Beginning and Medial Consonants

*Note: The tense (doubled) consonants have a “stronger” sound than their lax counterparts that cannot be represented with English sounds. The difference comes from more tension in the mouth and throat while making the sounds. I still have trouble pronouncing these sounds, too.

Exceptions: ㅅ and ㅆ take an “sh” sound when they are in front of the ㅣ (“ee” sound) vowel, or any “y-series” vowel (see below). For example 피시 sounds like “pee shee” instead of “pee see”.

ㄹ makes a kind of “r” sound when it is found between two vowels. However, the sound is not like the “r” sound in English, but instead like the “r” sound in Spanish in words like “pero”. For example 파리 (Paris) sounds like “pah ree” instead of “pah lee”.

Ending Consonants

Some consonants take a different sound when they occur at the bottom of a syllable block, at the end of a word. Fortunately there are only a few possibilities for sounds, so it’s not that hard to remember. Remember, Koreans do not release consonants at the end of a word, they swallow them. ㄴ, ㅁ, and ㄹ do not change at the end of a word.

Mixed consonants: Some syllable blocks will have two different consonants on the bottom. If it is followed by a vowel sound (ex. 앉으세요! “Sit down!”), both consonants are pronounced. Otherwise, only one of the consonants will be spoken, the other will be silent (ex. 닭 “chicken”).

Vowels

Vowels are always the second character in a syllable block. There are 21 different vowels in Korean, but many of them are composites of the basic 8 vowels, so it is easier to remember.

The following vowels are composites of two of the basic vowels. Each is still pronounced as only one syllable.

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