Column
Liaison (연음화) — You Already Do This in English
Say these out loud at normal speed:
- an apple → a-napple
- hold on → hol-don
- not at all → no-da-dall
The consonant at the end of one word slides over and becomes the start of the next. You do this constantly, you were never taught it, and the spelling never changed to reflect it.
Korean does exactly the same thing. The only differences are that it happens inside words too, and that it happens every time rather than only in fast speech.
The rule
When a batchim is followed by a syllable that starts with a vowel, the batchim moves over and becomes that syllable’s initial consonant.
| Written | Pronounced |
|---|---|
| 한국어 | han-gu-geo |
| 음악 | eu-mak |
| 옷이 | o-shi |
| 집에 | ji-be |
| 먹어요 | meo-geo-yo |
The letters on the page don’t move. Only the sound does.
Note that ㅇ at the start of a syllable is silent — it’s a placeholder holding the vowel’s seat. That empty seat is exactly what the batchim slides into.
This is where the last guide’s table gets its caveat
The previous guide said that twenty-seven batchim spellings collapse into seven sounds — that 옷, 낫 and 낮 all end identically.
That was true of a word standing on its own. Put a vowel after it and the original consonant comes straight back:
| Word | Alone | With a vowel after |
|---|---|---|
| 옷 (clothes) | ot | 옷이 → o-shi |
| 꽃 (flower) | kkot | 꽃이 → kko-chi |
| 밭 (field) | bat | 밭에 → ba-te |
| 앞 (front) | ap | 앞에 → a-pe |
| 부엌 (kitchen) | bu-eok | 부엌에 → bu-eo-ke |
꽃이 is kko-chi, not kko-di. The ㅊ moves before it ever has a chance to flatten into ㄷ.
So Korean spelling turns out to be doing real work. It records which consonant a word actually has, and that consonant surfaces the moment a vowel follows. If Korean were spelled the way it sounds in isolation, you’d have no way to predict 꽃이 from 꽃.
Why this matters more than it looks
Particles (이, 은, 에, 을, 에서) and verb endings (-아요, -어요, -으면) mostly begin with vowels. So liaison isn’t an occasional effect — it fires in nearly every sentence you will ever say.
- 한국 + 이 → han-gu-gi
- 밥 + 을 → ba-beul
- 집 + 에서 → ji-be-seo
- 읽 + 어요 → il-geo-yo
Get this wrong and every particle sounds bolted on. It’s one rule that cleans up an entire sentence.
One exception worth knowing
When the following vowel belongs to a separate word with its own meaning, the batchim flattens to its representative sound first and then moves.
옷 안 (“inside the clothes”) is o-dan, not o-san. The ㅅ becomes ㄷ before sliding across.
The test is what follows: a particle or ending (no independent meaning) takes the consonant as written; a full word of its own takes the flattened version. Learn the first case now; the second one will make sense the first time you meet it.
How to practise
Stop reading syllable blocks as separate units. Read a sentence, then re-divide it by sound.
음악을 들어요 (“I listen to music”) is written as 음·악·을·들·어·요 and comes out as eu-ma-geul deu-reo-yo. Three batchim (ㅁ, ㄱ, ㄹ), all three move, and not one spoken syllable break lands where the writing puts it.
That’s the end of this series. Try reading a lesson aloud from the daily edition — liaison shows up in essentially every sentence, and once you’re listening for it you won’t be able to stop hearing it.