Latest revision as of 16:07, 13 April 2011

Aspirated Consonants

In this section, we are going to learn the aspirated consonants ㅋ, ㅌ, ㅊ, and ㅍ (as well as another consonant, ㅎ). Looking at the picture on the right, do you see a resemblance between the old letters we have already learned (top row) and the bottom row?

Before I go on any further, I must explain what aspiration means. Aspiration is letting out a strong burst of air when making a sound. To feel or see the difference between aspirated and unaspirated sounds, one can hold a lit match in front of one's mouth, and say tore and then store. One should either feel a puff of air or see a flicker of the candle flame with tore that one does not get with store. In most dialects of English, the t is aspirated in tore and unaspirated in store¹. Another example is pat (aspirated p) and spat (non-aspirated p).

The new letters we are about to learn are just the aspirated versions of the old letters we learned, we pronounce it the same way in the mouth except we let out more air. Also if you noticed, to write these letters you simply just add one more stroke.

1. Source: Wikipedia:Aspiration_(phonetics)

Y sound vowels

The vowels we will be learning in this section are ㅑ, ㅕ, ㅛ, ㅠ, ㅖ and ㅒ. Once again, I will ask: Looking at the picture on the right, do you see a resemblance between the old letters we have already learned (top row) and the bottom row? With these new vowels, you are simply adding a 'y' sound (IPA: /j/) in front of our previous vowels. As a simple example, we had previously learned that ㅜ sounds very close to the double o's in the word "moon." So for ㅠ we add a 'y' sound in front of ㅜ and now it sounds like "yoo."

ㅅ reminder

Remember in step 3 we mentioned that ㅅ when combined with the vowels ㅣ, ㅕ, ㅑ, ㅠ, ㅛ it is pronounced like a "sh" sound. It is an "sh" sound anytime it combines with these double stroked vowels and the vowel ㅣ.

Begin lesson

ㅛ (vowel)		ㅋ (consonant)
This is pronounced just like ㅗ but with a /y/ sound in front of it. Almost like "yo" in English. For full information about this letter, see ㅛ. Male Female		This is an aspirated /k/ sound. This is pronounced just like ㄱ but with more air coming out. For full information about this letter, see ㅋ.

ㅠ (vowel)		ㅌ (consonant)
This is pronounced just like ㅜ but with a Y sound in front of it. Almost like "you" in English. For full information about this letter, see ㅠ. Male Female		This is an aspirated /t/ sound. This is pronounced just like ㄷ but with more air coming out. For full information about this letter, see ㅌ.

ㅕ (vowel)		ㅍ (consonant)
This is pronounced just like ㅓ but with a Y sound in front of it. For full information about this letter, see ㅕ. Male Female		This is an aspirated /p/ sound. This is pronounced just like ㅂ but with more air emitted from the mouth. For full information about this letter, see ㅍ.

ㅑ (vowel)		ㅊ (consonant)
This is pronounced just like ㅏ but with a Y sound in front of it. For full information about this letter, see ㅑ. Male Female		This is a /ch/ sound. This is pronounced just like ㅈ but with more air emitted from the mouth. For full information about this letter, see ㅊ.

ㅖ (vowel)		ㅎ (consonant)
This is pronounced just like ㅔ but with a /y/ sound in front of it. For full information about this letter, see ㅖ. Male Female		This is an /h/ sound. For full information about this letter, see ㅎ.

ㅒ (vowel)

This is pronounced just like ㅐ but with a /y/ sound in front of it (not much differently than ㅖ) For full information about this letter, see ㅒ. Male Female

Real Examples

Practice with these real Korean words. The examples for step 4 have been split. Half of the examples for step 4 are here and half are on the next page.