Korean

Pronunciation
How to Correctly Say Hangul Letters & Words

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Fun and Easy Korean Resources

Here is the fast track to learning Korean. Each section takes

you to a page that has a downloadable guide. Follow these
steps in order, or skip ahead if you already know it.

1) Korean Alphabet 2) Instant Korean

Learn to read Hangeul You already know many

(Korean Alphabet). You can Korean words. Get them here.
learn in 90 minutes using this
free guide.

3) Korean Numbers 4) Word Memorization

Get the guide that teaches you Make sure what you learn
to count from zero to a million sticks in your head. Learn how
in Korean in no time at all. here.

5) Korean Kickstarter 6) Fantastic Phrases

Use this simple system to Grab this guide and use the
have conversations in Korean right phrase for the right
right away. situation.

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 Korean Pronunciation: How to

Correctly Say Hangul Letters & Words

From: Korean Pronunciation: How to Correctly Say Hangul Letters & Words

Korean Alphabet Pronunciation

The nice thing about learning Korean alphabet pronunciation is that it is

very similar to the English alphabet pronunciation. Many of the sounds that
are pronounced in Hangul also have similar sounds in English.
For example, the Korean alphabet character ᄀ is pronounced similar to the
letter “g”. So for simplicity, you can think of the character ᄀ as “g”. It’s not
an exact 1:1 match, but it’s very close!

How to pronounce Korean words

The best way to correctly pronounce words in Korean is to learn the proper
pronunciation of the Hangul characters (letters). Once you learn the Korean
pronunciation of the letters, it’ll be easy to pronounce words. You’ll be able
to pronounce them like a native speaker.

How to say the Korean alphabet

The easiest way to learn how the alphabet is pronounced is to use

associations that connect the Korean alphabet to the English alphabet. You
can get a free PDF download of our guide here.

Learning the Korean alphabet pronunciation

You can easily learn the Korean alphabet pronunciation if you use
associations. An association is some way of remembering the Korean
character by using similar sounds you already know in your native
language.
We can associate the ᄀ to the word “gun”. The shape of the ᄀ looks a bit
like a gun, and the sound is similar to a “g” sound. So, you may want to
associate ᄀ =gun.

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 How to pronounce the Korean letters

Here is a table of the sounds of the consonants and vowels. We’ve

included the vowel combinations, which are just two different vowels put
together to form a sound. You can think of vowel combinations as being
similar to vowels.

Consonants Vowels Vowel combinations

ᄀ ㅏ ㅒ

ᄁ ㅑ ㅐ

ᄂ ㅕ ㅔ

ᄃ ㅓ ㅖ

ᄄ ㅗ ㅘ

ᄅ ㅛ ㅙ

ᄆ ㅜ ㅚ

ᄇ ㅠ ㅝ

ᄈ ㅡ ㅞ

ᄉ ㅣ ㅟ

ᄊ ㅡ

ᄋ ㅢ

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 How to pronounce the Korean letters

(continuation)

Consonants Vowels Vowel combinations

It’s best to learn the sounds that these letters make so Korean speakers
will hear you properly when you talk. The easiest way to do this is to use
associations. You may see Korean words and letters written out in
English letters. It may help you with learning Korean in the beginning.
However, avoid using this kind of transliteration for pronunciation. It will
be confusing and it will take longer to learn proper pronunciation.

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 Pronunciation of Romanized English vs Korean

Letters

You may see the letter ᄀwritten as a “g” or a “k”, but that shouldn’t be
used as a guide for pronunciation. The purpose of writing a Korean word
in English letters is often so people who don’t know Hangul can
approximate the word.
However, it’s not a very accurate guide for pronunciation. Instead, it’s far
better to spend the hour it takes to learn the alphabet to know the correct
pronunciation.

Short and Abrupt Pronunciation of Korean

The closest approximation to the Korean letter ᄂ is “n”. However,

sometimes it can sound pronounced like a “d”. The reason is that Koreans
sometimes pronounce sounds shortly and abruptly.

Using Romanization for Pronunciation

Korean romanization refers to using Latin characters to display Korean

words and sentences in writing. For example, you can write the Korean
word 메뉴 as “menyu”.
This romanization system is great for people who want to be able to
identify a few Korean words or signs without needing to learn the
alphabet. It can also be valuable for visitors who come to Korea for a trip
and don’t know the alphabet.

Romanizing Sounds That Don’t Exist in English

This not only goes for regular letters but also for the special double
consonants in Korean. For example, the Korean ᄁ is romanized as kk.
However, it is pronounced differently than what you would hear with
“kk”. If you only learned from romanization, you probably wouldn’t realize
this.

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Basic Korean Pronunciation Rules

Now that we have covered some basics to be aware of related to how

Korean letters are pronounced, we can move onto some simple lessons
that cover the basic rules for Korean pronunciation.

What is a batchim ( 받침)?

The batchim is the bottom or lower position consonants in a syllable. Not
all syllables have a batchim.
For example:
바 -> no batchim
밥 -> ᄇ is the batchim
밟-> ᄅᄇ is the batchim

Consonants must be paired together with a vowel

No consonant alone in the Korean language can make a sound. There

always has to be a vowel combined with a consonant. For example, ᄀ
alone is nothing, but 가 is ga.

Why does the ᄉ sometimes sound like a “t”?

There are certain consonants that change to a “t” sound when they are
in the batchim position. These consonants are ᄃ,ᄌ,ᄉ,ᄊ,ᄐ, and ᄎ.
For example:
꽃 = [꽅] – ends in “t” instead of “ch”
맛 = [맡] – ends in “t” instead of “s”
If you see a single syllable that ends in ᄃ,ᄌ,ᄉ,ᄊ,ᄐ,ᄎ, then you can
pronounce the nal consonant as “t”.

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Special rules for Korean word pronunciation

The easiest way to pronounce words written in Hangul is to just sound

out the syllables one by one. However, there are some special rules that
exist when certain consonants are next to each other in syllables.

Vowel following a consonant

If the previous syllable ends in a consonant in the batchim position and

the next syllable begins with the letter ᄋ, the consonant sound gets
moved to the beginning of the following syllable.
For example:
먹어 -> [머거]

What if the consonant isn’t followed by a vowel?

When the syllable ends with a consonant and there is no syllable to

follow or the next syllable begins with a consonant, the pronunciation of
that consonant may change.
Like this:
ᄀ, ᄁ, ᄏ -> k

Double consonants : ᄁ, ᄄ, ᄈ, ᄊ, ᄍ
Unlike in English, Finnish, and a lot of other languages, a double
consonant in Korean doesn’t actually get pronounced twice as long or
with twice the emphasis.
For example:
가까워요 (gakkawoyo)
바빠요 (bappayo)

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