠪⠢.

A vowel plus a final consonant

These endings work after any initial consonant. 물 mul (water) is ㅁ ⠑ plus 울 ⠯: ⠑⠯.

One exception is worth knowing. 성, 정 and 청 (and the tense 썽 and 쩡) are spelled with ㅓ, yet they are written with the 영 abbreviation. The commentary explains that the spellings 셩, 졍 and 쳥 disappeared from modern Korean, so these frequent syllables became an exception. 정 jeong is ⠨⠻.

것 and the seven short words

것 geot (thing) has a two-cell abbreviation, ⠸⠎. And seven frequent connecting words have short forms of their own, each made of dot 1 plus one cell:

The short form still applies when an ending follows, as in 그런데도. It does not apply when another syllable comes before, as in 찡그리고 jjinggeurigo (frowning).

Four words, cell by cell

한국 Hanguk (Korea)

⠚⠒⠈⠍⠁

• 한: the 하 abbreviation ⠚, then final ㄴ ⠒.
• 국: initial ㄱ ⠈, ㅜ ⠍, final ㄱ ⠁.

The two ㄱ in 국 are the whole point of Korean braille in one syllable: dot 4 at the start, dot 1 at the end.

점자 jeomja (braille)

⠨⠎⠢⠨

• 점: ㅈ ⠨, ㅓ ⠎, final ㅁ ⠢.
• 자: the 자 abbreviation ⠨, the cell of ㅈ with the ㅏ understood.

감사합니다 gamsahamnida (thank you)

⠫⠢⠇⠚⠃⠉⠕⠊

• 감: 가 ⠫, final ㅁ ⠢.
• 사: ⠇.
• 합: 하 ⠚, final ㅂ ⠃.
• 니: ㄴ ⠉, ㅣ ⠕.
• 다: ⠊.

Five syllables, eight cells. Spelled out jamo by jamo, it would take 12.

훈맹정음 Hunmaengjeongeum

The name of the first six-dot braille system for Korean (more on it below).

⠚⠛⠑⠗⠶⠨⠻⠪⠢

• 훈: ㅎ ⠚, then the 운 abbreviation ⠛.
• 맹: ㅁ ⠑, ㅐ ⠗, final ㅇ ⠶.
• 정: ㅈ ⠨, then the 영 abbreviation ⠻.
• 음: the silent ㅇ is not written; ㅡ ⠪, final ㅁ ⠢.

To check your own words, type them into the Korean braille translator on our Korean site. It has a Korean interface, but the box takes any hangul.

Numbers in Korean braille

Numbers work as in English braille: the number sign ⠼ and then the cells of a to j from the braille alphabet.

One number sign covers the whole number: 2026 is ⠼⠃⠚⠃⠋. A Korean word right after a number is written attached to it: 5월 owol (May) is ⠼⠑⠏⠂. But if the syllable after the number starts with ㄴ, ㄷ, ㅁ, ㅋ, ㅌ, ㅍ or ㅎ, or is the 운 abbreviation, the rules put a space in, because those cells are also digits. 1년 (one year) is ⠼⠁ ⠉⠡: without the space, ㄴ would read as the digit 3.

Roman letters inside Korean text, such as an English word, use the English cells between an opening and a closing sign: abc is ⠴⠁⠃⠉⠲.

Where Korean braille comes from

Hangul braille was created by Park Du-seong (1888–1963), a teacher at the school for blind and deaf students of Jesaengwon, which the NIKL identifies with today's Seoul National School for the Blind. He worked with seven blind students and promulgated the system on November 4, 1926, as Hunmaengjeongeum (NIKL). Korea.net, the government's official portal, calls it the country's first six-dot braille system, built on three principles: "easy to learn, fewer dots and less confusion". November 4 is now National Braille Day, and in 2020 the Cultural Heritage Administration registered the manuscripts and tools used to make and spread Hunmaengjeongeum, a braille typewriter among them, as National Registered Cultural Heritage.

The system has been revised since. In 1997 the government issued the Korean Braille Rules as an official notice, which, the NIKL says, gave braille legal force as an officially recognized script. The rules were revised in 2006 and 2017 and amended again in 2020. The NIKL publishes the current rules and a commentary full of examples, and that commentary is what the cells on this page are tested against. Beyond hangul, the rules cover old hangul letters, Roman letters, punctuation, and math, science, computer and music braille. For other scripts, see braille in other languages.

Where Braillito fits

Braillito, our app, teaches braille. It teaches the braille cells in lessons with exercises you play, with lives, levels and a daily streak: 59 lessons in 8 worlds in English. It also has a translator, a dictionary and a cell builder. The English lessons are uncontracted braille (grade 1); they don't teach contracted braille or transcription, and Braillito isn't a braille transcriber.

With the app in Korean, Braillito teaches Korean braille in 59 lessons across 9 worlds, from initial and final consonants and the 21 vowels to the standard abbreviations and short words. The translator on braillito.com shows how a word or short phrase looks in UEB, but it only applies the rules a program can apply, so it doesn't replace a transcriber. Without paying, the braille translator works in any browser.

Braillito is a subscription with no free version; depending on the plan, it starts with a free trial or a discounted first period, if it's your first subscription (is Braillito free?). Get Braillito.

Frequently asked questions

Is Korean braille the same as English braille?

No. Both use the same six-dot cell, but Korean braille gives the cells to jamo. Dot 1, ⠁, is a in English and a final ㄱ in Korean. Only numbers and English letters inside Korean text keep the meanings an English braille reader knows.

Who invented Korean braille?

Park Du-seong, a teacher of blind students at Jesaengwon, created it with seven of his blind students. It was promulgated on November 4, 1926, under the name Hunmaengjeongeum, and that date is now National Braille Day in Korea.

How do you write "hello" (annyeonghaseyo) in Korean braille?

안녕하세요 is ⠣⠒⠉⠻⠚⠠⠝⠬. That is 안 (ㅏ plus final ㄴ, with the silent ㅇ left out), 녕 (ㄴ plus the 영 abbreviation), 하 (one cell), 세 (ㅅ plus ㅔ) and 요 (ㅛ alone, again without the silent ㅇ).

Do I have to learn the Korean braille abbreviations?

Yes, if you want to read Korean braille as it is normally written. The rules set the abbreviated forms as the standard, so 가 is written ⠫, not ㄱ plus ㅏ. The good news is that the list is short: 11 cells for a consonant plus ㅏ, 14 endings, 것, the final ㅆ and the seven short words.