Korean Pronunciation Guide

The ㄹ vs L thing was great, when you went into detail of the tongue position etc. Then, for the following lessons, it was just like ‘this and this are different’ – *plays clip in which they sound exactly the same* ‘see? Totally different. Okay, moving on, next lesson’.

I’m sure they do sound different to a trained ear, but if I had that trained ear I wouldn’t be doing this course in the first place.

I had two really wonderful introductions to Hangeul — KoreanClass101’s “Hana Hana Hangeul” taught by Amy, and, Darakwon’s Korean Pronunciation Guide: How to Sound Korean (2017). And to be honest, I almost did not re-join Talk to Me in Korean as a Premium Member because I thought I could just self-study Korean. But even after only going through this course, also called “Korean Pronunciation Guide”, I was thoroughly impressed and so happy I re-joined Talk to Me in Korean as a premium member. Despite how wonderful the two aforementioned courses were, I learned several key additional pronunciation details I had not learned previously. I also love the fact that in addition to the tutorial videos there is a .pdf of the entire course, so one can more quickly review the course materials. I have to say that I also bought TTMIK’s book, How To Sound Like a Native Korean Speaker, and it is also a superb guide in learning pronunciation. For me, my goal is to sound as close to a native speaker in Korean as I sound already in American English (I am a native speaker), Latin American Spanish (I am a native speaker), German (I am highly fluent and have little to no accent, having lived in Germany for many years). One of my “bucket list” goals is to become at least as fluent in Korean as I am in German. I must admit that joining TTMIK is not enough to become fluent in Korean. One has to really go through these courses daily and with dedication. I joined previously for a year and didn’t study much due to life distractions. But I re-joined TTMIK on January 4, 2023, and already feel a great sense of community that TTMIK fosters. The staff — starting from the co-founders and emanating throughout the entire staff — is just heartwarming. One feels the true sincerity that all ostaff atTTMIK are doing their best to make TTMIK not only a great Korean language learning company, but a place where all of us can feel at home as we learn Korean at our own pace. I want to say “Thank You!” to Talk to Me in Korean. Now we want a great book on the type of vocabulary Korean college-bound students are assumed to have under their belts at the time they enter college with free MP3 audio files we can download directly via zip drive from the TTMIK website. Gracias, E.N.

This is very interesting and helpful course. I still have a problem: I can hear clearly difference between 오 and 어, because I hear 오 more like an U-sound. But.. what kind of difference is between 우 and 오 or 유 and 요? It would be nice to hear the difference same way like you have done in lessons 20-22.

This course was awesome! I learned 한글 using Spanish (my native language) resources because I found that Spanish pronunciation is closer to Korean than English’s (imo) but none of them were as thorough and easy to follow as this course. The insertion, fortition and assimilation rules were a lot to take in but with practice it’ll become easier. A LOT of examples to really drive the point of the lesson home. I can already tell my reading has improved so thank you so much 🙂

Just finished this course and I so like it. Reading is something that I find difficult because memorizing the rules in pronunciation is a headache haha. I hope that you will provide more pronunciation course for beginners.

Very useful, pleasant and interesting.
정말 재미있고 좋아요.
감사합니다.

This guide was extremely helpful for me. I have just finished it. The first few lessons were things I had already come across through other sources on korean pronunciation rules, but so much was new to me and things I’d never seen.

Lesson 8 on fortition rules (pt2) was especially englightening to me, because it answered a lot of questions I had about some words having tensed consonant pronunciation after ㄹ or ㅁ batchim. And I had never found anything about this online before, even when specifically searching for it.

The content in lesson 9 and 10 definitely seems more advanced, as they’re about pronunciation rules that only apply if a word is a certain type, eg. compound word/derivative, and if it’s your first time seeing a word, you may not know if it is one of those. It’ll probably be something I learn as I come across more words and their pronunciations, but good to be aware of.

There is also some confusion I have when I see that certain words, that seem like none of the rules apply to, have random tensed consonant pronunciations. eg 태권도 [태꿘도] but that might be something I learn as I come across new words and have to accept there’s no explicit rule for. Is it always true, however, that loan words that end in 스 are pronunced like 쓰 though. Like 버스 [버쓰] and 주스[주쓰] (mentioned in load words lesson).

One thing I’d like to point out and ask about the course information is, in a couple lessons, you have rules about how to pronounce the next syllable if the previous batchim is ㅂ, or a batchim that is pronounced like ㅂ; and in that list of consonants that are pronounced like ㅂ you guys include ㄼ. But from the lesson on compound consonants (lesson 4), ㄼ was introduced as one of the ones that is pronounced as the first letter (ie ㄹ) and so wouldn’t be applicable to rules about a ㅂ (sounding) batchim. Like the rule about ㅂ becoming ㅁ when followed by ㅁ,ㄴ. A word like 얇네, would be pronounced like 얄네, and not 얆네 or 얌네, correct?

Other than that, thank you so much for the guide and all the hard work gone in to it! It has truly been indespensable in helping my korean pronunciation.

Hello! This is a great course for anyone starting to learn Korean who are constantly left dumbfounded when a syllable isn’t read the way you think it should be… (like me). I have definitely learned a lot. Thank you so much to the team behind this, I will absolutely recommend it to anyone I know who is struggling!

When it comes to comparing pronunciation, I’ve talked to some of my friends who are also learning Korean and we are all struggling with differentiating ㅜ and ㅗ. We all find them easy to differentiate from the other vowels, but sometimes struggle when they are spoken together. I should have liked to see a video on this, as I feel like we surely can’t be the only ones struggling with these particular sounds. (We’re all Scandinavian, so perhaps our language background is part of the issue?)

I enjoyed the lessons very much. Cassie is really cute in this video too :p
Have to say, for advanced level, lessons 12-22 are mostly basic stuff which would be more recommended for beginners. I am wondering for lesson 23, is it ok to pronounce the way it is written or to speak the way native Koreans pronounce them, or are both correct? Would be good to mention that in the video 😊 Thank you TTMIK for the lessons, the content is much better than any private Korean tuition which I had so far!

I love how there is SO MUCH content in every course! the quality and quantity information is superb! thank you TTMIK team!

Thank you so much for the amazing course!

Love these. The videos are actually enjoyable to watch and make studying fun. Honestly! It’s like lightbulbs flashing on when I learn the mysteries of when things don’t sound like they’re written. Everyone should watch this. You’ll save yourself a LOT of confusion and stress.