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Korean Pronunciation

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 letters
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:
, , , , , ,
, , , , , ,
, , , , , ,
, , , , , ,
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 ones
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: (meaning ten)
In English = dock
In Korean: (meaning poison)
In English = kod
In Korean = (meaning soon)
However

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If a word has a consonant as its final sound, and the first letter on the following syllable is (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:
in Korean is pronounced the same way as described earlier (i.e. by cancelling out the last-breath after the in . For
example

If the following syllable is a consonant, nothing changes and the two syllables are pronounced as usual:

However, if the next syllable starts with a vowel the breath after the k sound is made along with this vowel. For example:

Technically, it sounds like:

Note that it is not actually written like this, but only sounds like this.
Also note that if these two syllables were pronounced separately ( and ), this phenomenon would not happen.
+ (pronounced separately)
The most confusing of this rule is when or 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 dont allow that breath of air out of their mouth on a final consonant. As soon ones 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:
, , , , ,
But, just like and , if syllables ending in or connect to another syllable where the first sound is a vowel, that or is
pronounced as S combined with the following vowel (I know, it is very confusing).
Lets hear at some examples:
and (pronounced separately)
(pronounced together)
As with , if the following syllable starts with a consonant, it gets pronounced normally:

Explaining why different endings would come after a word (for example, vs. and vs. ) 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 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. 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 and the first consonant of the next syllable is , the gets pronounced as :
Example:
+ (pronounced separately)
(pronounced together)
When the final consonant of one syllable is and the first consonant of the next syllable is , the gets pronounced as :
Example:
+ (pronounced separately)
(pronounced together)
When the final consonant of one syllable is and the first consonant of the next syllable is , the gets pronounced as :
Example:
+ (pronounced separately)

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(pronounced together)
Finally, when the final consonant of one syllable is and the first consonant of the next syllable is , the gets pronounced as .
This one is not that hard mainly because it is usually only seen in one form (~)

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 dont 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. Ill 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 dont 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 , the is not audible and the word is actually pronounced as
Another example is the word , where the is not audible and the word is actually pronounced as
This is hard for me to explain because you probably havent learned very much (if any) Korean grammar by this point. If I explain
something that goes over your head in terms of grammar dont 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 havent learned about these particles yet, but you will be introduced to them
throughout our lessons.
For example:

etc
You will learn about the meanings of all of these in later lessons, but dont worry about that now. Lets 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):

(This sounds closer to )
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:

(This should sound closer to but I admit it does sound like .)
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.
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 ~ but dont worry about that for
now):

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= to sit
= to read
= to not have
Listen to the pronunciation of each of those words. You will notice that (just like the word above), because each of the
four-letter syllables is followed by a consonant (), 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 , is not pronounced (sounds like )
In , is not pronounced (sounds like )
In , is not pronounced (sounds like )
This is beyond your understanding right now, but various grammatical principles can replace to have different meanings. You
will learn about all of these in later lessons. For example:

etc
If the thing that replaces 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 is followed by a consonant:

(This sounds closer to )
However, if the thing that replaces starts with a vowel, the pronunciation of the final consonant moves to the upcoming syllable.
For example, if is followed by a vowel:

(This sounds closer to )
You can see the same phenomenon with all words that have this 4th letter. Lets listen to when is replaced by something
starting with a consonant compared to a vowel.
Followed by a consonant:

(Sounds closer to )
Followed by a vowel:

(Sounds closer to )
Lets do the same thing with
Followed by a consonant

(Sounds closer to )
Followed by a vowel

(Sounds closer to )
Lets do the same thing with (to scratch)
Followed by a consonant

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(Sounds closer to )
Followed by a vowel

(Sounds closer to )
Again, explaining the difference in meaning and purpose between
vs. vs.
vs. vs.
vs. vs.
vs. vs.
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.
Okay, I got it. Take me back to the Unit 0 homepage!
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