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Korean pronunciation | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Kevin Hsu Triglot Groupie Canada Joined 4532 days ago 60 posts - 94 votes  Speaks: English, Mandarin*, Korean Studies: German | Message 41 of 48 12 December 2011 at 2:57am | IP Logged | ||
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I think it may be because you're subconciously comparing the sounds with English sounds. I've never had this problem with Korean myself, but then I'm used to sounds that don't exist in English because I'm a native Mandarin speaker.
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| Anno Triglot Newbie Israel acquiringkorean.word Joined 5423 days ago 29 posts - 41 votes Speaks: English, Korean, Dutch Studies: Turkish, Mongolian, Modern Hebrew, French | Message 42 of 48 25 December 2012 at 2:00am | IP Logged | ||
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It's funny because I think learning Korean has somewhat ruined my perception of the sounds in other languages -- I
now sometimes have a hard time distinguishing 'r' and 'l' or 't', 'd', and 'n' in other (phonetically easier) languages. I never had a hard time distinguishing between 'r' and 'l' before. Similarly, if I'm reading or thinking in Korean I sometimes make 'he'/'she' mistakes if I try suddenly to speak in English. Edited by newyorkeric on 28 December 2012 at 2:51pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| picnick Triglot Newbie Canada Joined 4143 days ago 22 posts - 33 votes Speaks: Tagalog, English*, Spanish Studies: Korean, Mandarin | Message 43 of 48 29 December 2012 at 5:05pm | IP Logged | ||
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I agree with a lot of others that I think correlating Korean sounds to English sounds
won't work. If possible, learn the hangul right away and focus only on learning through hangul, as romanization will barely help in proper pronunciation. Hangul follows very logical pronunciation patterns. The things mentioned are quite common especially in the Seoul dialect. Nasal consanants (ㅁ,ㄴ) often get pronounced with the nasal passages blocked, meaning they often sound like b's or d's. Someone already explained the voicing earlier, though, as to why Koreans don't get these mixed up. As for 못 sounding like boot, it's because the 오 sound often becomes pronounced closer to an 우 sound. For example when people say "me too", 나도, it's often pronounced 나두 in Seoul, and when people text or Internet speak we often spell it like that to be funny/cute. As for why 합니다 is pronounced haMnida, and not haBnida, is due to nasalization (correct me if I'm wrong on this term? it might be assimilation? LOL). When a consonant (ㅂ) is followed by a nasal consonant (ㄴ), the former generally nasalizes into the nasal form, in this case ㅁ, which just makes it easier to pronounce. In fact most of the Korean sound changes are to make things easier to pronounce, not harder! :D All I can say to improve Korean pronunciation is consume a lot of Korean media; watch TV shows, listen to music, etc. I would call my Korean only at a low intermediate level, but my friends tell me my pronunciation is one of my strong points. I think it's because I listen to way too much Korean music :P. Personally, I never realized that 뭐 or 네 sounded like 붜 or 데 until some other Korean learners asked me about it. It just sounded natural to me! :D 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| OneFreeKorea Newbie United States onefreekorea.coRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4161 days ago 3 posts - 3 votes Studies: Korean | Message 44 of 48 10 January 2013 at 6:08am | IP Logged | ||
Excellent prosody and implementation of nasalisation, assimilation, tensification, and other fundamental Korean pronunciation rules. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Victor Berrjod Diglot Groupie Norway no.vvb.no/ Joined 4903 days ago 62 posts - 110 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Japanese, Korean, Ancient Greek, Biblical Hebrew, Mandarin, Cantonese | Message 45 of 48 14 January 2013 at 7:11pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'd like to add something to the discussion of the "double" consonants of Korean, because I've had interesting discussions about Korean phonetics with Rolf Theil, a professor of linguistics at the University of Oslo. He is currently studying aspiration and voice in Nordic plosive consonants, so this is just the thing he's interested in.
When I asked how the "double" consonants in Korean are pronounced, he compared the Korean plosives to Eastern Norwegian ones (which correspond nicely to English when it comes to aspiration and voice), using labial ones as examples. Although I can't draw it here, I can represent the simple diagrams he drew for me like this: | for the explosion of air, = for voicing, and - for absence of voice. In the initial position, voiceless plosives will be aspirated in Norwegian, so voicing will begin well into the vowel: <pil> [pʰìːl] "arrow" |--===== Voiced plosives don't have aspiration, but are not as voiced as in e.g. Spanish: <bil> [b̥ìːl] "car" -=|==== Compare Spanish, which has fully voiced, and voiceless unaspirated plosives: <besos> ['besos] "kisses" ==|==--==-- <pesos> ['pesos] "pesos" |==--==-- The Korean <ㅂ> /b/ is also aspirated, but not as much as Norwegian: <박> [päk̚] or [pʰäk̚] (a common family name, 朴) |-==- Between voiced sound, it becomes voiced by assimilation: <일본> [ilbon] "Japan, 日本" ====|==== Korean also has a more aspirated one, which doesn't become voiced intervocalically, <ㅍ> /pʰ/. It may be slightly more aspirated than Norwegian ones: <파> [pʰä] "spring onion" |---== So then we're left with <ㅃ>, which, like Spanish /p/ is also unaspirated and unvoiced. However, professor Theil explained that while <ㅂ> represents a lax, slightly aspirated sound, and <ㅍ> represents a tense aspirated one, <ㅃ> represents a tense unaspirated one. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| expatmaddy Diglot Newbie Korea, South Joined 4122 days ago 19 posts - 27 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Japanese, Korean, French, Mandarin | Message 46 of 48 30 January 2013 at 9:06am | IP Logged | ||
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Victor, that was extremely useful and I think your diagrams are spot on. I've been
looking for a way to explain this to my friends and I think this will help a lot! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Aquila123 Tetraglot Senior Member Norway mydeltapi.com Joined 5100 days ago 201 posts - 262 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Italian, Spanish Studies: Finnish, Russian | Message 47 of 48 12 February 2013 at 11:29pm | IP Logged | ||
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Korean sounds funny. But tense - is that the same as glottalized - That is: you close the glottal cords and press the sound out with a harder pressure made in the throut? Edited by Aquila123 on 14 February 2013 at 7:26pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Victor Berrjod Diglot Groupie Norway no.vvb.no/ Joined 4903 days ago 62 posts - 110 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Japanese, Korean, Ancient Greek, Biblical Hebrew, Mandarin, Cantonese | Message 48 of 48 12 February 2013 at 11:45pm | IP Logged | ||
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The tense consonants are described in so many different ways and called so many different things that I honestly don't think anyone has a good answer to that. Like the voice onset time continuum I illustrated above, there are also glottalization continuums. The Korean tense consonants are obviously not ejectives, but a certain degree of glottalization is not out of the question.
If x-rays weren't dangerous (and illegal for phonetic research), it might be easy to find out, but alas... EDIT: I checked the article about Korean phonology on Wikipedia, and it had this to say about the tense consonants: "The IPA symbol ⟨◌͈⟩ (a subscript double straight quotation mark, shown here with a placeholder circle) is used to denote the tensed consonants /p͈/, /t͈/, /k͈/, /t͈ɕ/, /s͈/. Its official use in the Extensions to the IPA is for 'strong' articulation, but is used in the literature for faucalized voice. The Korean consonants also have elements of stiff voice, but it is not yet known how typical this is of faucalized consonants. They are produced with a partially constricted glottis and additional subglottal pressure in addition to tense vocal tract walls, laryngeal lowering, or other expansion of the larynx." Edited by Victor Berrjod on 12 February 2013 at 11:55pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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