Korean · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "다섯" in Korean?

Q: How do you pronounce 다섯 in Korean?

다섯 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ta.sʌt̚/. It means “five.” da-sut, two beats. The second vowel is the unrounded ㅓ, and the word finishes on an unreleased stop.

da-sut, two beats. The second vowel is the unrounded ㅓ, and the word finishes on an unreleased stop.

다섯 /ta.sʌt̚/

daseot

Two even beats. In terms of timing the second syllable is cut short by the final stop, so the word feels front-loaded even though neither syllable is stressed -- the standard pattern for native numerals ending in a batchim.

Listen: 다섯

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Sound it out

da Plain ㄷ opening the word: no real voicing, no aspiration. Then a wide open 'ah'.

seo s plus ㅓ. Keep the lips flat, because rounding this vowel would give 'soh', an entirely different sound.

t The ㅅ batchim neutralized to an unreleased [t̚]. Tongue up, air stops, nothing releases afterwards.

Hear it in a sentence

사과 다섯 개를 샀어요.

Sagwa daseot gaereul sasseoyo.

I bought five apples.

Listen: 사과 다섯 개를 샀어요.

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사과 다섯 개를 샀어요 puts 다섯 directly before the counter 개, and the unreleased t tenses that ㄱ into ㄲ, giving da-seot-kkae. Tensing across a word boundary like this is fully regular, and native speakers do it without thinking about it.

Where English speakers slip

The second vowel is where English speakers slip, reaching for 'daw' or 'doe' instead of the flat ㅓ. Unround completely: it is the vowel of 'cut' pushed back. The other habit to break is releasing that final t, which adds a phantom syllable and turns the numeral into 'da-suh-tuh'.