This paper proposed and algorithm for distinguishing Korean and English characters which can be applied to multi-size and multi-font images The proposed algorithm distinguishes them as the ratio height to width of each character, the number of connected component, existing or not of stroke image on the left-upper area and detection of bars in an input image. The process of detecting bar is a sequence of left, upper, right, and lower. The proposed method was experimented and proved good performance for the Myungjo font, the Sinmyungjo font, the Gothic font, and the Kungseo font of Hanguel word processor which is widely used for the writing of documents.