Korean · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "슬프다" in Korean?

Q: How do you pronounce 슬프다 in Korean?

슬프다 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /sɯl.pʰɯ.da/. It means “to be sad.” seul-peu-da. Two ㅡ vowels in a row, both with the lips flat, and an aspirated ㅍ sandwiched between them.

seul-peu-da. Two ㅡ vowels in a row, both with the lips flat, and an aspirated ㅍ sandwiched between them.

슬프다 /sɯl.pʰɯ.da/

seulpeuda

All three syllables the same length. Having the same difficult vowel twice makes this a good diagnostic word: if the two syllables do not sound like they share a vowel, one of them has picked up rounding, and it is almost always the one right after the ㅍ.

Listen: 슬프다

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Sound it out

seul A light Korean ㅅ, the flat ㅡ, and a clear forward l. The lips do not round at any point in this syllable.

peu Aspirated ㅍ with a genuine puff, over a second ㅡ. Keeping the lips spread immediately after a bilabial release is the awkward part.

da Voiced between vowels and unstressed, the one easy syllable in a word built on hard vowels.

Hear it in a sentence

그 이야기는 너무 슬퍼요.

Geu iyagineun neomu seulpeoyo.

That story is so sad.

Listen: 그 이야기는 너무 슬퍼요.

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그 이야기는 너무 슬퍼요 contracts the verb to 슬퍼요, which swaps the second ㅡ for ㅓ, so the two hard vowels of the dictionary form are not both present in the everyday one. The 이야기는 ahead of it is a run of open syllables with no clusters at all.

Where English speakers slip

The bilabial release makes the lips want to round, so 'seul-poo-da' is the near-automatic English output. Force them flat right through the second syllable. Softening the ㅍ into a plain ㅂ is the other error, and it gives 슬브다 -- the aspiration is what carries the consonant's identity in this word.