Yes exactly. In Hangul, each syllable is written as a single block of letters. In a nutshell, if the vowel in the syllable is horizontal in shape, the letters stack like pancakes into the syllable block. If the vowel has a vertical shape, the vowel sits on the right side of the syllable block. Here's an example:
The word tae-kwon-do has three syllables, so there are three blocks. In the first syllable, the "ae" sound has a vertical shape, so it's written to the right of the "t" sound. In the last syllable, the "o" sound has a horizontal shape, so it's written under the "d" sound.
- Aside: in English, the letters D and T sound similar, and you'll notice that in Hangul they look alike as well -- letters that sound similar also look similar -- that's what's meant by "featural". It's really very clever.
The middle syllable of this word is more complicated: it's got two vowels glommed-together in the middle of the syllable (the two vowels are "oo-ah" -- which sound like "wah" when you say them together quickly). In that case, the combined double-vowel just kinda wraps itself around the initial consonant...like big spoon cuddling with little spoon.
The upshot is that there aren't actually that many letters in the Korean alphabet, and yet it still takes 11,000+ different characters to depict them in a computer, because on a computer you have to treat each possible block as a letter. Oy vey!