Korean · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "맛있다" in Korean?

Q: How do you pronounce 맛있다 in Korean?

맛있다 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ma.ɕit̚.t͈a/. It means “to be delicious.” ma-shit-tta. The ㅅ of 맛 crosses into 있 and, because the vowel there is ㅣ, it comes out as 'sh' rather than a plain s.

ma-shit-tta. The ㅅ of 맛 crosses into 있 and, because the vowel there is ㅣ, it comes out as 'sh' rather than a plain s.

맛있다 /ma.ɕit̚.t͈a/

masitda

Three beats with a closure before the last one. What makes the word interesting is that its most audible consonant, the sh, is not written where you hear it -- it comes from the batchim of the preceding block, relocated and then palatalized by the vowel it lands beside.

Listen: 맛있다

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Sound it out

ma A simple bilabial m over an open ㅏ, short and clean.

si The batchim of 맛 has migrated into this block, and in front of ㅣ it palatalizes to 'sh'. The written 있 supplies the vowel, not the consonant you hear.

t The ㅆ of 있 neutralizes to an unreleased [t̚] in final position, so nothing hisses at the end.

da Tensed ㄸ, produced by that stop.

Hear it in a sentence

이 김치가 정말 맛있어요.

I gimchiga jeongmal masisseoyo.

This kimchi is really delicious.

Listen: 이 김치가 정말 맛있어요.

Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.

이 김치가 정말 맛있어요 conjugates to 맛있어요, and now both hidden consonants surface: the ㅅ still palatalizes to sh, and the ㅆ resyllabifies into 어 as a full double s. The result is ma-shi-sseo-yo, with two distinct sibilants where the dictionary form had one and a silence.

Where English speakers slip

Reading the blocks as written gives 'mat-it-da' with a stop in the middle, which no Korean says, because the batchim moves. And once it has moved it must palatalize -- 'ma-sit-da' with a plain s is the halfway version many learners settle into, and it still sounds wrong to a native ear.