LingoDrop
Korean · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "해" in Korean?
hae. One syllable: a light ㅎ and the short flat ㅐ, with no glide anywhere in it.
hae
A brief beat. There is nothing to time except the vowel, which should stay short -- lengthening it is exactly what turns the Korean vowel into an English diphthong.
Listen: 해
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Sound it out
Hear it in a sentence
아침에 해가 떠요.
Achime haega tteoyo.
The sun rises in the morning.
Listen: 아침에 해가 떠요.
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아침에 해가 떠요 attaches the subject particle to a vowel-final noun, so the phrase is hae-ga with no changes. Then 떠요 opens with a tensed ㄸ over the unrounded ㅓ, which is the hardest thing in the sentence.
Where English speakers slip
Saying 'hay' with an English long a is the whole difficulty here, because there is nothing else in the syllable to get wrong. Keep the vowel flat and short. The ㅎ should also be lighter than an English h, which otherwise makes a one-syllable word sound emphatic.