Korean · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "꽃" in Korean?

kkot. A tensed ㄲ at the front and a ㅊ at the end that final position reduces to a silent, unreleased t.

꽃 /k͈ot̚/

kkot

One beat, framed by two demanding consonants. The tension at the front and the neutralization at the back are both invisible in the romanization, which writes kkot and hides the fact that the final letter is a ㅊ.

Listen: 꽃

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Sound it out

kko Tensed ㄲ with the throat locked and no breath, over a properly rounded ㅗ.

t Written ㅊ, but an aspirated affricate cannot survive as a batchim, so it neutralizes to an unreleased [t̚] with no hiss and no burst.

Hear it in a sentence

이 꽃은 향기가 좋아요.

I kkocheun hyanggiga joayo.

This flower smells nice.

Listen: 이 꽃은 향기가 좋아요.

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이 꽃은 향기가 좋아요 restores the buried ㅊ: with 은 attached it resyllabifies forward and comes out with full aspiration, giving kko-cheun. The silent t of the bare noun becomes the breathiest sound in the phrase.

Where English speakers slip

Softening the ㄲ into an English k is the first error, and pronouncing the final ㅊ is the second -- learners who know the spelling often say 'kkoch', which no Korean does. Lock the throat at the front and stop the tongue at the back without releasing it.