LESSON TRANSCRIPT

Hana Hana Hangul S1 #13

Hangul Bat-chim Rules 1: Lenition
and Fortis

# 13
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안녕하세요 여러분. Koreanclass101.com 하나하나 한글시리즈의 에이미입니다. Hi, everybody!
I’m Amy and welcome to Hana Hana Hangul on KoreanClass101.com - The fastest,
easiest, and most fun way to learn Hangul, the Korean alphabet.

In the last lesson, we introduced the batchim position -- consonants at the end of
syllables in Korean. We already saw some of the tricky ways consonants change their
sound when they’re in that position.

Now we’re going to explain what happens when two consonant sounds run into each
other.

There are seven basic rules, as shown here.

Some scary names, right? But after you see some examples, I think you’ll understand
why they exist, and how to use them without needing to memorize any linguistic terms!

Remember, all of these rules help the Korean language to be *easier* to pronounce.
They take some getting used to, but they’re worth the effort to learn.

One important note: all of these rules affect how syllables are read.

For the examples, I will write the way words *sound* in blue. The characters aren’t
actually changed, but just pronounced differently depending on these rules.

Okay? Here’s the first batchim rule:

This rule involves syllables with a batchim coming before a syllable with an ㅇ (이응) in
the initial position.

Remember how the ㅇ (이응) in the initial position is just a placeholder and doesn’t have
any sound? So when this happens, the consonant in the bat-chim position *replaces*
the ㅇ(이응). Imagine it this way: Korean syllables *like* to begin with a consonant
sound. So if it’s beginning with an ㅇ (이응) and sees that the previous syllable has a
batchim, it will steal it and use it as its own initial.

KOREANCLAS S 101.COM HANA HANA HANGUL S 1 #13 - HANGUL BAT -CHI M RULES 1: LENI T I ON AND FORT I S 2
Here’s an important word. It’s 한국어 meaning “the Korean language.” If you pronounce
it syllable-by-syllable, it would be han(한)-guk(국)-eo(어). But because the last syllable
starts with an ㅇ(이응), and the syllable before that has a bat-chim, so the batchim ㄱ(기
역) would replace the ㅇ(이응).

Now two things happen: First, the last syllable now starts with a consonant sound
instead of a vowel sound. From “eo(어)” to “geo(거)”.

The sound that this ㄱ makes changes from a

There will be some complicated rules today, but eventually they will become second
nature to you. Just keep listening to natural Korean and it will soon feel *right* to say
han-gu-geo(한구거) instead of han-guk-eo(한구/커).

So with this rule, you really need to keep track of what we learned in the last lesson:
how certain consonants change their sound when they’re in the batchim instead of the
initial position.

For example, we learned last lesson that all of these consonants sound like ㄷ(드/디읃)
when they’re in the batchim position. But if they get moved to the initial position by this
rule, they change back. So 옷은 would not be pronounced od-eun(오든), but 오슨 (o-
seun).

Test how much you understand this rule by trying to read this word...Got it? It’s 낮은곳[
나즌곧] not 나든곧.

This rule is pretty simple, and has two parts. First, if a batchim batchim and the
following initial consonant are the same sound, the initial consonant becomes doubled.

This is easy to see in the following words. 듣다 and 학교. But it can be a little trickier
when the consonants are different, but have the same sound.

Remember that batchim ㅆ(쓰) is the read the same as ㄷ(드) when it’s in the batchim,
so you need to remember to apply this rule here: 있다.

There’s one more part to this rule.

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The emphasized initial consonant not only happens when the consonants make the
same sound, but also if ㄱ(기역), ㄷ(디읃), or ㅂ(비읍) is in the batchim position. No
matter what the following initial is, if can be doubled, it will be.

먹/ 따 - 먹다

학/ 쌩 - 학생

갑/ 짜/ 기 - 갑자기

Two rules down, five more to go. In the next lesson, we’ll continue this discussion of a
difficult but very important part of learning Hangul.

See you on the next Hana Hana Hangul! 여러분 다음에 또 만나요.

KOREANCLAS S 101.COM HANA HANA HANGUL S 1 #13 - HANGUL BAT -CHI M RULES 1: LENI T I ON AND FORT I S 4