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Korean · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "부엌" in Korean?
bu-eok. Two vowels meet in the middle with nothing between them, and the ㅋ at the end loses its aspiration entirely.
bueok
Both halves the same length. The vowel-to-vowel join is the technical demand, since the lips must unround between them with no consonant to cover the transition, and Korean will not insert a glottal stop to help you.
Listen: 부엌
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Sound it out
Hear it in a sentence
저는 부엌에서 요리해요.
Jeoneun bueokeseo yorihaeyo.
I cook in the kitchen.
Listen: 저는 부엌에서 요리해요.
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저는 부엌에서 요리해요 restores the aspiration: with 에서 attached, the ㅋ resyllabifies forward and comes back in full, so the phrase becomes bu-eo-ke-seo. The bare noun ends in silence and the particled form ends in a puff.
Where English speakers slip
Aspirating the final consonant in the bare word is the first error, because Korean allows no aspiration in that position. Then, having learned to suppress it, learners suppress it in 부엌에서 too, where it genuinely belongs. The vowel join is the third issue, since an English glottal stop splits the word in half.