KOREAN

How To Read 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 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 1and 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 followingsyllable  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 andLesson 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 isn't that hard mainly because it is usually only seen in one form (~습니다)

The pronunciation of syllables that contain a fourth letter is done by simply pronouncing all letters that it contains. As discussed in Lesson 3, four of the most common examples of this fourth letter in use for a beginner are:

앉다 = to sit
읽다 = to read
없다 = to not have
닭 = chicken

By listening to the audio files above, you can hear each of the words being pronounced. Notice still that the breath sound after the final consonant of a syllable is not made. Because of this, the final consonant (in the four-letter syllables) can barely be heard. However, if the syllable following each of the four-letter syllables starts with a vowel, you would hear the fourth letter pronounced with the followingsyllable. For example:

앉아 = sounds like "안자"
읽어 = sounds like "일거"
없어 = sounds like "업서"
닭을 = sounds like "달글"

Again, explaining the difference between...

앉다 vs. 앉아
읽다 vs. 읽어
없다 vs. 없어
닭 vs. 닭을

... is a matter of Korean grammar, which will be explained in the early lessons of Unit 1. Within this unit, all of our example sentences and vocabulary words will have audio recording – so you will continue to be able to train your ear as you progress through your studies.