Korean · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "지하철" in Korean?

Q: How do you pronounce 지하철 in Korean?

지하철 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /tɕi.ɦa.tɕʰʌl/. It means “subway.” ji-ha-cheol. A soft plain ㅈ at the front, a weakened ㅎ in the middle, and a strongly aspirated ㅊ at the end.

ji-ha-cheol. A soft plain ㅈ at the front, a weakened ㅎ in the middle, and a strongly aspirated ㅊ at the end.

지하철 /tɕi.ɦa.tɕʰʌl/

jihacheol

Three beats. The consonants get progressively stronger across the word -- plain, weakened, aspirated -- which gives it a rising sense of effort without any change in loudness at all.

Listen: 지하철

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Sound it out

ji Plain ㅈ, gentle and unaspirated, running onto a tight 'ee'.

ha ㅎ trapped between two vowels, so it lenites and can nearly disappear at conversational speed.

cheol ㅊ, aspirated, with a real puff, over the unrounded ㅓ, closed by a bright forward l.

Hear it in a sentence

지하철이 버스보다 빨라요.

Jihacheori beoseuboda ppallayo.

The subway is faster than the bus.

Listen: 지하철이 버스보다 빨라요.

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지하철이 버스보다 빨라요 attaches the subject particle, so the final ㄹ taps forward and the noun becomes ji-ha-cheo-ri. Then 빨라요 supplies a tensed ㅃ and a geminate l, so the comparison ends on the two hardest consonants in the sentence.

Where English speakers slip

Levelling the two affricates is the main error, since learners either aspirate both, which spoils the first syllable, or neither, which spoils the third. Korean keeps them apart. The ㅎ in the middle should also be lighter than an English h, so a full 'ji-HA-cheol' sounds over-enunciated.