Korean · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "괜찮다" in Korean?

Q: How do you pronounce 괜찮다 in Korean?

괜찮다 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /kwɛn.tɕʰan.tʰa/. It means “to be okay / to be fine.” gwaen-chan-ta, three syllables. The middle block carries the double batchim ㄶ, and its hidden ㅎ jumps onto the following ㄷ and turns it into an aspirated ㅌ.

gwaen-chan-ta, three syllables. The middle block carries the double batchim ㄶ, and its hidden ㅎ jumps onto the following ㄷ and turns it into an aspirated ㅌ.

괜찮다 /kwɛn.tɕʰan.tʰa/

gwaenchanta

Three flat beats. Two phonological processes stack up inside one word: the double batchim ㄶ, where only ㄴ surfaces as a consonant, and the ㅎ that survives by fusing with the next stop to aspirate it. Neither is stress, but both change what actually leaves your mouth.

Listen: 괜찮다

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Sound it out

gwaen ㄱ plus a w-glide onto ㅐ. Keep the g light, almost a k, and give the vowel the 'a' of 'cat' with rounded lips leading into it.

chan Aspirated ㅊ with a real breath burst, then 'ahn'. Of the double batchim ㄶ, only the ㄴ is audible as a consonant in this position.

ta The silent-looking ㅎ of ㄶ is not silent at all: it merges with the following ㄷ to make ㅌ, which is exactly why the romanization ends -ta and not -da.

Hear it in a sentence

괜찮아요, 고마워요.

Gwaenchanayo, gomawoyo.

I'm fine, thanks.

Listen: 괜찮아요, 고마워요.

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

괜찮아요, 고마워요 shows the other fate of ㄶ. With a vowel following, the ㅎ simply disappears and the ㄴ moves forward, giving gwaen-cha-na-yo with a clean n and no h anywhere. Set that beside 괜찮다 and you can hear the two rules trading places.

Where English speakers slip

The classic mistake is a soft, unaspirated 'gwaen-chan-da', which loses the ㅎ altogether. Korean does not drop it before a stop -- it spends it on aspiration, so the last syllable needs the same breathy push as the t in English 'top'. English speakers also tend to break the first block into two, 'gu-wain', when 괜 is a single syllable with the w built into the vowel itself.