Korean · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "비행기" in Korean?

bi-haeng-gi. A weakened ㅎ between vowels, a held nasal ㅇ, and a ㄱ that voices after it.

비행기 /pi.ɦɛŋ.gi/

bihaenggi

Three beats. The nasal in the middle is held rather than clipped, which makes the second syllable marginally the longest, but nothing here takes an accent.

Listen: 비행기

Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.

Sound it out

bi An initial ㅂ, quiet enough that English ears often hear a p, over a tight 'ee'.

haeng A lenited ㅎ over the flat ㅐ, closed by a nasal ㅇ held as resonance.

gi ㄱ voiced by the nasal in front of it, so a genuine g, onto another tight 'ee'.

Hear it in a sentence

비행기가 한 시간 후에 떠나요.

Bihaenggiga han sigan hue tteonayo.

The plane leaves in an hour.

Listen: 비행기가 한 시간 후에 떠나요.

Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.

비행기가 한 시간 후에 떠나요 finishes with 떠나요, which opens on a tensed ㄸ over the unrounded ㅓ -- so a soft, nasal-heavy noun is answered by the hardest consonant in the sentence.

Where English speakers slip

Releasing a g after 행 produces a doubled velar, which is the English 'finger' habit again -- there is one g there and it belongs to the third syllable. Learners also give the ㅎ full English force, when between voiced sounds it should be barely audible.