Korean · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "아니면" in Korean?

Q: How do you pronounce 아니면 in Korean?

아니면 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /a.ni.mjʌn/. It means “or / or else.” a-ni-myeon. The last block packs an m, a y-glide and the unrounded ㅓ into a single beat before closing on n.

a-ni-myeon. The last block packs an m, a y-glide and the unrounded ㅓ into a single beat before closing on n.

아니면 /a.ni.mjʌn/

animyeon

Three blocks. The final one is the busiest but it is still one beat, and the word is a good place to practise keeping a consonant-glide-vowel sequence compressed rather than letting it spread out.

Listen: 아니면

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Sound it out

a Just the vowel: ㅏ wide open, started cleanly on the voice.

ni Forward n onto a tight 'ee', both short.

myeon The bilabial nasal, lips together running straight into a y-glide and the flat ㅓ, closed by a tongue-tip n. No vowel is inserted between the m and the glide.

Hear it in a sentence

커피 아니면 차를 드릴까요?

Keopi animyeon chareul deurilkkayo?

Would you like coffee or tea?

Listen: 커피 아니면 차를 드릴까요?

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커피 아니면 차를 드릴까요? uses the connector between two nouns, and the ending 드릴까요 tenses its ㄱ into ㄲ after the ㄹ. The offer therefore closes on a hard consonant after three syllables of pure flow.

Where English speakers slip

Splitting 면 into 'mee-eon' is the standard error and it adds a syllable the word does not have, so keep it as one block. The other slip is rounding the ㅓ inside that glide, producing 'myon', when the lips stay flat the whole way through.