LingoDrop
Korean · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "심심하다" in Korean?
shim-shim-ha-da. Both ㅅ letters palatalize because both have an ㅣ behind them, so the first two blocks are identical.
simsimhada
Four beats, and the first two are identical, which makes the word a clean test of whether you keep repeated syllables equal. English would differentiate them by stress and Korean does not.
Listen: 심심하다
Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.
Sound it out
Hear it in a sentence
할 일이 없어서 심심해요.
Hal iri eopseoseo simsimhaeyo.
I'm bored because there's nothing to do.
Listen: 할 일이 없어서 심심해요.
Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.
할 일이 없어서 심심해요 shows Korean's n-insertion at a word boundary: 일 gains an n which then assimilates to the preceding ㄹ, so 할 일이 is pronounced hal-li-ri. Then 없어서 splits its cluster and tenses the ㅅ into a double s.
Where English speakers slip
Producing plain s sounds gives 'sim-sim' and misses the palatalization twice over. Then there is the h, which after a nasal should be light rather than a full English one. And with two identical syllables at the front, the temptation to stress one of them is strong -- resist it.