Korean · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "더" in Korean?

One beat, 'duh'. Plain ㄷ with no aspiration, riding the flat, unrounded ㅓ.

더 /tʌ/

deo

A single short beat, normally sitting in front of an adjective or adverb. Even in that intensifying role it does not take English-style emphatic stress, because the comparison is carried by the word itself rather than by volume.

Listen: 더

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Sound it out

d Plain ㄷ. Word-initially it has almost no voicing, so an English ear hears something sitting between d and t.

eo ㅓ, back and unrounded. Lips completely relaxed -- rounding this produces 도, which is a common particle and a different word.

Hear it in a sentence

시간이 더 필요해요.

Sigani deo piryohaeyo.

I need more time.

Listen: 시간이 더 필요해요.

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시간이 더 필요해요 places 더 between a subject and a verb, and the phrase runs without a break. Right before it, 시간이 resyllabifies its ㄴ into the particle to give si-ga-ni, so 더 arrives inside a continuous vowel-and-nasal stream rather than after a pause.

Where English speakers slip

Rounding the vowel is the standing risk, and it turns 더 into 도 -- swapping 'more' for 'also', a genuine change of meaning in an everyday sentence. Keep the lips slack. Aspirating the consonant into 'tuh' is the other slip, and that pushes the word toward 터 instead.