KOREAN LANGUAGE: KOREAN CONSONANTS AND VOWELS

Hi Guys,

In the previous posting, i have talked about creation principles of Korean alphabet. This time, let's find out about Korean consonants and vowels

Do you know how many consonants and vowels they have? 19? 21? 

Yup you are right. Korean has 19 consonants and 21 vowels (both included the double consonants and vowels)

But in this posting, i would like to explain too about where you should pronounce Korean consonants. So you can notice the difference sounds between Korean and your mother tongue. By the way, for pronunciation writing system, i suggest you to use IPA . If you want to know the right pronunciation of a language, please do not use the romanization or pronunciation of your mother tongue. Why? Cause your mother tongue might have non voiceless consonants while consonant in Korean are voiceless consonants. And Korean has three different way to pronounce such as lax sound, tense sound and aspirated one.

CONSONANTS

According to 신지영(2013) <sin tɕi jʌŋ> , here is the table of Korean consonants. 

source : click here

 Most of Korean learners are not familiar with this table. When you first study Korean, you only study with this sequence, ㄱ, ㄴ,ㄷ,ㄹ,ㅁ,ㅂ,ㅅ,ㅇ,ㅈ,ㅊ,ㅋ,ㅌ,ㅍ,ㅎ. This sequence is dictionary sequence. 

What is  파열음 < 파여름> ? this means plosive way. There three form of plosive consonants.  평음  means lax consonant and it shall be pronounced as voiceless consonant <무성음> . 격음 means aspirated consonants. You need to add some air while pronounce it. And  경음 means fortis consonants. You need to tense sound while pronounce it. You can feel the vibration on your vocal records (touch your neck to confirm it). 

So, then how to differentiate it the three sounds? Put your hand in front of your mouth , while you pronounce the aspirated consonant it should be some air come out from your mouth. 

 Korea also have the frictional consonant such as   ㅅ<s> and ㅆ <s*>.  One of these consonants does not exist in Indonesian nor Javanese, so i could not really know how to pronounce. Let me know you that most Indonesian are using these consonants. <s>, <ʃ>, <z> . While God is fair, Korean does not have it it. Until now i am struggling to pronounce correctly 시간 <si kan>, unconsciously i pronounce it as <s*i kan> or  <ʃi kan>. 

next is  파찰음 <pha cha  lɯm>, which means affricate consonants. What is that? A consonants which begins as as a stop (plosive) but then end up as fricative sound. For following explanation, click here.
 So there are three consonants,  ㅈ<tɕ>, ㅉ <tɕ*>, ㅊ<tɕh>.

Okay, still two left, nasal and  liquid consonants. Maybe you are familiar with nasal consonants. Pinch your nose and  start to pronounce  ㅁ <m> , ㄴ<n>,ㅇ<ŋ>.  So hard right? why? because these consonants are pronounced by using the nasal voice. 

And what is the liquid consonants?  well liquid? no, it is not what you imagine of a liquid. This consonants is special in Korea because it has two sounds. The sounds are different in the first letter of or in the last letter of a syllable. While Indonesian has a trill consonant, Korea does not. So becareful with your trill.  라면  <noodles > and  달 < moon> both of the words have  ㄹ <l> consonants. The first  ㄹ  consonant is pronounced like <r> but it does not as clear as  Indonesian 's r consonant. It is a sound between r and l. In IPA, it is symbolized as <ɽ>. While the second  ㄹ is pronounced as  <l>.  I suggest you to download "popping korean pronounciation" or  check this out  korean consonants pronunciation guide (by national institue of Korean language)

the mouth/oral organ

First, touch your lips! i am not kidding.  Why? because i want to show you where you supposed to pronounce bilabial consonant (양순음). When you pronounce the letter ㅂ<b>, ㅃ<p*>, ㅍ<ph>, ㅁ<m>, you should open and close your lips. Then,   for  ㄷ<t>,ㄸ<t*>,ㅌ<th>, ㅅ <s>,ㅆ<s*>, ㄴ<n>,ㄹ<l> consonants, what you need to know(look at the picture)  is those consonants should be articulated in the back of your teeth. Look number 3 and 6. We call it dental palatal sound or in Korean  (치경음). There is any Korean consonant which asks you to bite your tongue. So if you ever heard some Koreans speak like  nde instead of " 네"(when says yes), The reason is not because they bite a little bit of their tongue but they use their nasal voice (since  ㄴis a nasal consonant too).

This is not my subjective opinion. I have asked my professor in Korean pronunciation teaching class and she answered me like the way i told you guys.  This question was based on my curiosity and suspicious respond of  네/ 데 explanation (check this video). 

Then lets move to  경구음 which means hard palatal sound, Where is it? Look at number 4 and 7.  The hard palatal consonants are consisted of  ㅈ <tɕ>, ㅉ <tɕ*>,ㅊ<tɕh>. For me sometimes i misspell  질문 <tɕilmun > , instead of it, i often pronounce <tɕ*ilmun>.

Behind your hard palatal, there is a soft part( if your tongue can reach it) which is called "soft palatal "  (look at number 5 )and the consonants that should be pronounced there are  ㄱ<k>,ㄲ<k*>,ㅋ<kh>  and ㅇ< ŋ>. 

The last one is the the glottal sound.  Look at number 9. It is the only Korean consonant that produced from the pharyngeal. How about Indonesian ? do you know the word kakak? <kakaʔ > . We pronounce the last <k> different from the two k consonants. the consonants ʔ in Indonesian is also produced in pharyngeal. NEXT i will make the comparison between Indonesian and Korean consonant phonology system. 

I am exhausted ..😅 

But let is keep it up our spirit to find more about the vowels. 

Maybe some people will ask me why i started first with consonants. Since vowel ( 모음) can not stand alone with out consonants or this  ㅇ ( ㅇ  of  아). So from my opinion, it's better to know and understand the consonants table first. 

And second , actually there are some arguments in vocals pronunciation guide. I will compare three tables of sing,e vols pronunciation.

 ㅐ, ㅟ, ㅚ  are considered as the single consonants
source:  외국인을 위한 한국어 발음 교육 (허용. 김선정 :2006), also you will find the similar table in  소리와 발음 (김성규.정승천 : 2017)

 This vocal pronunciation table does not recognize  외  and  위 as the single consonants
  (You can find this in 우리 말 소리의 체계 , written by  신지영)

you can find out more explanation :전설, 중설, 후설 모음 체계

 Lets talk about the single and double consonants's argument first.
For  ㅟ and ㅚ, those vocals are considered as double vocals in second table because when you pronounce it, you move your mouth from vocal ㅜ to  ㅣ.  You do not pronounce it as the old people pronunce  외국인  (some of Korean elder people can pronounce  외 to be a single vocal.  Sorry i do not have the record)
Second, for the  ㅔ  and  ㅐ vowels arguments,  신지영 ( 한국어의 말소리, 2016:163) gave some proves that shown even Korean can differentiate between  ㅔ and  ㅐ, but in daily life (reality) they (most of them) do not pronounce it as two different vowels.

Last, why the last table divide the vowels into three group, upper, central and back vowels?
I assumed the two tables only use the upper back criteria to divide the single vowels. While the picture below is showing where the vowels are pronounced and dividing high low sounds.

but as a contrary argument, Sin jiyong (2016) held an experiment to 10 man and 10 woman speaker to find out the actual pronunciation of Korean vowels.

Aaah, it will be 100 times harder to study Indonesian phonology. But i will do it in summer vacation.
As a conclusion, even in Korean teaching education too, there are many arguments about vowels pronunciation. It depends how strong is your arguments. In addition, language, especially for phonology will always change based on the native speaker's pronunciation.