LingoDrop
Korean · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "벌써" in Korean?
beol-sseo. A bright forward l, then a tensed ㅆ made with the throat locked -- and both vowels are the unrounded ㅓ.
beolsseo
Two blocks with matching vowels, so the word doubles as a ㅓ consistency check. The tensed sibilant makes the second syllable slightly longer, which is a phonetic side effect rather than an accent.
Listen: 벌써
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Sound it out
Hear it in a sentence
벌써 밥을 먹었어요.
Beolsseo babeul meogeosseoyo.
I've already eaten.
Listen: 벌써 밥을 먹었어요.
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벌써 밥을 먹었어요 puts the adverb first and then two resyllabifications: 밥을 gives ba-beul as the ㅂ voices into the particle, and 먹었어요 gives meo-geo-sseo-yo with the trapped ㄱ released and a double s at the end.
Where English speakers slip
Softening the ㅆ into a plain s is the main failure, and it takes the edge off a word that should sound sharp -- squeeze the throat. The dark English l is the other habit, and combined with rounded vowels it produces 'bowl-suh', which shares almost nothing with the Korean word.