LingoDrop
Korean · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "그" in Korean?
geu, one beat, and everything rides on the vowel: ㅡ with the lips flat and the tongue high and back.
geu
Just one short beat. As a determiner it leans forward onto the noun it modifies, so 그 사람 is spoken as a single rhythmic unit, and pausing after 그 reads as hesitation rather than as grammar.
Listen: 그
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Sound it out
Hear it in a sentence
그 사람은 제 친구예요.
Geu sarameun je chinguyeyo.
That person is my friend.
Listen: 그 사람은 제 친구예요.
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그 사람은 제 친구예요 has 그 attaching to 사람, and then 사람은 resyllabifies its ㅁ into the particle, giving sa-ra-meun. The determiner and its noun run together, the particle disappears into the noun, and the whole subject arrives as one continuous stream.
Where English speakers slip
Nearly every English speaker says 'goo' here, because the lips round automatically for a high back vowel. ㅡ is high and back but completely unrounded, so the lips have to stay flat or even slightly spread. It matters: 그 and 구 are different sounds, and 그 is among the most frequent words in the language.