Mac OS X: How to Implement a Korean Keyboard

Keyboard Implementation Steps

1) Click the apple icon (in the top left corner of your desktop) and select “System Preferences”.



2) Select (double-click) “Keyboard”.



3) Select the “Input Sources” tab. At this point, you will see only the standard English keyboard. Click the “+” sign.



4) In the left panel, scroll down and select “Korean”. Make sure that the “2-Set Korean” layout (the default option) is selected in the right panel. Click “Add”. The right panel shows a number of different keyboard layout styles (with the consonant and vowel keys arranged in different ways), which date back all the way to the mechanical typewriter days. Nowadays, however, the option shown at the top (“2-Set”) is the essentially the only keyboard used in Korea, and virtually no one uses the other keyboard arrangements. There is a large picture of the “2-Set” layout in the first page of this article.



5) The Korean keyboard is now available. However, at this point, your computer's keyboard is still in the English mode. Given below are detailed instructions on how to use the Korean keyboard.

Parenthetically, by having the “2-Set Korean” button in the left panel, you have access to 3 deeper controls within the Korean option (“Input Format”, “Delete By”, etc.). They are not shown here, however, as most of the readers of this article would have no need for them.

How to Use the Korean Keyboard

When the Korean keyboard option is implemented, you will see a language icon in the top right corner of your desktop. The U.S. flag icon indicates that your keyboard at the moment happens to be in the English mode.


By clicking the icon, you can choose between two keyboards: English (U.S. flag icon) and Korean ().



When you select the Korean keyboard, the language icon changes to , and your keyboard is now ready to type Korean. You can move back and forth between English and Korean at any time by changing the language icon.

There is a large picture of the Korean keyboard in Part I of this article. To view it in a new tab, click here -> Korean Keyboard Layout.

Let’s type 하늘, which means “sky” in Korean. This word consists of two clusters: 하 and 늘. In Korean, each cluster (the box-shaped unit) is a syllable. In this word, the first cluster has 2 component sounds ㅎ and ㅏ. The second syllable has 3: ㄴ, ㅡ and ㄹ.

If you were writing on paper, you would have to learn how to assemble the components into properly shaped clusters. When you type on a computer, however, you can simply type the consonants and vowels as a linear string, and your computer will assemble them into syllabic clusters for you.

So, for 하늘, type ㅎ ㅏ ㄴ ㅡ ㄹ as a simple string (with no space). You will notice that the first 2 components are grouped to form the first cluster, and the other 3 to form the second.

Let’s type another word 한글, which means the Korean alphabet (Hangul). In this word, the first and second clusters have 3 components each. Type ㅎㅏㄴㄱㅡㄹ as a simple string (with no space). You will notice that, this time, your computer incorporates the first 3 elements into the first cluster and the other 3 into the second. If you wish to learn more about how the Korean consonants and vowels are put together into syllabic clusters, you may find our "Korean Alphabet" article helpful (listed in the top navigation bar).

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