Column
The Korean Sounds English Doesn't Have
Say pin. Now say spin. Put your hand in front of your mouth and say them again.
You should feel a puff of air on the p of “pin” and almost nothing on the p of “spin”. Those are two different sounds, and you have been making both of them your whole life without ever being told.
English never uses that difference to tell two words apart. It’s automatic — the puff shows up at the start of a stressed syllable and disappears after s. You don’t choose it.
Korean chooses it. And it has a third option.
Three sounds where English has one
| Korean | Called | Air | Where you’ve felt it |
|---|---|---|---|
| ㅂ ㄷ ㄱ ㅈ ㅅ | plain (평음) | a little | p in “spin”, but softer |
| ㅍ ㅌ ㅋ ㅊ | aspirated (격음) | a lot | p in “pin” |
| ㅃ ㄸ ㄲ ㅉ ㅆ | tense (경음) | almost none | no English equivalent |
Three real words, differing only in that one consonant:
- 불 bul — fire (plain)
- 풀 pul — grass (aspirated)
- 뿔 ppul — horn (tense)
And another set:
- 달 dal — moon
- 탈 tal — mask
- 딸 ttal — daughter
The romanisation is genuinely misleading here. It writes 불 with a b and 풀 with a p, which makes an English speaker reach for the voicing contrast in “bat” versus “pat”. That is not the contrast Korean is making. Korean plain consonants aren’t voiced at the start of a word at all — 불 begins closer to the p of “spin” than to the b of “bull”.
Tense consonants are the one genuinely new thing. Tighten your throat slightly, build a little pressure, and release sharply with no puff of air. Short, hard, clipped. It helps to think of it as the p in “spin” with the muscles tightened.
The vowel that isn’t in English at all
Korean has ㅡ, and English has nothing like it.
To find it: say “oo” as in “food”. Hold the sound, keep your tongue exactly where it is, and pull your lips back into a slight smile. That flat, unrounded sound is ㅡ.
It matters because it’s the difference between real words:
- 굴 gul — oyster
- 글 geul — writing, text
Two more pairs worth knowing:
- ㅓ and ㅗ — ㅓ is close to the vowel in “cut”; ㅗ is the vowel in “boat” without the w-glide at the end. 손 (hand) versus 선 (line).
- ㅐ and ㅔ — don’t worry about these. Most Seoul speakers today don’t distinguish them either.
ㄹ is not an R
This is the single biggest pronunciation problem for English speakers, and it’s worth more practice time than everything above.
The English r — the one in “red”, where your tongue bunches up and never touches the roof of your mouth — does not exist in Korean. Using it marks your accent instantly.
Korean ㄹ is two different sounds depending on position:
Between vowels, it’s a quick flap: the tongue tip taps the ridge behind your teeth once and leaves. You already make this sound — it’s the tt in the American pronunciation of “butter”, or the dd in “ladder”. 다리 (leg, bridge) uses exactly that tap.
At the end of a syllable, it’s an l: tongue tip on the ridge and staying there. 달 (moon) ends with your tongue in place — not with an “uhl” sound after it.
Don’t release the last consonant
One last habit to break before the next article. In English, the t at the end of “cat” is released — there’s a small audible burst as your tongue comes away.
In Korean, it isn’t. 밥 (rice, meal) ends with your lips closed and staying closed. No burst, no vowel afterwards.
That closed, held final consonant is called 받침 batchim, and it’s the subject of the next guide.