Korean · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "시계" in Korean?

shi-ge. The ㅅ palatalizes before ㅣ, and the ㅖ of 계 loses its glide after a consonant, so the second block is simply 'ge'.

시계 /ɕi.ge/

sigye

Two beats. Two separate reduction rules apply -- palatalization at the front and glide loss at the back -- and neither of them is visible in the romanization, which writes sigye and hides both.

Listen: 시계

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Sound it out

si The ㅣ drags the ㅅ back toward the palate, turning it into 'sh' rather than a plain s.

gye Written with a y-glide, spoken without one. After a consonant ㅖ reduces to ㅔ, and the ㄱ voices between vowels, so this is simply 'ge'.

Hear it in a sentence

시계를 하나 샀어요.

Sigyereul hana sasseoyo.

I bought a watch.

Listen: 시계를 하나 샀어요.

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시계를 하나 샀어요 attaches the object particle to a vowel-final noun and finishes with 샀어요, where the ㅆ resyllabifies into the ending as a full double s: sa-sseo-yo.

Where English speakers slip

'si-gye' with a plain s and a pronounced glide gets both rules wrong at once, and it is exactly what the spelling invites. Pull the tongue back for the sh and drop the y. Hardening the ㄱ is the third habit, when between vowels it should voice into a soft g.