Korean · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "도" in Korean?

Q: How do you pronounce 도 in Korean?

도 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /to/. It means “also / too.” do, one beat. Plain ㄷ with no aspiration, and a properly rounded 'oh' -- push the lips forward and hold them there.

do, one beat. Plain ㄷ with no aspiration, and a properly rounded 'oh' -- push the lips forward and hold them there.

도 /to/

One clitic beat, unstressed, hanging off the noun before it. Because 도 replaces the subject and object particles rather than stacking after them, it also reshapes the tail of the phrase -- 저는 becomes 저도, still two beats but with a different ending.

Listen: 도

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Sound it out

d Plain ㄷ. Following a vowel, which is where this particle lives, it voices into a soft d; standing alone it would sit closer to t.

o ㅗ with real lip rounding, held short. Do not let it slide into the 'uh' of ㅓ or the diphthong of English 'go'.

Hear it in a sentence

저도 같이 가요.

Jeodo gachi gayo.

I'm coming too.

Listen: 저도 같이 가요.

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저도 같이 가요 joins 도 straight onto 저 with no seam, jeo-do. And 같이 demonstrates one of Korean's palatalization rules: a ㅌ batchim in front of ㅣ becomes ch, so it is pronounced ga-chi and never 'gat-i'.

Where English speakers slip

English speakers give this the diphthong of 'dough', gliding off into an 'oo'. Korean ㅗ is one steady rounded vowel with no movement in it. The other correction is aspiration -- a hard, breathy 'toh' makes it a different consonant, while the plain ㄷ after a vowel should stay soft and quiet.