Korean · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "살다" in Korean?

Q: How do you pronounce 살다 in Korean?

살다 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /sal.da/. It means “to live.” sal-da. A light breathy s, a bright forward l, and a plain d that stays soft because the ㄹ in front of it is not a tensing trigger.

sal-da. A light breathy s, a bright forward l, and a plain d that stays soft because the ㄹ in front of it is not a tensing trigger.

살다 /sal.da/

salda

Neither block is longer or louder than the other. Like 알다, 열다 and 놀다, this is a ㄹ-stem verb, and the ㄹ drops before certain endings -- 사세요 rather than 살으세요 -- so the very consonant you are practising here is not always present in the conjugation.

Listen: 살다

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Sound it out

sal Korean ㅅ with less friction than the English one, an open 'ah', and a clear ㄹ made entirely with the tongue tip.

da No tensing after a ㄹ: the consonant simply voices, and the vowel behind it stays wide open.

Hear it in a sentence

저는 부산에 살아요.

Jeoneun Busane sarayo.

I live in Busan.

Listen: 저는 부산에 살아요.

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저는 부산에 살아요 conjugates to 살아요, where the ㄹ becomes a tap between vowels: sa-ra-yo. The place name 부산 hands its ㄴ straight to the particle, so the sentence carries a nasal join in the middle and a flap at the end.

Where English speakers slip

The English dark l is the recurring problem, and it colours the vowel in front of it -- 'sahl-da' with a swallowed l sounds noticeably foreign. Keep the tongue tip up and the back of the tongue flat. The other slip is tensing the ㄷ into 'sal-tta' by analogy with 먹다, when ㄹ does not trigger that at all.