Korean · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "높다" in Korean?

Q: How do you pronounce 높다 in Korean?

높다 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /nop̚.t͈a/. It means “to be high / tall.” nop-tta. A rounded ㅗ, an unreleased ㅍ heard only as a silent closure, and a tensed ㄸ.

nop-tta. A rounded ㅗ, an unreleased ㅍ heard only as a silent closure, and a tensed ㄸ.

높다 /nop̚.t͈a/

nopda

Timing rather than volume: the silent lip closure in the middle has to last long enough to be heard as an absence, which is counter-intuitive for English speakers used to releasing every consonant they make.

Listen: 높다

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Sound it out

no Forward n over a properly rounded ㅗ, with the lips pushed out.

p Written ㅍ, but final position strips the aspiration and leaves an unreleased [p̚]. The lips close and stay closed.

da A tensed ㄸ, produced automatically by the stop before it.

Hear it in a sentence

저 산은 아주 높아요.

Jeo saneun aju nopayo.

That mountain is very high.

Listen: 저 산은 아주 높아요.

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저 산은 아주 높아요 restores the aspiration. With a vowel following, the ㅍ resyllabifies forward and is heard in full, giving no-pa-yo with a genuine puff -- the batchim that was silent becomes the strongest consonant in the word.

Where English speakers slip

Aspirating the batchim gives 'noph-da' with breath in the middle, which final position does not allow, and releasing it at all is wrong, since the closure is the whole signal. Learners also flatten the ㅗ toward 'uh', when it needs real lip rounding to stay distinct from the ㅓ words around it.