Korean · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "행복하다" in Korean?

Q: How do you pronounce 행복하다 in Korean?

행복하다 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /hɛŋ.bo.kʰa.da/. It means “to be happy.” haeng-bo-ka-da. The boundary between 복 and 하 produces neither a k nor an h but a single aspirated ㅋ.

haeng-bo-ka-da. The boundary between 복 and 하 produces neither a k nor an h but a single aspirated ㅋ.

행복하다 /hɛŋ.bo.kʰa.da/

haengbokada

Level weight across all four syllables. The word alternates soft and strong -- two gentle syllables, then a hard aspirated one, then a soft one again -- and that texture comes entirely from the consonants, since no syllable is louder than any other.

Listen: 행복하다

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Sound it out

haeng Light ㅎ, the flat ㅐ, and a nasal ng with nothing released after it.

bo ㅂ voiced after the nasal into a real b, sitting over a rounded ㅗ.

ka The ㄱ batchim of 복 and the ㅎ of 하 collapse into one breathy consonant: two letters, one sound, with a strong puff of air.

da Quick, quiet and voiced, the only relaxed syllable after that aspirated ㅋ.

Hear it in a sentence

오늘 아주 행복해요.

Oneul aju haengbokaeyo.

I am very happy today.

Listen: 오늘 아주 행복해요.

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오늘 아주 행복해요 conjugates to 행복해요, keeping the merge intact. The adverb 아주 in front is all open vowels, so the sentence moves from a completely unobstructed opening into the single strong aspirate at the heart of the verb.

Where English speakers slip

Pronouncing the letters separately gives 'haeng-bok-ha-da', with an audible k, a pause and an h -- the most common error across the whole family of -하다 adjectives built on stop-final roots. There is one consonant there. And do not release a g after 행, since ㅇ in final position is nasal resonance only.