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Korean · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "거기" in Korean?
geo-gi. Two ㄱ letters with different jobs: the first is light and word-initial, the second voices between vowels.
geogi
Two blocks of the same length. The word sits in the middle of the deictic set -- 여기 for near the speaker, 거기 for near the listener, 저기 for away from both -- and only the first block ever changes.
Listen: 거기
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Sound it out
Hear it in a sentence
가게는 거기에 있어요.
Gageneun geogie isseoyo.
The shop is there.
Listen: 가게는 거기에 있어요.
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가게는 거기에 있어요 attaches the location particle to a vowel-final noun, so 거기에 comes out as three open syllables in a row. Keeping the ㅓ, the ㅣ and the ㅔ distinct across that run is the actual work in this sentence.
Where English speakers slip
Making both ㄱ sounds identical is the giveaway, usually by hardening the first into a full English g when it should be quieter than the second. Rounding the ㅓ is the other error, and here it happens to produce 고기, a real word meaning meat -- so the vowel genuinely matters.