Korean · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "돌" in Korean?

dol. One syllable: a quiet plain ㄷ, a rounded ㅗ, and a clear forward l.

돌 /tol/

dol

One beat. The word is short enough that its only two features -- the quiet stop and the rounded vowel -- have to carry it, with the l providing the shape at the end.

Listen: 돌

Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.

Sound it out

do ㄷ at the start of a word, so quiet that many learners hear it as a t, over a properly rounded ㅗ.

l Final ㄹ as a bright lateral, tongue tip up and the back of the tongue kept flat.

Hear it in a sentence

길에 돌이 있어요.

Gire dori isseoyo.

There's a stone on the road.

Listen: 길에 돌이 있어요.

Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.

길에 돌이 있어요 attaches the subject particle, so the ㄹ taps forward and the noun becomes do-ri. The 길에 in front does exactly the same, so the sentence has two flaps produced by the same process.

Where English speakers slip

A fully voiced English d is the overshoot and a dark l is the other, and together they produce 'dole', a different shape entirely. Keep the consonant quiet, the vowel rounded, and the l made with the tip of the tongue rather than the body of it.