Korean · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "먹다" in Korean?

Q: How do you pronounce 먹다 in Korean?

먹다 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /mʌk̚.t͈a/. It means “to eat.” muhk-tta. The ㄱ closes without releasing, and that closure forces the following ㄷ into its tensed twin ㄸ.

muhk-tta. The ㄱ closes without releasing, and that closure forces the following ㄷ into its tensed twin ㄸ.

먹다 /mʌk̚.t͈a/

meokda

Two beats, the first clipped by the unreleased stop. The timing signature is that silence: the mouth stays closed for a measurable moment between the syllables, which is why 먹다 sounds shorter and more abrupt than an English word of the same shape.

Listen: 먹다

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Sound it out

meo m plus ㅓ, the unrounded back vowel. Think 'muh' with the lips fully relaxed -- rounding is what separates 먹다 from 목.

k An unreleased ㄱ. Get the tongue back into k position and simply stop; there should be no audible burst before the next syllable begins.

da Tensed ㄸ rather than plain ㄷ. Throat tight, no aspiration, a hard clipped release -- the automatic outcome of any plain stop landing after a stop batchim.

Hear it in a sentence

피자를 먹고 싶어요.

Pijareul meokgo sipeoyo.

I want to eat pizza.

Listen: 피자를 먹고 싶어요.

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피자를 먹고 싶어요 keeps the same rule alive with a different ending, since the ㄱ of 먹 tenses the ㄱ of 고 to give meok-kko. Then 싶어요 resyllabifies its ㅍ forward into the vowel, landing as si-peo-yo with the p opening the second syllable rather than closing the first.

Where English speakers slip

The English habit is to release every stop, producing 'mek-DAH' with an audible k-burst and a soft d. Both halves are wrong: the k has no burst, and the d is tensed, meaning you build pressure behind the tongue and let it go sharply with zero breath. Watch the vowel too -- substituting the ㅗ of 'oh' gives 목, which means neck or throat.