LingoDrop
Korean · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "신발" in Korean?
shin-bal. The ㅅ palatalizes before ㅣ, and the ㅂ voices after the nasal into a genuine b.
sinbal
Two blocks delivered flat. The word is built from 신 plus 발, but nothing in the sound marks the seam -- the nasal simply voices the following stop, which is what it would do inside a single morpheme anyway.
Listen: 신발
Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.
Sound it out
Hear it in a sentence
이 신발은 좀 작아요.
I sinbareun jom jagayo.
These shoes are a bit small.
Listen: 이 신발은 좀 작아요.
Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.
이 신발은 좀 작아요 attaches 은, so the ㄹ taps forward and the noun becomes shin-ba-reun. Then 작아요 releases its trapped ㄱ, which voices between vowels, giving ja-ga-yo.
Where English speakers slip
'sin-bal' with a plain s misses the palatalization, the same rule that governs 시간 and 점심. The dark l is the second habit, and the third is aspirating the ㅂ, when after a nasal the plain series voices and the consonant should stay soft.