Korean Pronunciation

Korean pronunciation is vastly different from English, and it takes a lot of practice 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.
I discuss different aspects of Korean pronunciation in this lesson. I will use this lesson to discuss
aspects of Korean pronunciation that are not intuitive to an English speaker. Ive divided this
lesson into different sections:
General Pronunciation and the Movement of Sounds to Other Syllables
The Pronunciation of Syllables with Four Letters
The Pronunciation of

General Pronunciation and the Movement of Sounds to Other Syllables

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
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 lastbreath 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)
(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 with Four Letters

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):
= 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

(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.
The Pronunciation of
The pronunciation of often causes confusion for foreigners learning Korean. In Unit 0: Lesson
3, you can find a recording of a Korean person pronouncing when different starting
consonants. Here is that recording again:
, , , , , ,
Aside from , you will rarely (or never) come across the other syllables in that recording. Pay
more attention to the sound that is being made.

Though that can be good practice, syllables are rarely just used by themselves. More often,
syllables are connected to make words or some sort of grammatical principle. The pronunciation
of can change depending on where and how it is used.
If you are reading this without having read any lessons in Unit 1, this explanation might go over
your head. In order to understand some of what is presented below, some understanding of
Korean word structure and grammar might help. Im including this explanation in this lesson (in
Unit 0) because this is my lesson about pronunciation. In reality, you probably dont need to
worry about this until you come across it in my lessons. Ill link back to this part of this lesson
when it becomes important in your studies.
Officially, the correct pronunciation of is (as recorded above). Makes sense. The
following are alternate pronunciations that are seen as acceptable and are common in speech.

When is found in the first syllable of a word, and the syllable begins with (making the first
sound be ), the pronunciation is . Here is a recording of two words where this can be
heard:
= chair
= doctor

When is found in the first syllable of a word, but the syllable begins with a consonant, the
pronunciation can be .
(pronounced as ) = hope (the noun, not the verb)
(pronounced as ) = a space in writing
When is found somewhere other than the first syllable of a word, the pronunciation can be .
For example:
(pronounced as ) = a formal way to say we
(pronounced as ) = an agreement
(pronounced as ) = a definition
(pronounced as ) = a meeting

In Unit 1: Lesson 3, you will learn about ~ and how it can be used to have a meaning of
possession. In English, we can put s on the end of a word, or change I to my or him to
his. For example:

 = my
= friend
= My friend
= book
= My book
= My friends book
= car
= My car
When used like this, the pronunciation can be . For example:
(pronounced as ) = My book
(pronounced as ) = My car
(pronounced as )= My friend
(pronounced as )= My friends book

A word that you will learn much later in your studies is , which translates to meaning or
significance. For you, the translation is not important right now. Instead, lets focus on the
pronunciation. Imagine if I wanted to ask about s pronunciation. In Korean, I would have to
use the additional ~ as talked about above (and introduced in Unit 1: Lesson 3). In theory, I
could write:
= s pronunciation
Again, is a word. The third is attached to the word to have the function of s in
English. Dont worry about the grammar for now.
The first syllable begins with , and therefore is pronounced as
is also found in the second syllable. In this case, can be pronounced as
is attached to the word to have the function described in Lesson 3. In this case, can be
pronounced as .
The whole construction can be pronounced as .