Pronunciation Rules Practice
Pronunciation Rules Practice
Pronunciation Rules Practice
Pronunciation rules
Korean words are not always pronounced as they are written because of the difficulty in
pronouncing the syllable together. In order to make the words easy to pronounce, it is
necessary to understand some Korean pronunciation rules. Here, in this lesson, only the 5 main
pronunciation rules will be introduced. There are a few more pronunciation rules, as well as
exceptions, but they will be introduced in later chapters.
When the final consonant of a syllable has the voiceless sound, such as [ㄱ], [ㅋ], [ㄲ], [ㄷ],
[ㅌ], [ㄸ], [ㅂ], [ㅍ], [ㅅ], [ㅆ], [ㅈ], [ㅊ], [ㅎ], they are unleased.
Finals Unreleased final sounds Examples
ㄱ, ㅋ ㄲ → [ㄱ] 조각, 부엌
ㅂ, ㅍ → [ㅂ] 밥, 잎, 서랍
ㄷ, ㅌ, ㅅ, ㅆ, ㅈ, ㅊ, ㅎ [ㄷ] 곳, 빛, 빗, 솥, 맛, 꽃
4-2. Re-syllabification
When the first consonant of the following syllable is [ㅇ] (zero sound), it is replaced by the final
consonant of the previous syllable. When the initial syllable has a double final, the first
consonant of the double final usually stays and the second consonant of the double final is
carried over to the next syllable. However, when the double final has the same double
consonants such as ㄲ or ㅆ, they are carried over together to the next syllable, as shown
below.
책이 → [채기] 갔어요 → [가써요] 앉으세요 → [안즈세요]
4-3. Tensification
When the first consonant of the following syllable (except ‘ㅇ’) bumps into [ㄱ], [ㄷ], [ㅂ] the
previous syllable, it becomes its tensed sound. However, this tensification occurs only when the
first consonant of the following syllable has the corresponding tensed sound such as [ㄲ], [ㄸ],
[ㅃ], [ㅆ], or [ㅉ].
(5) 갔다 [ 갇따 ] (6) 밥과 [ 밥꽈 ]
(9) 식당 [ 식땅 ] (10) 약국 [ 약꾹 ]
(11) 닫다 [ 닫따 ] (12) 학교 [ 학꾜 ]
4-4. Nasalization
[ㄱ], [ㄷ], and [ㅂ] become their corresponding nasal consonants, when the first consonant of
the following syllable has nasal sounds, such as [ㄴ] or [ㅁ].
Note: The nasalization occurs in the same location of the particular sound organ, for the convenience of
making sounds. For example, [ㅂ] is changed into [ㅁ] because they are produced by the same sound
organ (lips). In the same way, [ㄱ] is changed into [ㅇ] because they are both soft-palate sounds. [ㄷ] is
changed into [ㄴ] because they are both gum-ridge sounds.