Korean · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "어렵다" in Korean?

Q: How do you pronounce 어렵다 in Korean?

어렵다 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ʌ.ɾjʌp̚.t͈a/. It means “to be difficult.” eo-ryeop-tta. A tapped ㄹ leading into a y-glide, an unreleased ㅂ, and a tensed ㄸ at the end.

eo-ryeop-tta. A tapped ㄹ leading into a y-glide, an unreleased ㅂ, and a tensed ㄸ at the end.

어렵다 /ʌ.ɾjʌp̚.t͈a/

eoryeopda

Weight the blocks equally. Like 쉽다, this is a ㅂ-irregular, so the final consonant becomes a w before a vowel and 어렵다 turns into 어려워요, growing from three syllables to four in the process.

Listen: 어렵다

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Sound it out

eo Bare unrounded ㅓ opening the word, with no consonant and no glottal catch in front of it.

ryeop Tapped ㄹ into a y-glide and another ㅓ, then the lips close for an unreleased ㅂ. A genuinely busy syllable.

da Tensed ㄸ, forced by the stop sitting in front of it.

Hear it in a sentence

한국어는 어렵지 않아요.

Hangugeoneun eoryeopji anayo.

Korean is not difficult.

Listen: 한국어는 어렵지 않아요.

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한국어는 어렵지 않아요 uses the -지 않다 negation, and the unreleased ㅂ tenses the ㅈ into ㅉ, giving eo-ryeop-jji. Then 않아요 deletes its ㅎ between vowels and resyllabifies the ㄴ, landing as a-na-yo.

Where English speakers slip

The two ㅓ vowels get rounded into 'oh-ryop', which spoils both of them at once, so keep the lips slack throughout. The other habit is treating 려 as two syllables, when the tap and the glide belong to a single beat -- stretching it out makes the word sound laboured.