Korean · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "이다" in Korean?

Q: How do you pronounce 이다 in Korean?

이다 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /i.da/. It means “to be (copula).” EE-da, two short beats. The ㄷ sits between vowels here, so it genuinely voices into a soft d rather than the harder t-like sound it takes at the start of a word.

EE-da, two short beats. The ㄷ sits between vowels here, so it genuinely voices into a soft d rather than the harder t-like sound it takes at the start of a word.

이다 /i.da/

ida

Two beats of near-equal length. Worth flagging that you will almost never say this citation form aloud: 이다 is the dictionary entry, and in real speech it fuses onto the preceding noun as -이에요, -예요 or -입니다, which is where the actual pronunciation work happens.

Listen: 이다

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

Sound it out

i A tight, pure 'ee'. ㅣ has no diphthong glide, so do not let it slide off into 'ee-uh' the way a long English ee often does.

da Plain ㄷ with a vowel on each side, which switches on real voicing. The 'a' is a wide, bright 'ah' from the back of the mouth, not the flat vowel of 'cat'.

Hear it in a sentence

저는 한국 사람이에요.

Jeoneun Hanguk saramieyo.

I am Korean.

Listen: 저는 한국 사람이에요.

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

저는 한국 사람이에요 shows what the copula really does. 사람 ends in the batchim ㅁ, and 이에요 pulls that ㅁ across the boundary, so the tail comes out sa-ra-mi-e-yo in a single run with no audible seam between noun and verb.

Where English speakers slip

Learners who memorize 이다 as 'ee-DAH' with a hard, aspirated d carry that into the conjugated forms and end up saying sa-ram-TEE-e-yo. The ㄷ after a vowel is soft and unaspirated -- hold a hand in front of your mouth and you should feel no puff of air whatsoever.