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Korean · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "세계" in Korean?
se-ge. The second block is written 계 with a ㅖ, but after a consonant that vowel is standardly pronounced as a plain ㅔ.
segye
A level pair of blocks. The point worth naming is the ㅖ reduction, which applies across the language -- 계 and its relatives all lose the glide after a consonant, and only in a word-initial or vowel-initial position does it survive.
Listen: 세계
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Sound it out
Hear it in a sentence
세계를 여행하고 싶어요.
Segyereul yeohaenghago sipeoyo.
I would like to travel the world.
Listen: 세계를 여행하고 싶어요.
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세계를 여행하고 싶어요 attaches the object particle to a vowel-final noun, so nothing shifts there, and the interest moves to 여행하고, where the ㅎ between two voiced sounds thins out almost to nothing.
Where English speakers slip
Pronouncing the glide gives 'se-gyeh', which sounds over-careful and is not what native speakers say -- drop it. Learners also harden the ㄱ into a k, when it sits between vowels and voices, so the second syllable should come out softer than the spelling implies.