Korean · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "돼지" in Korean?

dwae-ji. The first block is a single beat with a w-glide onto the flat ㅐ -- not the 'way' the romanization suggests.

돼지 /twɛ.dʑi/

dwaeji

No syllable here takes an accent. The first is busy -- a stop, a glide and a vowel -- and the second is simple, which gives the word a front-loaded feel without any difference in loudness.

Listen: 돼지

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Sound it out

dwae Plain ㄷ, quiet, running into a w-glide and then ㅐ. The lips round for the glide and immediately spread for the vowel, all inside one beat.

ji A plain ㅈ that voices because vowels surround it, onto a tight 'ee'.

Hear it in a sentence

돼지가 농장에 살아요.

Dwaejiga nongjange sarayo.

The pig lives on the farm.

Listen: 돼지가 농장에 살아요.

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돼지가 농장에 살아요 attaches the subject particle to a vowel-final noun, and 농장에 holds its nasal into the particle while 살아요 taps its ㄹ forward, giving sa-ra-yo.

Where English speakers slip

Reading 'dwae' as English 'dway' adds a long vowel and a glide the syllable does not have, and splitting it into 'du-wae' adds a beat -- it is one block. Then the ㅈ needs to stay soft, since aspirating it gives 돼치 and loses the word.