Sounds of Korean#
There is liaison in Korean.
Sounds with regard to morphophonemes#
I recommend finding a quiet place where you can practice pronuncations without getting heard by people you don’t want to disturb.
There’s also the ㆊ /üe/ sound. Ask some Korean how they would pronounce the word for “jump” ᄄᆑ!
Note how the sounds of consonants differ when in the initial, middle, and final position of a word, and in front of certain vowels.
b/p, d/t, q/k, j/c are distinguishable in the word-initial position because ⟨b⟩ is pronounced with a low pitch and ⟨p⟩ is pronounced with a high pitch.
b/p, d/t, q/k, j/c are distinguishable in the word-middle position because ⟨b⟩ is voiced and ⟨p⟩ is voiceless, like in English and Japanese.
b/bb/p, d/dd/t/j/jj/c/s/ss, q/qq/k are not distinguishable in the word-final position.
⟨l⟩ may be pronounced in two ways depending on the position.
Word-initial ⟨l⟩ is pronounced as a light ⟨l⟩, like the word-initial ⟨l⟩ in English. But it is okay to pronouce it as a flap, like the word-middle ⟨t⟩ in General American (e.g. better).
Word-middle ⟨ll⟩ before ⟨a⟩ or ⟨e⟩ is pronounced as ⟨lu⟩, before a vowel is pronounced as double light ls ⟨ll⟩, like the word-initial ⟨l⟩ in English. Else, word-middle ⟨l⟩ is prounced as a flap, like the word-middle ⟨t⟩ in General American (e.g. better).
Word-middle ⟨lll⟩ is pronounced as <lu> in front of a consonant and as ⟨lul⟩ in front of ⟨e⟩. Else, word-middle ⟨ll⟩ before a consonant is pronounced as <lu>. In these cases, it is written as pronounced instead.
Word-final ⟨l⟩ sounds like a light ⟨l⟩, like the word-initial ⟨l⟩ in English.
s and ss sound different and are pronounced differently, but they are very similar.
Put the back of your hand a palm away from your mouth. You shouldn’t feel much air coming out of your mouth when you pronounce ss, like when you pronounce the English Esssssss.
On the contrary, you have to be able to feel the air coming out of your mouth when you pronounce the s sound.
⟨ㅇ⟩ in modern use is actually a combination of two older letters that look very similar. ⟨ㅇ⟩ is a placeholder that is only used word-initially. ⟨ㆁ⟩ is the /ng/ sound only appearing at word-finals. Now you use ⟨ㅇ⟩ for both.
Learn how to read#
Prosody#
Statements always end with a low pitch syllable and questions always end with a high pitch syallable. If a sentence is a syllable, the pitch of the monosyllable goes upward or downward if the pitch of the initial of the monosyllable (e.g. ka - low pitch) does not match the sentence type (e.g. question - high pitch).
The first syllable of a word has a pitch depending on the first letter. The second syllable has a high pitch. The pitch of the following syllables generally go down every syllable unless the word ends with a connecting morpheme, where the last syllable has a high pitch.
There are more rules.
Phonological rules#
There are too many rules. You should always ask Koreans how to write in hangul as well as how to write in hangul as pronounced to learn this by practicing.