A Korean letter is formed with one consonant and one or more vowels. Some consonants and vowels can be added to the bottom of a letter and used as final consonants. In Korean, there is this “으” sound that doesn’t exist in American English. There are also “어” and “오” in Korean, which might sound the same to American English speakers as both “[o].” For the “으” sound, it is usually used with other vowels together. For example, the pronunciation of the word “음악” (music) in IPA is [ɯma̠k̚], where [ɯ] is the pronunciation of “으.” We don’t have any sound like this in American English. For the sound “어,” it has the IPA of [ʌ] or [əː]. It has the pronunciation closer to the “ea” in “pearl.” On the other side, for the sound “오,” it has the IPA of [o] and sounds more like the “o” in “boat.”
I find it hard to distinguish “어” and “오” sometimes. To distinguish them better, I found many pairs of example letters or words. I listened to them over and over again to sense the difference in them, especially when they are used in words, where the pronunciation might be changed from the original one. In my speech now, I’m exaggerating the difference between these two sounds. I also told my language partner that I’m having a little difficulty in distinguishing these two, so she will pay more attention to my pronunciation of these two sounds when we encounter them.
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This is interesting, Maggie, but please be careful not to conflate sounds and letters.