Korean language consists of 14 consonants and 10 vowels, doubling the number of vowels English carry. In addition, most of the phonetic sounds of English consonants are present, but the letter "L" and "R" is used interchangeably in Korean. English does not have some of Korean vowels like "yeo", "eo", "eu", and "ya". Also, while Korean alphabet only consist of 14 consonants, it has letters that double to make a new sound like "gg" or "kk". For example, the Korean word for crow is "kka-ma-gwi" and the double "k" sound might be a bit unnatural and hard to pronounce for English speakers as there aren't any double "K" phonetic sounds in English. One thing easier about Korean is that every consonant is consistent with its sounds.
In Korean language, each syllable is separated and can be easily noticed in a word. The key to Korean phonetic sounds is learning how to pronounce the new vowels that doesn't exist in English phonetic library. In general, Korean phonetic flow is separated in to each syllable, whereas in English, the flow is present throughout a whole word. In addition, syllables are pronounced more separately and distinctly than English. Korean usually requires sharper sounds than English. Each vowel in Korean is emphasized, whereas in English one or two vowels are emphasized. Learning the sounds of the vowels and practicing applying and emphasizing the vowel sounds seems to be the key idea in producing the phonetic sound of Korean.
Comments
Hello! Interesting observation about how the Korean consonants are consistent in the way they sound. One thing that has made Maltese a bit difficult for me is that the sound of the consonants change based upon where the letters are placed. Often, there are a lot of letters that are silent in Maltese, making it tougher to pronounce the words. In comparison, though, I have found that I do not have much trouble pronouncing the vowels.
When you provide the inventory of consonants and vowels, are you thinking phonetically or orthographically? Even though there are 24 letters in Korean, there are likely many more sounds. We'll get to this in class on Tuesday, but sounds can occur in subtle variation without interfering with meaning. Ergo, the phonetic inventory or total number of sounds is likely much larger than the total number of letters.
Your mention of the [kk] sound is interesting and probably indicates a need for re-segmentation. On the Wikipedia page for Korean phonology, this sound is described as a 'Tense' voiceless velar stop, but perhaps the length also added to the recognition of a long or even duplicated consonantal sequence. Also, your note about emphasis seems to involve stress. In longer words, are the vowel stresses are equally emphatic, or can you compare them to each other in relative degrees, i.e. most emphatic= primary stress, secondly emphatic= secondary stress, etc.?