Syllable Combinations

Korean syllables are written in blocks. Every syllable begins with a consonant, has either a vowel or a diphthong (written slightly larger than the consonants), and may or may not end in one or more consonants. When a syllable begins with a vowel sound, the "ng" (i-ung) is used as a zero-consonant place holder. Let's look at some examples.

This is the Korean word for "father." It is pronounced "a-be-ji." You can see that the word is composed of three syllables. The first syllable has an "i-ung" holding the place where a consonant would be. To the right of that is the vowel "a." The second syllable has a "pi-up" as the initial consonant followed by the vowel "e." Finally, the third syllable has an initial "ji-uj" followed by the vowel "i." As you can see, Korean syllables are composed so as to fit neatly into a square. Pay close attention to how the letters are written together to form syllable blocks. Note also in this word that both the the "pi-up" and the "ji-uj" occur in intervocalic position (i.e., between two vowels) and are thus voiced when pronounced. Now let's move on to another example.

This is the word "mi-gwuk." It means "America." As you can see, it is composed of two syllables and five letters. The first syllable has a "mi-um" followed by the vowel "i." The second syllable has two consonants and a vowel. It starts on top with a "ki-ek," followed by the vowel "wu," followed by another "ki-ek." Since the first "ki-ek" occurs between two vowels ("i" and "wu"), it is pronounced voiced (i.e., like English "g"). The final "ki-ek" occurs at the end of the word with nothing following it, and is thus unreleased. Note the positioning of the letters in each syllable. The vowel "i" is vertically long, so the consonant "mi-um" is written to the left of it. On the other hand, the vowel "wu" is horizontally wide, so the initial and final consonants are written above and below the vowel, respectively.

This is the Korean word for "lawyer" - "pyen-ho-sa." As you can see, it is composed of three syllables. The first syllable has two consonants and a vowel. It starts with a "pi-up," followed by the vowel "ye," followed by a "ni-un." Notice that since the vowel "ye" is vertically long, the "pi-up" is written to the left of the vowel and not on top of it. Syllable final consonants, when present, are always written in the lower portion of the syllable block (cf. "mi-gwuk" above). The second syllable is composed of a "hi-uh" followed by the vowel "o," and the final syllable is a "si-os" followed by the vowel "a."

Let's look at a word with a final "ng" sound. This is the word for "idiot."

As you can see, it's composed of three syllables and is pronounced "meng-cheng-i."

Here are two Korean words together. This expression means "try reading (something)." The first thing you should notice that is different about this example is that the first syllable has two final consonants. Let's work through the pronunciation. The first syllable has an "i-ung" in front, which we know has no pronunciation at the beginning of a syllable. The vowel to the right of it is "i." Then we have a syllable-final consonant cluster of "ri-ul" and "ki-ek." Normally both consonants in the final cluster could not be pronounced, but since the following syllable begins with a vowel sound (the second syllable is "i-ung" plus "e") we get "il-ge" for the pronuniation. In other words, the final "ki-ek" is pronounced as though it were the initial consonant in the following syllable. The second part of the expression should present no problem. It's "po-se-yo." Since the words are read together as a unit, however, the "pi-up" will be pronounced like English "b" (because it occurs between two vowel sounds), and so we get "il-ge bo-se-yo" for the complete expression. When you put "po-se-yo" on the end of a verb, it means "to give something a try" (po-da, the infinitive, literally means "to see"). If we were to spell the expression as it is pronounced, it would look like this:

Let's move on to another example.

How about this word? It is the Korean word for "good." You can see that it is composed of two syllables. The first syllable has a "ji-uj" followed by an "o" followed by a "hi-uh," and the second syllable is composed of a "ti-gut" and the vowel "a." Since the "hi-uh" is followed by a "t" sound, the "t" will become aspirated and pronounced as though it were "th." Thus, the word will be pronounced as though it were spelled like this:

When a combination of "p", "t,", "k," "j," or "s" occurs, the second syllable in the combination is always tensed. Look at the following example.

This is the Korean word for "to wear." Since there is a "t" occuring after a "p," the "t" will be pronounced tense. So, if we were to spell the word as pronounced ("ip-tta"), it would look like this:

Here is another example of how pronunciations change according to the phonetic environment.

Can you read this word? It's "eps-sum-ni-da" and means "does not exist," "there is none," "does not have," etc. As you can see, the first syllable has an initial zero consonant, followed by the vowel "e," followed by a consonant cluster of a "pi-up" and "si-os." As in the "read" example above, consonant clusters are normally reduced to a single consonant unless there is something in the following syllable that would cause both consonants to be pronounced. In this case, since we have a final "s" in the first syllable and an "s" beginning the next syllable, both "s"s will be pronounced as though they were one tense "ss." But there's one more kind of change we have to learn -- nasalization. When a "p," "t," "k," "s," or "j" is followed by a nasal ("m," "n," or "ng"), that consonant also undergoes nasalization as follows:

p --> m
t, s, j --> n
k --> ng

So since here we have a "p" followed by an "n," the "p" will be pronounced like an "m." Thus this word will pronounced as though it were spelled like this:

So far, so good? Let's go over the "r/l" pronunciations.

This is the Korean word for "subway." Can you work out the pronunciation? It's "ji-ha-chel." Note the "r/l" at the end of the last syllable. Since it occurs at the end of the word, it is pronounced more like English "l" than "r."

This is the Korean word for "to know." It is pronounced "al-da." As you can see, a "ri-ul" followed by a consonant is generally pronounced as English "l."

This word means "know(s)." Here, the "ri-ul" occurs between two vowels and so is pronounced like a flapped "r" and we get "arayo" for the pronunciation.

This word has two "ri-ul"s next to each other. It means "don't know" and is pronounced "molla." Two "ri-ul"s together are pronounced like a long English "l."

This is the word for "difficulty." You can see that it has a "ni-un" followed by a "ri-ul." When an "n" and an "r/l" come together, both are pronounced like "l." So this word will be pronounced "kollan."

Now this example is a bit tougher. See if you can figure out the pronunciation before reading the explanation.

The first syllable in isolation would be read as "nak," and the second syllable as "rang." However, when they occur together, we have to apply the assimilation rules. First, when a "ri-ul" occurs together with a consonant other than another "ri-ul" or "ni-un," it is pronounced as "n." So the second syllable will take on the pronunciation of "nang." Then we must apply nasalization to the preceding "ki-ek." Thus the first syllable will be also pronounced as "nang." So, we get "nang-nang" for the pronunciation. "Nang-nang" is the name of the former Chinese colony in Korea ("Lolang" in Chinese) that existed here for 400 years. If this word were spelled as pronounced, it would be

These are some of the basics of Korean syllables. There are more rules, but they are best learned as they come up. Have fun and remember,

Where there's a will, there's a way.