How to Learn to read Hangeul Part 4/4

If you've gotten this far in my How to Learn Hangeul series, you are probably serious about learning to read Korean. If you've been practicing your flashcards, guess what? You already read 한글. If that was your goal, you can stop reading. You will be able to go to a Korean 레스토랑 and recognize if they serve 김치, 김밥, 라면, or 비빔밥. You'll know if a person's family name is 김, 백, or 이. You will be able to read a ton of loanwords and your time in Korea (or some city's Koreatown) will be immeasurably enhanced. You will already know more than most foreigners. In short, if you are not interested in learning to speak Korean, and only in reading, you can stop.

This post is more for people who want to speak Korean. If you want to continue your Korean studies beyond sounding out English loanwords, keep reading. In this lesson you will learn about initial devoicing (it's much more simple than it sounds) and how to pronounce some tricky final consonants. Your pronunciation of Korean will improve. In time, this knowledge will also help your listening comprehension.

Voicing and Devoicing

In an earlier post I showed a picture of your relaxed vocal cords. We need to talk about those cords some more.

I hope you are not in public, because I want you to make a z sound. Go ahead. Really. Don't whisper or it won't work. Make a loud z sound.

Now put your hand on your throat. (Trust me, this is all related to reading Korean.) Do it like this:

No manicure. No lipstick. Just phonology.

When you make a z sound, you should feel your throat vibrating. That's your vocal chords! Cool, huh? Now make an s sound. Your fingers don't vibrate. Now make a z sound again. Now they're vibrating. Switch between a z sound and an s sound. When you make a z sound, your vocal cords vibrate. They don't vibrate for an s sound.

The vibration of the vocal cords is the only difference between a z and an s. The z is voiced and s is devoiced (or voiceless). There are a few other pairs of sounds which are only distinguished by whether they are voiced or not.

Voiced   Devoiced

z             s

b             p

d             t

g             k

 j             ch

(In English, the ch sound is not exactly a devoiced j, but we can think of it that way in order to read Korean. I'm simplifying here. Also, Korean doesn't really have a z. That's why the amusement park in Seoul, Everland, has a 주토피아. That's zoo-topia, not Jew-topia. My friends and I thought that was funny.)

Initial devoicing

If you are in Korea, or if you have spoken with Koreans, you may have noticed that at times they seem to say "Pusan" for Busan and "Taegu" for Daegu. You also may have heard "kalbi" for galbi and "pibimbab" for bibimbab. Of course, they are pronouncing these Korean city names and word correctly. This phenomenon is called initial devoicing.

If a voiced consonant is the first word in a sentence, or after a pause, Korean will devoice it. 

So if these Korean letters are first, they are pronounced like their devoiced counterparts:

Voiced     Devoiced

ㅂ             ㅍ

ㄷ             ㅌ

ㄱ             ㅋ

 ㅈ             ㅊ

Don't devoice these

Sometimes, though, the Korean language wants the initial sound to be voiced. That's where those weird double consonants come in. These four double consonants are not devoiced. You pronounce them very much like their voiced simple consonant counterparts.

ㄲ ㄸ ㅃ  ㅉ 

(There is another double consonant, ㅆ, which is always devoiced. Just, you know, so this process is not too straightforward and simple.)

Usually, these double consonants are Romanized as kk, tt, pp, and jj. However, you will make a closer approximation of the Korean pronunciation if you pronounce them as g, d, b, and j.

ㄲ  g

ㄸ  d

ㅃ  b

ㅉ  j

(There is a slight difference between the voiced simple consonants and their voiced double consonant counterparts. But don't worry about that right now. Maybe don't worry about that ever. Let's keep moving.)

Final consonants of syllables (받침)

You already know that some syllables in Korean can end in a consonant. For example, the middle syllable of my name has a ㄹ: 쉴. 


If a syllable ends in a consonant, that consonant is called a batchim (받침), which means support or small plate. Most batchims are relatively easy. In the above syllable, you see a ㄹ and you pronounce a ㄹ.

Some batchims are more complicated. All three of these letters in the batchim position sound like  ㄱ: ㄱ, ㄲ, ㅋ.

Therefore, these three words are all pronounced "pag": 박, 밖, 밬

They are not pronounced "bag" unless the syllable is not initial. For example, if I were saying "미스터박 I would say "mi-seu-teo-bag" (Mister Park).

Any of these letters in the batchim position are pronounced ㄷ: ㄷ, ㅌ,ㅅ,ㅆ,ㅈ,ㅊ,ㅎ

This is why the Korean loanword for cheese must be two syllables (치즈).  If you just write 칮 it would be pronounced "chid."

Double batchim
 
I know I've already given you quite a lot to think about as you read Hangeul, but I really must mention the double batchim and their special rules. Actually, had history gone a little differently, there might not be any of these. King Sejong, the Korean king who commissioned brilliant linguists to invent Hangeul, liked Korean spelling to reflect the root words rather than the actual pronunciation. He liked etymology. Had he preferred regular orthography--spelling that makes perfect sense--I could stop writing this post now and get back to watching my totally not-illegal download of Hugo. But, sigh, he liked the spelling to reflect the words it was related to. So here we go.

There are number of double batchims: ㄳ ㄵ  ㄶ ㄺ  ㄻ  ㄼ ㄽ  ㄾ  ㄿ  ㅀ  ㅄ

Most of these are so rare, I'm not going to waste time telling you how to pronounce them. Trust me: the issue won't come up too much. Try not to flip out if you happen to see one.

But there are a couple that are important. ㄺ and  ㄻ are just pronounced ㄹ.

When a double batchim is followed by a syllable that begins with a vowel sound, the double batchim carries over to the second syllable. So the word  있어요 (meaning "exists" or "have"--I'll get to this word and its meaning when I move on to speaking Korean) is pronounced ee-seo-yo.

There are a lot of other rules for pronouncing these double batchim. My advice is: don't waste your time. Remember that they have different rules, and just move on.

And one last thing ...

 ...just to really confuse you. When people have a final consonant in English, it is really enunciated. The final t in cat has to be really heard. It's different in Korean. (If you've taught Koreans ESL and struggled to get them to pronounce final consonants, you know what I'm blogging about.)

Korean final consonants lack the final puff of air that English consonants have. It's like they form the consonant with their mouth, then don't actually pronounce it. Thus, 집 can sound like "chee" and 밥 might sound like "pa." Just be aware of it.

 

Practice

Try reading these words aloud. I have chosen words which will be helpful for you to know during your time in 한국 (Korea). Try to remember the initial devoicing and all the batchim rules. The answers (Romanized) are below. And you can always copy and paste into Google Translate to hear a native speaker pronounce it.

빵 (bread)
빗 (comb)
진짜? (informal way of asking Really?)
꽃 (flower)
옷 (clothes)
닭 (chicken)
집 (house)
감사합니다 (thank you)
없습니다 (there isn't any/don't have)
김밥
찜질방 (public bathhouse)
부대찌개 (army stew)
시내 (downtown)
빨리빨리 (informal: hurry up)

Answers

(Please don't post a comment that I'm "wrong." I know that most websites Romanize these words differently. I'm Romanizing these in order to teach you initial devoicing. Most websites don't do that. So thank me instead of trying to correct me.)

bang
pit
chinja?
god
od
tag
chib
kam-sa-ham-ni-da
eob-sum-ni-da
kimbab
jim-jil-bang
pu-dae-ji-gae
shi-nae
bal-li-bal-li