한글 모음과 발음
It would be very unfortunate to be born as a native English speaker, because Korean language is known as one of the hardest languages to learn. I'm from Korea, and I speak Korean dialect, so even I have trouble with speaking standard Korean; well, I know the words those 'ordinary' Koreans say, but I cannot follow their tone and accent when I say a long sentence! However, if you get used to Korean Alphabet, 한글(Hahngle), you will be able to write any words you want (except that 한글 does not have 'f', 'v', 'r' and 'z' sounds), whereas other East Asian languages (e.g. Mandarin) will take so much time to learn how to write!
So, I will go with Korean vowels today!
As you can see on the left, Korean has an awful lot of vowels; 10 simple vowels and 14 double (or complex) vowels; complex vowels are made of two other vowels. I will go through those which native English speakers find difficult in pronouncing.
ㅓ& ㅗ : Many friends of mine whose first language is English cannot distinguish the pronunciation of ㅓ and ㅗ. We Koreans were like "Do they sound the same?" and found out that it really is hard for them to distinguish between those two. So, I thought it would be good to have some examples that will help you understand the difference of ㅓ and ㅗ in the pronunciation.
ㅓ : cunning, fun, idea, cup, bunny, Sun
ㅗ : oil, Ohms, stoichiometry
Read along the words above. Did you notice that ㅓ has the mouth opened wider where ㅗ has the lips rounded and small? If you speak Spanish, Italian, Latin or Portuguese (and so on), you will know that o sounds different from English O a little bit. So ㅗ is more like Spanish O, whereas ㅓ is like the "Uh" sound in English.
ㅡ : This is one of the hardest vowel to pronounce for you, because there is no Latin alphabet (a,b,c,d...) that sounds like this. I will give you some examples of the words that have the very similar pronunciation with ㅡ.
ㅡ : kitten, mitten, button, dozen
Read the words above. Then, read the syllables that are underlined in a row. Do you notice you have the same shape of the mouth when you say those? Now, read the underlined syllables again, but this time, don't pronounce "n" at the end of each one, but in the same length. Do you get it? Refer to the video so you get some more idea about the pronunciation of it.
ㅐ&ㅔ, ㅒ&ㅖ : Okay, many people ask if there is a difference in pronunciation of ㅐ and ㅔ. To be honest, yes, there is. However, even Koreans themselves ask the difference between ㅐ and ㅔ. If we become a bit linguistic, we need to open our mouth wider when we want to pronounce ㅐ and less wide when we want to pronounce ㅔ and ㅔ is closer to ㅣ than ㅐ is. HOWEVER, native Koreans don't really care about the difference in the pronunciation of those two, so you can just pronounce both of them like "a" as in "Jack".The same rule applies with ㅒ and ㅖ. ㅒ has the wider mouth but not really much difference with ㅖ.
ㅝ : Some examples to help you understand the pronunciation of ㅝ.
one, war, won, want (the underlined is the pronunciation of ㅝ)
ㅚ, ㅙ, ㅞ : There is a slight difference between ㅚ, ㅙ and ㅞ but native Koreans do not care about them. So you don't need to distinguish them except when you are writing them. The pronunciation is like "wa" as in "wagon"
ㅢ : This is the hardest vowel to learn to pronounce. Even linguists have an argument about the pronunciation of ㅢ. (Some linguists say that the authentic pronunciation of ㅢ will disappear within 20 years)
There are 3 ways to pronounce ㅢ. It depends on where it is and how it is used.
I will only use 의 for the example
1. Pronounce ㅣ right after you pronounce ㅡ. So simply, pronounce it as it is made; ㅢ is the combination of vowel ㅡ and ㅣ. So you say ㅡ rapidly followed by ㅣ. 의 is pronounced in this way if it is the first letter of the word.
2. Pronounce ㅔ. Sometimes you pronounce ㅢ like 'e' as in "set". 의 is pronounced in this way if it is used as the postposition and is at the end of the word. (If 의 is used as a postposition, it means 'of' or 's.)
3. Pronounce ㅣ. Don't pronounce ㅡ. Just ㅣ like 'i' as in "piano". 의 is pronounced in this way if it is at the end of the noun.
These are the 3 ways of pronouncing ㅢ, but not always is the rule followed. Furthermore, in one of Korean dialect, ㅢ is also pronounced as ㅡ, so don't get confused when you hear them.
A basic phrase that contains all 3 ways of pronouncing 의 is "민주주의의 의의" which means 'the significance of democracy". The pronunciation will be similar to "Min-joo-joo-i-e ui-i". This is really confusing, so you need to practice over and over!
Next time I will teach you the Korean consonants; which might be harder or easier than Korean vowels :)
No comments:
Post a Comment