STEP 5 · SOUND CHANGES
Written one way, said another
You can read every letter now. The next wall is that Korean does not always sound like it is spelled — 학교 is said 학꾜, 국물 is said 궁물. Nine rules cover almost all of it.
None of this is memorisation. Every rule below is your mouth taking the shorter path between two sounds. Say 국물 with a hard ㄱ in the middle and you will feel it turn into 궁물 on its own.
Put a word in
- Linking국어구거
The nine rules
Do not memorise the names. Read them once, then come back when the box above surprises you.
1Linking
A final consonant with a vowel right behind it slides into the next block. 한국어 is said 한구거 — which is why the romanisation is hangugeo and not hangukeo.
2Finals do not burst
At the end of a block a consonant is held, not released. Twenty-seven possible finals come out as only seven sounds, so 옷 and 옫 sound identical.
3Double finals lose one
Two consonants under one block and only one is said — unless a vowel follows, in which case the second one slides over instead.
4Nasalisation
ㄱ ㄷ ㅂ next to ㄴ or ㅁ become the matching nasal. And ㄹ after most consonants turns into ㄴ first — that new ㄴ then does this to the consonant in front of it, which is how 독립 becomes 동닙.
5ㄴ meets ㄹ
ㄴ and ㄹ will not stand side by side. Both come out as ㄹ — 신라 is said 실라.
6Tensing
After ㄱ ㄷ ㅂ, a following ㄱ ㄷ ㅂ ㅅ ㅈ is squeezed tight. The romanisation does not write this at all, which is exactly why people read hakgyo and say it wrong.
7Aspiration
ㅎ and a plain stop fuse into one puff of air, in either order. 좋다 is said 조타, 축하 is said 추카.
8ㅎ goes silent
Caught between two vowels, ㅎ disappears altogether. 좋아요 is said 조아요.
9Palatalisation
ㄷ and ㅌ meeting 이 come out as ㅈ and ㅊ. The tongue is already in that place, so it stays there.
These rules run on sound alone. A few cases need to know whether a word is a verb stem or a noun — 읽고 is [일꼬] but 닭과 is [닥꽈] — and a few need word boundaries, like the extra ㄴ in 색연필 [생년필]. Those are left alone here rather than guessed at.