Korean pronunciation: 87 minimal pairs to listen to

English separates b from p by the voice; Korean uses breath and tension instead, and has three consonants where English has two. That is why five of the 18 groups below are about the three series — one for each of k, t, p, ch and s. The others are vowels, the end of a syllable, and the three rules that change a word at the join: linking, nasalisation and the h.

What happens here: English has two k-sounds and tells them apart by the voice: the vocal cords buzz during g and not during k. Korean has three, and none of them buzzes at the start of a word. Plain ㄱ is released with a light breath and no voice, weaker than the k of English “kill”. Aspirated ㅋ has a strong puff of air, stronger than that k. Tense ㄲ has no puff at all — close to the k of “skill”, after the s — and the throat tightens, so the sound is short and hard and the vowel after it starts suddenly. An English speaker hears ㄱ as k (because it has no voice) and ㄲ as g (because it has no breath), and so mixes up the two that Korean thinks of as different letters. Two cues help. Hold a sheet of paper in front of the mouth: it moves for ㅋ, barely for ㄱ, and not at all for ㄲ. And listen to the vowel: after ㅋ and ㄲ it starts on a higher pitch than after ㄱ, which is often the clearest difference of all. Inside a word, between two vowels, plain ㄱ does gain a voice — 아기 (baby) has a real g — which is why the romanisation writes g, and why the same letter sounds like k at the start and g in the middle.

What happens here: The same three-way split as for k, with the tongue tip behind the upper teeth. 달 (moon), 탈 (mask) and 딸 (daughter) are the textbook case because they are otherwise identical. An English speaker says 달 with an English d, which has voice: a Korean ear accepts that as ㄷ, so speaking is not the problem. Listening is. A Korean ㄷ at the start of a word has no voice, so to an English ear it sounds like t; ㅌ, with its puff, also sounds like t; and ㄸ, with no puff and no voice, sounds like d — the exact opposite of what the spelling suggests. Listen for the breath and the pitch rather than the voice: ㅌ comes with a little gust of air and a high vowel, ㄸ with a tight, clipped start and a high vowel, ㄷ with neither, and the vowel after it begins a little lower. English has a sound close to ㄸ already: the t in “stop” or “sting”, after the s, has no puff. Say “sting”, then drop the s and keep the t exactly as it was.

What happens here: With the lips the split is easiest to see, because the puff of air can be felt on the back of a hand held in front of the mouth. 풀 (grass) blows hard; 불 (fire) blows a little; 뿔 (horn) does not blow at all. English p at the start of a word is close to ㅍ, and the p after s in “spin” is close to ㅃ: an English speaker has both sounds already and simply never had to tell them apart. The plain one is the newcomer. It sits between the other two, with a weak breath and no voice, and an English speaker who says an English b — with voice — is understood but sounds foreign; one who says an English p is heard as ㅍ and changes the word. The safest way to the plain sound is to say it relaxed and low: lips closed lightly, no tension, no push, and the vowel after it starting a little lower than after the other two. 방 (room) and 빵 (bread) is the pair every learner meets in the first week.

What happens here: The romanisation writes j, ch and jj, and the letters mislead twice. Korean ㅈ is not the j of “jam”: at the start of a word it has no voice, and it sounds to an English ear much like the ch of “church”, only softer. ㅊ is that ch with a strong puff of air, stronger than in English. ㅉ is a ch said tight, with no breath at all, and to an English ear it sounds most like j. So 자요 (I sleep), 차요 (I kick; it is cold) and 짜요 (it is salty) can all sound like the same word with a slightly different push. All three are made with the front of the tongue flat against the ridge behind the teeth and the lips relaxed; English speakers round the lips for ch and j, and that rounding makes the Korean sounds darker than they are. Between vowels, plain ㅈ gains a voice and does sound like the j of “jam”: 아저씨, 여자.

What happens here: Korean has two s-sounds and no z. Plain ㅅ is a soft s with air escaping around it, almost as if an h followed; tense ㅆ is a hard, sharp s, held a moment longer, with a tight throat and a high vowel after it. An English s lies between the two, and Korean listeners often hear it as ㅆ — so an English speaker who means 사요 (I buy) can be heard saying 싸요 (it is cheap). Aim for a lazier, breathier s for ㅅ and save the full hiss for ㅆ. Before the vowel i, and before the y-vowels, both move back towards sh: 시 (o’clock) is closer to “she” than to “see”, and 씨 (after a name) is “she” said tight. The romanisation still writes si and ssi, and English speakers who read it say a thin s that Koreans hear as slightly odd.

What happens here: The romanisation writes ㅓ as eo, and English speakers read it as two vowels — “ee-oh” — or as the “yo” of “yoghurt”. It is one vowel, and not far from the vowel of British “hot” or of “thought” without the rounding: mouth open, lips relaxed, tongue low and back. ㅗ is higher and rounded, close to the start of the o in “go”, but without the glide that English adds at the end. The two are told apart by the lips more than by anything else: spread and open for ㅓ, small and round for ㅗ. An English speaker who rounds ㅓ turns 거기 (there) into 고기 (meat), and one who lets ㅗ glide into “oh-oo” makes it sound like a second syllable. Look in a mirror: if the lips move during ㅗ, the glide is there.

What happens here: Having learnt that ㅓ is not “ee-oh”, many English speakers settle on the vowel of “cut” or “but” for it — and that vowel is close to Korean ㅏ, not to ㅓ. Then 반 (half) and 번 (time, as in once and twice) become the same word. ㅏ is the a of “father”, open and in the middle of the mouth. ㅓ is further back and slightly higher, with the jaw a little less open, and to an English ear it has a hint of o in it while the lips stay spread. Practise the three in a row — ㅏ, ㅓ, ㅗ — and feel the tongue move back and the lips round only at the last step.

What happens here: Both vowels are made with rounded lips and the tongue at the back, and Korean keeps them apart by height: ㅗ is the o of “go” cut off before its glide, ㅜ the oo of “food”. English speakers have both, so the danger is not a missing sound but a moving one. English o glides upwards into u (go = “goh-oo”), and that glide lands exactly on Korean ㅜ, so a ㅗ said the English way sounds like ㅗ and ㅜ at once. Hold the lips still. In fast speech in Seoul, ㅗ inside a word is often raised towards ㅜ — 그리고 is heard as “geurigu” — but in careful speech and in the pairs below the difference is kept.

What happens here: ㅡ is the one Korean vowel with no English partner. The tongue is where it is for ㅜ — high and at the back — but the lips are flat and spread, as for a smile. Say oo, then keep the tongue still and pull the corners of the mouth back: what comes out is ㅡ. English speakers reading eu say “ee-oo” or “yoo”, or round the lips and produce ㅜ; then 글 (writing) becomes 굴 (oyster). ㅡ is also the vowel Korean adds when a borrowed word has two consonants together, which is why “bus” is 버스 and “test” is 테스트: those added vowels are short and quiet, but they are ㅡ, not ㅜ. Watch the lips: if they move forward, it is the wrong vowel.

What happens here: Spelling still keeps ㅐ and ㅔ apart, and so do dictionaries, which describe ㅐ as more open, close to the a of “cat”. In the speech of most people in Seoul, and of nearly all younger speakers, there is no longer any difference: both are said like the e of “bed”, and Koreans themselves ask “which e?” when spelling a word aloud. An English speaker can therefore use one vowel for both and will sound entirely natural. The trouble is on paper, not in the ear: 개 (dog) and 게 (crab), 매일 (every day) and 메일 (email) have to be learnt with their spelling. The one pair speakers do keep apart is 내 (my) and 네 (your, in casual speech) — by saying 네 as ni in conversation, while still writing 네. The pairs are included so that the spelling has an example sentence; a voice reading them may well say both words the same, and then the honest answer to the listening exercise is that it cannot be heard.

What happens here: ㅢ is ㅡ followed quickly by ㅣ, in one syllable: lips spread the whole time, tongue moving from the back to the front. English speakers reading ui say “oo-ee”, with rounded lips, which is heard as a different vowel, ㅟ; or they drop the first half and say plain ㅣ, and then 의사 (doctor) becomes 이사 (moving house). At the start of a word the glide must be there. Elsewhere, standard pronunciation lets it go in two ways. After a consonant ㅢ is said as ㅣ: 희망 (hope) is [히망]. And the particle 의 (of) is usually said like 에: 나의 is [나에]. The romanisation keeps writing ui in all three cases, so the line under the word does not show this.

What happens here: English has all three endings — “sin”, “sing”, “sim” — so the sounds are not new. What is new is how much depends on them. A Korean syllable can end in only seven sounds, and three of them are nasals, so 반, 방 and 밤 are three everyday words. English speakers tend to let the end of a word fade, and a faded nasal leaves the listener guessing. Finish each one: tongue tip pressed against the ridge behind the teeth for ㄴ, back of the tongue against the soft palate for ㅇ, lips closed for ㅁ — and hold it for a moment before the next word. The vowel before the nasal changes slightly with it, and Korean listeners use that too: the a of 강 is further back than the a of 간.

What happens here: At the end of a syllable Korean closes the mouth for k, t or p and stops there: the air is cut off and nothing follows. English often releases a final stop, especially at the end of a phrase — “stop!” ends with a small burst — and when an English speaker releases a Korean final, Korean ears hear an extra vowel, so 밥 (rice) sounds like 바브. Close the lips for 밥, the back of the tongue for 박, the tongue tip for 맛, and leave them closed. Because nothing is released, many written letters end up as the same sound. Every consonant that is not a nasal or l is said as one of these three: ㅅ, ㅆ, ㅈ, ㅊ, ㅌ and ㅎ all end as t, ㅋ and ㄲ as k, ㅍ as p. That is why 낫 (sickle), 낮 (daytime) and 낯 (face) are all said [낟], and 입 (mouth) and 잎 (leaf) both [입]: the spelling keeps the letter for the moment a vowel follows and it is heard again (잎이 [이피]).

What happens here: English l at the end of a word is dark: the back of the tongue rises, and in many accents the tip never touches at all, so “full” ends almost in a w. Korean final ㄹ is clear and light: the tip of the tongue presses firmly behind the upper teeth and stays there, the sides let the air out, and the back of the tongue stays low. A dark English l on 물 (water) sounds like “moo”, and a tip that touches too briefly lets the air go through the nose and turns it into 문 (door). Hold the tongue tip up, and feel that no air leaves through the nose: pinch it, and ㄹ should not change while ㄴ stops altogether.

What happens here: Korean has one letter, ㄹ, for what English splits into r and l. Between two vowels it is a single quick tap of the tongue tip against the ridge behind the teeth — the sound of the tt in American “butter” or the r of Spanish “pero”. Two ㄹ in a row, one at the end of a syllable and one at the start of the next, are a long clear l, held for a moment. So 다리 (leg) and 달리 (differently) differ only in how long the tongue stays up. English speakers do two things wrong here. They use an English r, with the tongue curled back and the lips rounded, which Korean does not have at all; and they say ㄹㄹ as a short English l, which is heard as the tap. Practise the tap with the tip of the tongue alone, as fast as possible, and the long l by leaning on it.

What happens here: Korean writes a word in its blocks, and says it in its syllables: when a block ending in a consonant is followed by one beginning with a vowel, the consonant moves over. 먹어요 is said [머거요], 옷이 [오시]. English does the same across words (“an apple” as “a-napple”), so the habit itself is easy. What is new is what moves. Of two final letters, only the second moves: 앉아요 (I sit) is [안자요], while 안아요 (I hug), with a single ㄴ, is [아나요]. A final ㅎ does not move at all but disappears: 놓아요 (I put down) is [노아요], and 높아요 (it is high) keeps its ㅍ: [노파요]. And ㄷ or ㅌ before the vowel i becomes j or ch: 같이 (together) is [가치], which is why it sounds like 가치 (value). English speakers who read block by block make a pause where Korean has none, and say the letters that Korean has already moved or dropped. Read the pairs aloud as one smooth string of syllables.

What happens here: When a syllable ending in k, t or p meets one beginning with n or m, the stop becomes the nasal made in the same place: k becomes ng, t becomes n, p becomes m. 합니다 is said [함니다], 국내 (domestic) [궁내], 십만 (a hundred thousand) [심만]. This is not a lazy pronunciation but the standard one; the spelling shows the word, the sound follows the rule, and the romanisation on this site writes what is heard (hamnida). English speakers reading the letters say a k, t or p followed by n, which Korean mouths simply do not do, and the word becomes hard to recognise. ㄹ joins in from the other side. After m or ng it becomes n: 종로 [종노]. Next to n the two become a long l: 연락 (contact) [열락], 설날 (New Year’s Day) [설랄]. The pairs below set a word that nasalises against one that does not.

What happens here: Korean ㅎ is weak, and it rarely survives in the middle of a word as an h. Next to plain ㄱ, ㄷ, ㅂ or ㅈ, in either order, it merges with them into the aspirated sound: 축하 (congratulations) is [추카], 좋다 (good) [조타], 입학 (starting school) [이팍]. Before a vowel a final ㅎ disappears altogether: 좋아요 [조아요], 싫어요 [시러요]. English speakers who read the letters say a k and an h one after the other, which is two sounds where Korean has one, or keep an h between vowels that Korean has dropped. Two consequences are worth knowing. Some different words become homophones: 닫히다 (to be shut) and 다치다 (to get hurt) are both said [다치다], 낳아요 (gives birth) and 나아요 (gets better) both [나아요]. And other words now differ in nothing but that merged breath, as the pairs below show.