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Korean · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "젊다" in Korean?
jeom-tta. The double batchim ㄻ keeps only its ㅁ, and unusually for a nasal, that ㅁ does tense the following ㄷ into ㄸ.
jeomda
Level weight on both halves. A genuinely subtle rule is at work: a ㅁ batchim inside a verb or adjective stem tenses the ending's consonant, whereas the same ㅁ inside a noun would not -- so 젊다 is jeom-tta while a noun like 감사 keeps its plain s.
Listen: 젊다
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Sound it out
Hear it in a sentence
그분은 아직 젊으세요.
Geubuneun ajik jeolmeuseyo.
He is still young.
Listen: 그분은 아직 젊으세요.
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그분은 아직 젊으세요 attaches an honorific ending that begins with a vowel, which frees the buried ㄹ: it resyllabifies forward and the word becomes jeol-meu-se-yo, with both cluster members finally audible. The dictionary form gives no hint that a ㄹ is in there at all.
Where English speakers slip
Trying to say both letters of ㄻ before a consonant gives 'jeolm-da', which Korean does not permit -- only one survives. Then the ending needs its tensed ㄸ, and because the trigger here is a nasal rather than a stop, learners who memorized the stop rule miss it and settle for a soft 'jeom-da'.