Korean · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "읽다" in Korean?

Q: How do you pronounce 읽다 in Korean?

읽다 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ik̚.t͈a/. It means “to read.” ik-tta. The block 읽 carries the double batchim ㄺ, and in front of a consonant only the ㄱ is pronounced -- the ㄹ stays silent.

ik-tta. The block 읽 carries the double batchim ㄺ, and in front of a consonant only the ㄱ is pronounced -- the ㄹ stays silent.

읽다 /ik̚.t͈a/

ikda

Two beats separated by a closure. The cluster rule is the whole story: ㄺ keeps its second member before a consonant, which is the opposite of what ㄼ does in 여덟, so the two clusters have to be learned as separate cases rather than one pattern.

Listen: 읽다

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Sound it out

i A clean, tight 'ee' opening the word with no consonant in front of it.

k Of the cluster ㄺ, the ㄱ survives and the ㄹ drops, and the surviving stop is unreleased: tongue back, air stopped, no burst.

da Tensed ㄸ, because a stop batchim precedes it. Compressed throat, sharp release, no breath.

Hear it in a sentence

이 책을 읽고 있어요.

I chaegeul ilgo isseoyo.

I'm reading this book.

Listen: 이 책을 읽고 있어요.

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이 책을 읽고 있어요 conjugates to 읽고, where the ㄹ is the member that survives instead, and it tenses the following ㄱ -- so careful pronunciation gives il-kko. That flip between 읽다 and 읽고 is one of the trickier corners of the cluster rules.

Where English speakers slip

Trying to say both letters gives 'ilk-da', a sequence Korean does not permit at the end of a syllable. Only one member survives, and here it is the ㄱ. The second half then needs the tensed ㄸ rather than a soft English d, and that tension is the change learners most often miss, because nothing in the spelling signals it.