LingoDrop
Korean · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "식당" in Korean?
shik-ttang. The ㅅ palatalizes to 'sh', and the unreleased ㄱ tenses the following ㄷ into ㄸ.
sikdang
Two level beats with a silence between them. Three separate features stack up -- palatalization, an unreleased stop and post-obstruent tensing -- and none of the three appears in the romanization.
Listen: 식당
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Sound it out
Hear it in a sentence
좋은 식당에서 저녁을 먹어요.
Joeun sikdangeseo jeonyeogeul meogeoyo.
We're having dinner at a good restaurant.
Listen: 좋은 식당에서 저녁을 먹어요.
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좋은 식당에서 저녁을 먹어요 attaches 에서, and the tensed ㄷ stays tensed while the ㅇ carries into the particle, giving shik-ttang-e-seo. The 좋은 in front deletes its ㅎ, so the phrase opens softly and hardens in the middle.
Where English speakers slip
'sik-dang' with a plain s and a soft d misses both changes at once, and it is what almost every learner says first. Pull the tongue back for the sh and squeeze the throat for the ㄸ. Releasing the ㄱ in the middle is the third habit, when that closure should be held in silence.