Korean · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "휴가" in Korean?

hyu-ga. The ㅎ palatalizes in front of the y-glide, and the ㄱ voices between vowels into a soft g.

휴가 /hju.ga/

hyuga

A couple of evenly timed blocks. The first is dense and the second is simple, and the palatalized h at the front is the only thing in the word that requires any real precision.

Listen: 휴가

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Sound it out

hyu ㅎ before a y-glide becomes a front-of-the-mouth hiss rather than a throaty h, and then the glide runs onto a rounded ㅜ. One beat.

ga Plain ㄱ voiced between vowels, over a wide open ㅏ.

Hear it in a sentence

저는 팔월에 휴가를 가요.

Jeoneun parwore hyugareul gayo.

I'm going on vacation in August.

Listen: 저는 팔월에 휴가를 가요.

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

저는 팔월에 휴가를 가요 puts 팔월에 in front, where the ㄹ of 팔 links into the vowel of 월 and then taps into the particle, giving pa-rwo-re.

Where English speakers slip

A plain English h misses the palatalization the glide triggers, and splitting 휴 into 'hee-yu' adds a beat -- keep it compressed with the tongue forward. Hardening the ㄱ is the third error, since between vowels the plain series voices.