Korean · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "가게" in Korean?

ga-ge. The same letter twice: quiet and barely voiced at the front, then fully voiced between vowels.

가게 /ka.ge/

gage

Two level beats. The word is a minimal demonstration of positional voicing -- one letter, two audibly different consonants -- with nothing else in it to distract from the contrast.

Listen: 가게

Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.

Sound it out

ga A word-initial ㄱ, light enough that English ears often hear a k, over a wide open ㅏ.

ge The same ㄱ between vowels, so a genuine g, onto the pure ㅔ of 'bet'.

Hear it in a sentence

가게가 일곱 시에 문을 닫아요.

Gagega ilgop sie muneul dadayo.

The shop closes at seven.

Listen: 가게가 일곱 시에 문을 닫아요.

Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.

가게가 일곱 시에 문을 닫아요 shows the same letter a third time in the subject particle, again voiced. Then 일곱 시 tenses its ㅅ after the unreleased p, giving il-gop-ssi.

Where English speakers slip

Making both consonants identical is the error, whichever way you level them: hardening the second gives 'ga-ke', and softening the first gives an English g heavier than anything Korean does word-initially. The final ㅔ is the other point, since adding an off-glide produces 'ga-gay'.