Korean · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "그리고" in Korean?

Q: How do you pronounce 그리고 in Korean?

그리고 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /kɯ.ɾi.go/. It means “and.” geu-ri-go. The first vowel is ㅡ with spread lips, the r is a tap, and the ㄱ in the last block voices properly because vowels surround it.

geu-ri-go. The first vowel is ㅡ with spread lips, the r is a tap, and the ㄱ in the last block voices properly because vowels surround it.

그리고 /kɯ.ɾi.go/

geurigo

Three even beats. Because this is a sentence connector, the pitch usually resets on it and then rises slightly into the clause that follows -- prosody belonging to the sentence, not to the word, and no syllable inside it is stronger than the others.

Listen: 그리고

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

Sound it out

geu Light ㄱ plus ㅡ. Do not round anything: this vowel is made with the lips pulled flat and the tongue high and back.

ri A tapped ㄹ onto a tight 'ee'. The tongue touches the ridge once and leaves immediately, without lingering.

go ㄱ between voiced sounds, so a real g, followed by a rounded 'oh' with the lips forward.

Hear it in a sentence

빵을 먹어요. 그리고 커피를 마셔요.

Ppangeul meogeoyo. Geurigo keopireul masyeoyo.

I eat bread. And I drink coffee.

Listen: 빵을 먹어요. 그리고 커피를 마셔요.

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

빵을 먹어요. 그리고 커피를 마셔요. sets 그리고 at the head of a fresh sentence, so it gets a full pitch reset. Just before it, 먹어요 shows resyllabification releasing a trapped stop: the silent ㄱ of 먹 moves into 어 and voices, giving meo-geo-yo.

Where English speakers slip

Substituting 'goo' for 그 is the standard error, since English has no ㅡ and the lips reach for rounding automatically. Check in a mirror: if the lips move forward at all, the vowel is wrong. Beginners also produce a full English r in the middle instead of a tap, which stretches the word and gives it a distinctly non-Korean texture.