The Consonants

We begin by continuing to look at the ㅇ symbol. This “Zero Sign” has a clever alter-ego: whereas at the beginning of a syllable (before a vowel) it functions as ZERO (telling the reader “Don’t pronounce me!”), at the end of a syllable it represents the sound ng as in English singer. When it is not zero (before a vowel sound) this sound is always as ng in English sing, never as in finger (fing-ger). Thus,

Since Korean has no basic syllables of the type N + VOWEL’ (Na, Nu, etc.), this is quite a clever economy and one good example of the ingenuity of Han’gul. Now let us look at the rest of the consonants.

p		p as in park, but relaxed
ph		p as in pow!, with lots of aspiration (air)p as in pow!,
pp		p as in spa (tense, tight, no aspiration)
t		t as in tall, but relaxedt as in tall, but relaxed
th		t as in talk!, with lots of aspiration (air)
tt		t as in star (tense, tight, no aspiration)
k		k as in kiss, but relaxed k as in kiss, but relaxed
kh		k as in kill!, with lots of aspiration (air)
kk		k as in skill (tense, tight, no aspiration)
ch		ch as in chill, but relaxed
chh		ch as in change!, with lots of aspiration (air)
chch		tch as in matchmaker (tense, tight, no aspiration)
m		m as in mother

The sounds n, l, h, s and ss require a bit more explanation, and a bit more care in learning to pronounce them:

n

n as in no

For ㄴ n the tongue tip touches the upper teeth, as in most continental European languages. Be sure to make your double nn and double mm double!

ㄹ

l as in lamp and feel or r as in Spanish

The Korean consonant ㄹ will sound different to you in different environments: a) At the beginning of a syllable (in foreign words only), it is rolled like Japanese or Spanish r:

b) Between vowels (including w/y + vowel) or vowel and h (which often drops), it is also rolled (like the Spanish r):

c) When double, make a long, and somewhat soft l:

d) When before a consonant, or final before a pause, you will hear a clear, soft l as in English “feel”:

h

h as in hope

a) An initial h is made with friction in the throat, as when blowing to steam up glasses:

b) But before y or i, the friction may be between the middle front of the tongue and the hard palate, giving a soft sound close to the German ich:

c) And between voiced sounds (m, n, 1 and vowels) the h is weak, and often drops, especially when preceded by N (the ng sound in singer) or n and followed by i or y:

s		s as in soul, but relaxed and somewhat weak
ss		s as in soul (but more tense and tighter than the single s)

a) The single ㅅ is very weak, something less than an English s, and often followed by a little puff of local air. You should practice trying to make your Korean ㅅ breathy. The double ㅆ is very strong, something more than an English s, with tension in the throat and tongue.

b) Before 이 and 위, most speakers change the s to a soft sh. Some speakers do this also for thetense ss:

More on the Three-Way Consonants As you have seen above, for the sounds like p, t, k, c, Korean exploits a 3-way contrast based on aspiration and tenseness where English exploits just a 2-way contrast based on voicing. That is, where English has just pig/big, tug/dug, kit/git, choke/joke, Korean has 3 types of consonant in each position. The question of voiced/voiceless (English p vs. b, t vs. d, k vs. g and ch vs. j) is irrelevant to Korean: it is not distinctive. The basic series in Korean is:

By doubling each of these consonants, the Koreans write the tense, unaspirated series:

The best way to master their pronunciation is to start off pronouncing an s-cluster, e.g. “spa”, and then suppress the s. Alternatively, it is useful to fake a French or Spanish accent when pronouncing these: French and Spanish p, t, k are much less aspirated than in English. Next, by adding a stroke to the basic plain series, the Koreans write their lax, aspirated series:

These are like English pike, take, kite, cheat, but with more aspiration than in English. If you hold a piece of paper 3 inches from your mouth, it should jump away when you pronounce the aspirated sounds. On the other hand, if you hold a piece of paper 3 inches from your mouth and pronounce the tense, unaspirated (double) sounds, the paper should not move at all. When you pronounce plain p, t, k, ch, the piece of paper should move slightly, but not nearly as much as with the aspirated sounds. It is useful to practice producing these consonants one after the other, with one of each three types. We can now draw out the comparison between the three different types of consonants for each one in turn. Three kinds of initial p:

Three kinds of initial t: (Tongue tip touches upper teeth!)

Three kinds of initial k:

Three kinds of initial c: