두음법칙 · initial sound rule

This one changes shape at the start of a word.

The dictionary reading is 리, but South Korean spelling writes 이 when the character leads the word. Both are the same character; only the position differs.

Vocabulary

Words that use 李

Tap one to see what it means and how it's built. Every character in these words has its own page here.

None of the words 李 forms are in the English dictionary this section uses, so each one shows its literal composition instead. That usually means the character survives mainly in names, dates and classical text rather than in everyday Korean.

Same sound, different character

10 characters are all read 리 (ri).

Korean has far more hanja than it has syllables, so one sound covers many characters. Write 리 in hangul and it could be any of these — the hanja is what says which one you mean. That is why hanja still turn up in dictionaries, newspaper headlines and legal writing, where guessing from context is not good enough.

All of them are written 리 in hangul.