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Korean · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "누구" in Korean?
nu-gu. Two rounded vowels in a row, with a ㄱ voicing between them into a genuine g.
nugu
Two matched blocks. Sharing a vowel makes the word a rounding drill: if the second syllable sounds looser or shorter than the first, English vowel reduction has crept into a language that does not use it.
Listen: 누구
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Sound it out
Hear it in a sentence
저분은 누구세요?
Jeobuneun nuguseyo?
Who is that person?
Listen: 저분은 누구세요?
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저분은 누구세요? uses the honorific ending, and 저분은 resyllabifies its ㄴ into the particle, giving jeo-bu-neun. The question then closes on a rise, since 누구 itself does nothing to mark it.
Where English speakers slip
Hardening the middle ㄱ into a k is the standard error and it makes the word sound spelled out, when between vowels it genuinely voices. The other slip is reducing the second vowel to a schwa and producing 'NOO-guh', when both syllables are fully rounded and equally long.