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Aspiration and ㅎ weakening



The ‘h’ sound is very weak in English as well as Korean. For example, when you pronounce ‘hour’ it sounds like ‘our’. The ‘ㅎ’ tends to become silent in casual speech between vowels, after the nasal consonants ㄴ and ㅁ, or after the consonant ㄹ. Examples :

Spelling
Pronounciation
Sound
Meaning
좋아요
조아요
jo-a-yo
okay or like it
전화
저놔
jeo-nwa
phone
감히
가미
ka-mi
dare
말해 봐
마래 봐
ma-rae-bwa
tell me


When ㅎ precedes or follows immediately ㄱ, ㄷ, ㅂ or ㅈ, it becomes silent but making these soft consonants harder (or aspirated):

Softer
Harder
Sound
k(h)
t(h)
p(h)
c(h)


For examples :

Spelling
Pronounciation
Sound
Meaning
축하
추카
chu-kha
celebrate
좋다
조타
jo-tha
like it
입학
이팍
i-phak
admissions
그렇지
그러치
ke-reo-chi
that’s right


You don’t have to think of these sound shifts as a set of rules that you must learn. If you practise saying the syllables quickly, running them together, the reason for the shifts will become obvious, and eventually altering your pronunciation in this way will become natural.

Pronouncing Korean is relatively easy because, apart from these sound shifts, Korean words sound the way they look. As you will be introduced to new words, sentences, and the like, through printed text, it is important that you devote some time to learning Hangeul.

***If you have any confusion, please, don't hesitate to ask me :)


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2 comments:

  1. Sosaengnim, thats mean the actual spelling of the words are in the first column but the pronunciation are sound like it has been read from the second column syllable? right?

    ReplyDelete