Sound is different from the spelling that sound can vary even from the same spelling, depending on the word it constructs and the context it conveys. The biggest characteristic of Korean distinguishable from English is that it has hard sounds for consonants. For example, there are a few basic consonants (ㄱ, ㄷ, ㅂ, ㅅ, ㅈ) of which have counterparts of hard sounds (ㄲ, ㄸ, ㅃ, ㅆ, ㅉ). These are called unaspirated sounds which are rather similar to Spanish consonants than ones in English. Also, the other major difference is ‘ㄹ’, which is similar to ‘r’ or ‘l’ in English. While many people have a hard time perfecting this pronunciation, English speakers use pronunciation from time to time. For example, people colloquially pronounce ‘butter’ more as [bʌɾər] than as [bΛtər]. This [ɾ] sound is the closest to ‘ㄹ’, which is relatively easier to differentiate and learn to pronounce than unaspirated sounds. As I am already fairly good at both English and Korean pronunciation, my mission is to find more concise and vivid explanations that can allow others to understand and learn faster. This might as well involve the structure of Korean phonetics which has a bit different system from the IPA chart. For example, all of ‘ㅁ(m)’, ‘ㅂ(b)’, ‘ㅍ(p)’, and ‘ㅃ(unaspirated p)’ are bilabial consonants but of different second manner. The fascinating part of it is that consonants with the same point of articulation have a similar shape to the letter and have a minor change depending on the second manner. (Compare ‘ㄴ(n)’, ‘ㄷ(d)’, ‘ㅌ(t)’, and ‘ㄸ(unaspirated d)’ with the aforementioned example. Can you see how they have more lines as the obstruction becomes harder and how it becomes a pair when it is an unaspirated sound?)
You need to be a member of The SDLAP Ning to add comments!
Replies