The Korean language, similar to the English language, contains phonetic sounds that are split into consonants and vowels. There are 21 vowels and 19 consonants in Korean. When it comes to combinations, each syllable starts with a consonant and ends with a vowel. Since I did not take Korean class yet, I searched online and found that the main difference in the pronunciation of individual words lies in the reproduction of consonants. Phonemes in English that are not found in Korean include the following: o /ŋ/, /f/, /v/, /θ/, /ð/, /z/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/, /ʧ/, /ʤ/, /ɹ/, and /w/. For example, the /v/ sound is produced as a /b/, and the /f/ sound for phone will be pronounced as pone. Differences in syllable structure between the two languages may lead to the addition of a short vowel sound to the end of English words that terminate with a consonant.
Chinese words actually do make up about 60% of the Korean vocabulary and since my native language is Chinese, it will not be too hard for me. For example, in Korean, exercise is 운동 which pronounced as 'undong' and in Chinese is pronounced as 'yundong'.
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