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Korean · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "동물" in Korean?
dong-mul. A held nasal running straight into a lip-shut m, so the middle of the word is one continuous stream of resonance.
dongmul
Two beats. Three of the four consonant slots are nasals or liquids, so the whole word is voiced from beginning to end and nothing in it stops or bursts.
Listen: 동물
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Sound it out
Hear it in a sentence
개는 제가 제일 좋아하는 동물이에요.
Gaeneun jega jeil joahaneun dongmurieyo.
The dog is my favorite animal.
Listen: 개는 제가 제일 좋아하는 동물이에요.
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개는 제가 제일 좋아하는 동물이에요 attaches the copula, so the ㄹ taps forward and the noun becomes dong-mu-ri. The long modifier 좋아하는 in front deletes one ㅎ and weakens another.
Where English speakers slip
Slipping a g in between 동 and 물 breaks the nasal run and is the commonest error here. The other is the dark l at the end, which pulls the rounded ㅜ backward, when Korean keeps the tongue tip up and lets the vowel stay forward and clear.