Korean · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "보내다" in Korean?

Q: How do you pronounce 보내다 in Korean?

보내다 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /po.nɛ.da/. It means “to send / to spend (time).” bo-nae-da. Plain ㅂ with little voicing at the front, a rounded 'oh', then a short flat ㅐ and the citation ending.

bo-nae-da. Plain ㅂ with little voicing at the front, a rounded 'oh', then a short flat ㅐ and the citation ending.

보내다 /po.nɛ.da/

bonaeda

Uniform timing across all three blocks. Note that this verb also means 'to spend time', and in either sense it conjugates to 보내요 without adding a syllable, so the rhythm stays stable across its forms.

Listen: 보내다

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Sound it out

bo Word-initial ㅂ, closer to a soft p than to an English b, sitting over a rounded ㅗ.

nae Forward n plus the low front ㅐ -- short and flat, with no diphthong glide off the end.

da The vowels on either side voice this stop. Keep it soft and do not let it pick up aspiration.

Hear it in a sentence

친구들하고 시간을 보내요.

Chingudeulhago siganeul bonaeyo.

I spend time with friends.

Listen: 친구들하고 시간을 보내요.

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친구들하고 시간을 보내요 puts a plural marker and a particle in front, and 친구들하고 runs as one long unbroken unit, chin-gu-deul-ha-go. Then the ㄴ of 시간 slides into the object particle, giving si-ga-neul, so five syllables arrive before the verb with no break at all.

Where English speakers slip

The middle vowel gets the English long-a treatment, giving 'bo-NAY-da' with both a glide and a stress bump, and neither belongs. Beginners also start the word with a full English b, when the plain ㅂ at the beginning of a word is much quieter -- close to the p in 'spot'.