LingoDrop
Korean · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "가을" in Korean?
ga-eul. Two vowels meet with nothing between them, and the second is the lip-flat ㅡ closed by a bright l.
gaeul
Two level beats. The tongue rises from fully open to high and back with no consonant to cover the move, and the lips must stay unrounded throughout, which is the combination that makes this word deceptively hard.
Listen: 가을
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Sound it out
Hear it in a sentence
가을에는 날씨가 좋아요.
Gaeureneun nalssiga joayo.
The weather is nice in autumn.
Listen: 가을에는 날씨가 좋아요.
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가을에는 날씨가 좋아요 stacks particles, so the ㄹ taps forward and gives ga-eu-re-neun. Then 날씨 delivers its tensed and palatalized ㅆ, giving nal-sshi.
Where English speakers slip
Letting the lips round on the ㅡ gives 'ga-ool', and inserting a glottal stop between the vowels gives a chopped version -- both are common. The third error is the dark l, which drags an already-difficult vowel backward and blurs it further.