LingoDrop
Korean · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "일곱" in Korean?
eel-gop. The ㄱ in the middle sits between voiced sounds so it genuinely softens to a g, and the final ㅂ closes the lips without popping them open.
ilgop
Two short beats. The interesting bit of timing is the ending: because the lips close and never reopen, the word finishes on silence, and a listener identifies the consonant from the shape of the preceding vowel rather than from any released burst.
Listen: 일곱
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Sound it out
Hear it in a sentence
일곱 시에 일어나요.
Ilgop sie ireonayo.
I get up at seven.
Listen: 일곱 시에 일어나요.
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일곱 시에 일어나요 gives you the same batchim tensing seen elsewhere -- the unreleased p pushes the ㅅ of 시 to ㅆ -- plus a clean resyllabification in 일어나요, where the ㄹ of 일 hops forward and becomes a tap: i-reo-na-yo.
Where English speakers slip
The habitual error is releasing the final ㅂ into a full English p with a puff, sometimes with a schwa trailing after it: 'il-gop-uh'. Korean closes the lips and stops. The other thing to watch is the l, which English speakers make dark and back, whereas Korean's ㄹ before a consonant is light and forward.