Korean · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "아프다" in Korean?

Q: How do you pronounce 아프다 in Korean?

아프다 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /a.pʰɯ.da/. It means “to hurt / to be sick.” a-peu-da. An aspirated ㅍ in the middle with a real puff, and the lip-flat ㅡ immediately after it.

a-peu-da. An aspirated ㅍ in the middle with a real puff, and the lip-flat ㅡ immediately after it.

아프다 /a.pʰɯ.da/

apeuda

Keep every syllable the same length. The interest is entirely consonantal -- an open vowel, then an aspirated stop, then a soft one -- which gives the word a strong-in-the-middle texture without any stress at all.

Listen: 아프다

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Sound it out

a A bare, open ㅏ with a clean start and no glottal catch in front of it.

peu ㅍ with genuine breath, then ㅡ. The lips must release the stop and immediately spread flat, which is the coordination to practise.

da Voiced and unstressed, releasing the tension of the syllable before it.

Hear it in a sentence

배가 좀 아파요.

Baega jom apayo.

My stomach hurts a little.

Listen: 배가 좀 아파요.

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배가 좀 아파요 conjugates to 아파요, replacing the ㅡ with ㅏ, so the difficult vowel of the dictionary form is not even present in the everyday one. The subject 배가 is two open syllables, so nothing assimilates before the verb arrives.

Where English speakers slip

Rounding the ㅡ into 'poo' is the automatic English response to a bilabial release, and it is wrong here -- spread the lips. Softening the ㅍ into a plain ㅂ gives 아브다 and loses the consonant that defines the word, so this is one where both features have to land at once.