Korean · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "빠르다" in Korean?

Q: How do you pronounce 빠르다 in Korean?

빠르다 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /p͈a.ɾɯ.da/. It means “to be fast.” ppa-reu-da. Tensed ㅃ at the front -- lips clamped, no air -- then a tap and the lip-flat ㅡ.

ppa-reu-da. Tensed ㅃ at the front -- lips clamped, no air -- then a tap and the lip-flat ㅡ.

빠르다 /p͈a.ɾɯ.da/

ppareuda

Three blocks of equal length. Like 다르다 this is a 르-irregular, so the conjugated 빨라요 replaces the tap with a long held l -- and it keeps the tensed ㅃ too, which makes the word demanding in both shapes.

Listen: 빠르다

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Sound it out

ppa Tensed ㅃ: press the lips hard, compress the larynx, and release without any breath escaping first.

reu A quick tap onto ㅡ. The lips have to travel from clamped to spread in a single move.

da Voiced, brief, and dropped in every conjugated form the verb takes.

Hear it in a sentence

이 차는 아주 빨라요.

I chaneun aju ppallayo.

This car is very fast.

Listen: 이 차는 아주 빨라요.

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이 차는 아주 빨라요 uses that irregular form, so you get a tensed bilabial and a geminate l inside one two-syllable stem. It is a compact workout: throat tension at the start, consonant length in the middle.

Where English speakers slip

The opening consonant loses its tension for almost every learner and comes out as an ordinary b, giving 바르다 -- a real verb meaning to apply or to be straight. So the clamp matters. The ㅡ is the second casualty, rounding into 'roo' the instant the lips relax after that ㅃ.