Korean · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "어제" in Korean?

eo-je. An unrounded ㅓ with no consonant in front, then a soft voiced ㅈ over the pure 'e' of 'bet'.

어제 /ʌ.dʑe/

eoje

Two short blocks with nothing to choose between them. The pairing with 오늘 and 내일 is the useful drill, since all three time words are two syllables and all three are delivered completely flat.

Listen: 어제

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Sound it out

eo A bare back, unrounded vowel opening the word. Lips relaxed, tongue pulled back, and no glottal catch at the start.

je Plain ㅈ between vowels, so genuinely voiced, onto ㅔ held short and steady.

Hear it in a sentence

어제 친구를 만났어요.

Eoje chingureul mannasseoyo.

I met a friend yesterday.

Listen: 어제 친구를 만났어요.

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어제 친구를 만났어요 puts the time word first, where Korean likes it, and then 만났어요 delivers the geminate n of 만나 followed by a resyllabified double s: man-na-sseo-yo.

Where English speakers slip

The first vowel gets rounded into 'oh-je', which is the standing problem with ㅓ -- lips flat and tongue back. The second slip is the vowel in 제, where English speakers add an off-glide and produce 'jay', when ㅔ is a single steady sound with no movement in it.