Korean Pronunciation better
Korean pronunciation is vastly different from English, and it takes a lot of practice to be able to be able to pronounce words correctly. The biggest mistake you can make is assume that the pronunciation of a Korean letter is identical to the pronunciation of that letter’s Romanization in English. This is simply not the case and is a mistake that virtually all new learners of Korean make.
Listen to some of the syllables in sequence so you can get a feel for what they should sound like:
강, 밥, 숨, 독, 어, 민, 육
실, 력, 교, 예, 무, 화, 동
학, 김, 의, 월, 식, 꿈, 완
빵, 몸, 왜, 산, 씹, 했, 찌
In addition to the syllables above, continue listening to the audio files in Lesson 1 and Lesson 2 (Unit 0) in the tables presented in those lessons.
Korean pronunciation is entirely different in structure compared to English pronunciation. You may have noticed this from listening to the recording files above. In English, whenever a word ends in a consonant, we always make a little sound after saying that last letter. It is very faint and difficult to hear for a person with a ‘non-Korean ear’ to hear. But try to hear the difference.
In English, if I were to say “ship”, there is a tiny sound of breath following the ‘p’ when our lips open.
In English, if I were to say “dock”, there is a tiny sound of breath following the ‘ck’ when your throat opens.
In English, if I were to say “cod”, (or kod) there is a tiny sound of breath following the ‘d’ when your tongue is removed from the roof of your mouth.
In Korean, they do not have this final ‘breath’ sound. This is hard to understand at first to English speakers. Whatever position one’s mouth is in when they make the sound of a final consonant in a syllable – it stays like that. Listen to the following differences in English and Korean pronunciation of the same syllables:
In English: ship
In Korean: 십 (meaning ‘ten’)
In English = dock
In Korean: 독 (meaning ‘poison’)
In English = kod
In Korean = 곧 (meaning ‘soon’)
However…
If a word has a consonant as its final sound, and the first letter on the following syllable is ‘ㅇ’ (meaning that the first sound is a vowel) the breath from the final consonant from the first syllable gets pronounced with the vowel from that syllable. It is confusing to write in a sentence, so I will show you an example:
For example:
먹 in Korean is pronounced the same way as described earlier (i.e. by cancelling out the ‘last-breath’ after the ‘ㄱ’ in ‘먹.’ For example
먹
If the following syllable is a consonant, nothing changes and the two syllables are pronounced as usual:
먹다
However, if the next syllable starts with a vowel the ‘breath’ after the ‘k’ sound is made along with this vowel. For example:
먹어
Technically, it sounds like:
머거
Note that it is not actually written like this, but only sounds like this.
Also note that if these two syllables were pronounced separately (먹 and 어), this phenomenon would not happen.
먹 + 어 (pronounced separately)
The most confusing of this rule is when ㅅ or ㅆ are the last letters in a syllable. When either of these is the final letter of a syllable, they are NOT pronounced as ‘S.’ Instead, they are pronounced similar to a ‘D’ sound. The reason for this is the same as I described earlier, that is, Korean people don’t allow that ‘breath’ of air out of their mouth on a final consonant. As soon one’s tongue touches their teeth when making the “S” sound, the sound stops and no breath is made after it.
Listen to the following syllables to train your ear:
싯, 했, 겠, 었, 았, 짓
But, just like 먹 and 어, if syllables ending in ㅅ or ㅆ connect to another syllable where the first sound is a vowel, that ㅅ or ㅆ is pronounced as S combined with the following vowel (I know, it is very confusing).
Lets hear at some examples:
했 and 어 (pronounced separately)
했어 (pronounced together)
As with 먹다, if the following syllable starts with a consonant, it gets pronounced normally:
했다
Explaining why different endings would come after a word (for example, 먹다 vs. 먹어 and 했다 vs. 했어) is too difficult to explain in this lesson. In Lesson 5 and Lesson 6 of Unit 1, you will be introduced to conjugation and when you would have to use these different pronunciation rules.
There are also some variants to pronunciation when ㄹ is the final consonant of a syllable and is followed by a consonant in the next syllable. The reason for these changes in pronunciation is simply because it is hard to move your tongue fast enough to make the sounds as if their written. ㄹ is a bit of an awkward sound in Korean, and is very rarely used to start a word (it is usually only seen at the start of loan-words from English). Because it is such an awkward sound to make, there are some exceptions to how it is pronounced:
When the final consonant of one syllable is ㄱ and the first consonant of the next syllable is ㄹ, the ㄹ gets pronounced as ㄴ:
Example:
복 + 리 (pronounced separately)
복리 (pronounced together)
When the final consonant of one syllable is ㅇ and the first consonant of the next syllable is ㄹ, the ㄹ gets pronounced as ㄴ:
Example:
상 + 록 (pronounced separately)
상록 (pronounced together)
When the final consonant of one syllable is ㄴ and the first consonant of the next syllable is ㄹ, the ㄴ gets pronounced as ㄹ:
Example:
원 + 래 (pronounced separately)
원래 (pronounced together)
Finally, when the final consonant of one syllable is ㅂ and the first consonant of the next syllable is ㄴ, the ㅂ gets pronounced as ㅁ.
This one is not that hard mainly because it is usually only seen in one form (~습니다)
The pronunciation of syllables that contain a fourth letter is a little bit different than above. If you are a beginner, you definitely do not need to memorize these rules/sounds/concepts from the very beginning. Being comfortable with Korean pronunciation takes years, and is not something that you can wrap your head around in a day. The best thing you can do as a beginner is to simply familiarize yourself with what is presented below (and above, for that matter). As you progress through our lessons, you will eventually come across these words in our Vocabulary Lists and in example sentences in our Lessons. Lucky for you, our vocabulary words and example sentences have audio files attached to them so you can listen to them as they are presented (if they don’t have an audio link, they will eventually). Familiarizing yourself with what is presented below will help you when you are introduced to these words later in our lessons. I’ll repeat my point one more time: While it is important to know how to pronounce things in Korean – this will not happen overnight. Use the concepts presented here to set yourself off on the right foot, but don’t get too bogged down on memorizing everything right now. It will come – with time.
If a syllable contains a fourth letter and is pronounced by itself, usually only one of the two final consonants is audible.
For example, if you listen to the word “닭“, the “ㄹ” is not audible and the word is actually pronounced as “닥”
Another example is the word “삶”, where the “ㄹ” is not audible and the word is actually pronounced as “삼”
This is hard for me to explain because you probably haven’t learned very much (if any) Korean grammar by this point. If I explain something that goes over your head in terms of grammar – don’t worry about that too much and try to just focus on the pronunciation notes I mention.
The two words above are nouns.
For all intents and purposes, it would be rare to find a noun just sitting by itself in a sentence. Rather, in Korean, one of many particles (or other things) would be attached to it. You haven’t learned about these particles yet, but you will be introduced to them throughout our lessons.
For example:
닭과
닭만
닭이랑
닭이다
닭이나
etc…
You will learn about the meanings of all of these in later lessons, but don’t worry about that now. Let’s just focus on pronunciation.
If the thing that attaches to these words starts with a consonant, the same rule from above applies, and only one of the two bottom consonants is pronounced. For example (There are two separate examples in the audio file below. I thought it would be better to give two examples instead of one in each case):
닭과 – 닭만
(This sounds closer to “닥과 – 닥만”)
However, if the thing that attaches to these words starts with a vowel, the pronunciation of the final consonant, in theory, should move to the upcoming syllable. For example:
닭을 – 닭이다
(This should sound closer to “달글 – 달기다”… but I admit it does sound like 닥을 – 닥이다.)
That is a native Korean speaker pronouncing those words, and there probably is a reason why she pronounced it that way. This is way beyond the scope of this lesson. Again, just try to understand what is being presented here in theory. You will have thousands of audio files to help you as you progress to later lessons.
닭 is a noun, but various things are also attached to verbs/adjectives as well that change pronunciation.
The following are three common verbs in Korean that have this fourth letter (All verbs end with “~다” but don’t worry about that for now):
앉다 = to sit
읽다 = to read
없다 = to not have
Listen to the pronunciation of each of those words. You will notice that (just like the word “닭” above), because each of the four-letter syllables is followed by a consonant (다), only one of the two final consonants is pronounced. As you can here, the letter that is not pronounced is not the same is ever word.
In 앉다, ㅈ is not pronounced (sounds like “안”)
In 읽다, ㄹ is not pronounced (sounds like “익”)
In 없다, ㅅ is not pronounced (sounds like “업”)
This is beyond your understanding right now, but various grammatical principles can replace “다” to have different meanings. You will learn about all of these in later lessons. For example:
앉겠다
앉고
앉거나
앉는
앉아
앉으면
앉아요
앉아서
앉을
앉은
etc…
If the thing that replaces “다” starts with a consonant, the same rule from above (with nouns) applies, and only one of the two bottom consonants is pronounced. For example, if 앉 is followed by a consonant:
앉겠다 – 앉고
(This sounds closer to “안겠다 – 안고”)
However, if the thing that replaces “다” starts with a vowel, the pronunciation of the final consonant moves to the upcoming syllable. For example, if 앉 is followed by a vowel:
앉아 – 앉으면
(This sounds closer to “안자 – 안즈면”)
You can see the same phenomenon with all words that have this 4th letter. Let’s listen to “읽다” when “다” is replaced by something starting with a consonant compared to a vowel.
Followed by a consonant:
읽겠다 – 읽고
(Sounds closer to “익겠다 – 익고”)
Followed by a vowel:
읽어 – 읽으면
(Sounds closer to “일거 – 일그면”)
Let’s do the same thing with 없다
Followed by a consonant
없겠다 – 없고
(Sounds closer to “업겠다 – 업고”)
Followed by a vowel
없어 – 없으면
(Sounds closer to “업서 – 업스면)
Let’s do the same thing with 긁다 (to scratch)
Followed by a consonant
긁겠다 – 긁고
(Sounds closer to “극겠다 – 극고”)
Followed by a vowel
긁어 – 긁으면
(Sounds closer to “글거 – 글그면”)
Again, explaining the difference in meaning and purpose between…
앉다 vs. 앉고 vs. 앉아
읽다 vs. 읽고 vs. 읽어
없다 vs. 없고 vs. 없어
닭 vs. 닭과 vs. 닭을
… is a matter of Korean grammar, which will be explained in our lessons. As I mentioned earlier, our later lessons will have many example sentences with audio recordings so you can continue to train your ear as you progress through your studies. You absolutely do not need to memorize these concepts before you move on. You will memorize them naturally as you progress with our Lessons.