Lesson 4: Further Pronunciation Guidelines

The normally voiceless sounds shown by the single ㅂ, ㄷ, ㅈ, ㄱ ( b, d, j, g)(which have a light puff of local air when they are at the beginning of a word) are voiced between voiced sounds (vowels, y, w, m, n, ng, l) so that they will sound like b, d, j, g to you:

A Korean never releases a consonant at the end of a syllable unless he has to (when the word is followed by: a) a particle or ending that begins with a vowel, or b) by the special verb -이에요 it is. . .).

In the case of final unreleased -p, -t, -k, it is often difficult for English speakers to hear the consonant: it sounds as though the Koreans "swallow" their consonants.

The only consonants that can be pronounced at the end of a syllable in Korean are the following seven: ㄹ ㅁ ㄴ ㅇ (l, m, n, N) (see above) and ㅂ ㄷ ㄱ (p, t, k) (but remember: Korean doesn't allow you to release them unless you have to).

When the basic form of a word ends in something else, the "something else" must be reduced to one of these seven consonants, unless: a) the word is followed by a particle or ending that begins with a vowel, or b) by the special verb -이에요 it is. . .

The reduction rules are as follows:

The final-reduced forms in p, t, k and l, m, n, N are used not only when the word is before a pause, but also before words beginning with consonants and even before words beginning with vowels, provided the word is not a particle (like the subject particle 이 or the locative particle 에, etc.) or the special verb -이에요 it is. . :

When p, t, k precede m or n (or l pronounced as n due to the rule in section 4.6 below), they (that is, p, t, k) are pronounced as m, n, ng, respectively.

Remember that in Korean, p, t, k cannot be released in this position. When you have an unreleased p before a nasal sound like m or n and want to carry on with the next syllable, the p has nowhere else to go but up your nose. Once a p goes up your nose, it becomes an m. The same logic holds for unreleased t turning into n and unreleased k turning into ng.

Note that this rule also applies to any t which has been reduced from th,ch, c, s, ss, or even h:

The case of h changing to (t and then) n like this is a weird one, and we will alert you to it again when you learn about verbs in final h:

a) When n is next to l (n.l or l.n, where the period represents a syllable break) a double ll results:

b) When preceded by a consonant other than l or n, the l is pronounced as if n:

c) When followed by t, c or s in words borrowed from Chinese, the l has the effect of doubling
these to tt, cc and ss, respectively:

Because you have no way of telling which words are originally from Chinese and which are not, and because the Korean writing system ignores these differences between spelling and pronunciation, we will alert you to any such pronunciation details when you first learn new words in the Vocabulary lists at the beginning of each lesson.

If the final sound of the preceding syllable is p, t, or k, the single voiceless consonants p, t, c, k, s (ㅂ,ㄷ,ㅈ,ㄱ,ㅅ) are automatically doubled in pronunciation so they sound like pp, tt, cc, kk, ss (ㅃ,ㄸ,ㅉ,ㄲ,ㅆ):

The Korean ㅎ(h) can leap over a following plain ㅂ, ㄷ, ㅈ, ㄱ to yield a corresponding aspirated sound in pronunciation (ㅍ, ㅌ, ㅊ, ㅋ). In other words, the aspirated consonants ㅍ, ㅌ, ㅊ, ㅋ can be considered as equivalent to combinations of ㅂ + ㅎ(or ㅎ + ㅂ), ㄷ + ㅎ(or ㅎ + ㄷ), ㅈ + ㅎ(or ㅎ + ㅈ), ㄱ + ㅎ(or ㅎ + ㄱ), respectively. Here are some examples:

The Korean ㅌ (aspirated th) is palatalized to ㅊ when it occurs at the end of a morpheme or word and is followed by 이:

Many Koreans distinguish words by pronouncing a vowel as long or short: 일 il one, 일 il (i.e., with a long vowel) affair, work. But even for those speakers, vowel length is often suppressed, especially when not at the beginning of a phrase, so that you will often hear short vowels in words that have basically long vowels.

Modern Korean spelling does not indicate the long vowels, and we do not show them in the body of this textbook. But you should at least be aware of this contrast. Here are some examples:

In the case of long and short 어, many speakers pronounce the long 어 with the tongue in a considerably higher position than it is in for the short 어, as something resembling English uh in uh-oh. Many speakers hollow the back of the tongue to make the short 어 so that it sounds rounded like the vowel sound that many people use in English saw, song, dawn.

The Han'gul vowel signs do not have special names of their own; instead, they are called by the sounds they represent. For example, ㅘ is called "wa". Each Han'gul consonant sign, however, has its own name based on the ingenious mnemonic device of beginning and ending the name with the consonant letter in question:

The tense, or 'doubled' consonants, have the same name as the corresponding plain series consonant, preceded by 쌍 double: