Korean · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "빨간색" in Korean?

Q: How do you pronounce 빨간색 in Korean?

빨간색 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /p͈al.gan.sɛk̚/. It means “red (color).” ppal-gan-saek. The opening ㅃ is tensed: lips pressed hard, throat tight, and no puff of air whatsoever when they part.

ppal-gan-saek. The opening ㅃ is tensed: lips pressed hard, throat tight, and no puff of air whatsoever when they part.

빨간색 /p͈al.gan.sɛk̚/

ppalgansaek

Three level beats. The compound structure -- 빨간 for 'red' plus 색 for 'colour' -- leaves a faint boundary before the last block, but that is a morphological seam rather than a stressed syllable, and the timing stays even across all three.

Listen: 빨간색

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Sound it out

ppal ㅃ is the tensed bilabial. Press the lips together with real force and release without breath -- English has no equivalent, though the p in 'spin' comes closest.

gan Plain ㄱ voiced between sonorants, so a genuine g here, plus an open 'ah' and a tongue-tip n.

saek The 색 morpheme meaning 'colour', with its flat ㅐ vowel and an unreleased final k.

Hear it in a sentence

빨간색 사과를 샀어요.

Ppalgansaek sagwareul sasseoyo.

I bought red apples.

Listen: 빨간색 사과를 샀어요.

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빨간색 사과를 샀어요 lets 빨간색 modify 사과 directly, and the unreleased k at the end of 색 tenses the ㅅ of 사, so the phrase comes out ppal-gan-saek-ssa-gwa. That tensing across a word boundary is automatic and never written down.

Where English speakers slip

Almost everyone starts this with an ordinary English p or b, which lands on 팔 or 발 rather than 빨. The tensed ㅃ needs visible effort: lips clamped, larynx compressed, release with no air escaping first. Practise by saying 'spy' and isolating the p -- unaspirated already -- then add the throat tension on top of it.