Korean · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "약하다" in Korean?

ya-ka-da. The ㄱ of 약 and the ㅎ of 하 collapse into a single aspirated ㅋ, so there is no h anywhere in the spoken word.

약하다 /ja.kʰa.da/

yakada

Weight the three blocks equally. Because the word is short, the aspirated middle consonant dominates it, and that is the only place where anything demanding happens.

Listen: 약하다

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Sound it out

ya A y-glide onto the open ㅏ, all inside one beat and with no consonant in front.

ka Two letters, one sound: the stop and the h merge into an aspirated ㅋ with a strong puff of air.

da Soft, voiced and unaccented, ending the dictionary form.

Hear it in a sentence

그 아이는 몸이 약해요.

Geu aineun momi yakaeyo.

That child is physically weak.

Listen: 그 아이는 몸이 약해요.

Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.

그 아이는 몸이 약해요 conjugates to 약해요 with the same merge, and 몸이 in front sends its ㅁ into the particle to give mo-mi. The sentence links smoothly all the way through to that single strong aspirate.

Where English speakers slip

Pronouncing both letters gives 'yak-ha-da' with a released k and a separate h, which sounds like the word is being read rather than spoken -- fuse them. It also helps to keep 약 as one beat, since English speakers sometimes split the y-glide off and produce 'ee-ak-ha-da'.