Korean · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "열다" in Korean?

Q: How do you pronounce 열다 in Korean?

열다 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /jʌl.da/. It means “to open.” yeol-da. A y-glide onto the unrounded ㅓ, a bright forward l, and then a plain d that stays soft because ㄹ is not a tensing trigger.

yeol-da. A y-glide onto the unrounded ㅓ, a bright forward l, and then a plain d that stays soft because ㄹ is not a tensing trigger.

열다 /jʌl.da/

yeolda

Even timing across both syllables. This verb belongs to the ㄹ-stem group, so the ㄹ actually disappears before certain endings -- 여세요 rather than 열으세요 -- which changes the syllable count in ways the dictionary form gives no hint of.

Listen: 열다

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Sound it out

yeol The glide and the ㅓ form one beat, closed by a clear ㄹ with the tongue tip at the ridge and the tongue back kept flat.

da Plain ㄷ after a liquid, so voiced and unaspirated. No tensing here, unlike after a stop batchim.

Hear it in a sentence

문 좀 열어 주세요.

Mun jom yeoreo juseyo.

Please open the door.

Listen: 문 좀 열어 주세요.

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문 좀 열어 주세요 conjugates to 열어, where the ㄹ moves into the vowel and becomes a tap: yeo-reo. The 좀 in front keeps a plain ㅈ, because 문 ends in a nasal and nothing tenses across that boundary.

Where English speakers slip

Rounding the vowel into 'yole' is the first error, and it comes from reading the romanized 'eo' as an English o. The lips stay flat. The second is applying the tensing rule and saying 'yeol-tta' -- ㄹ leaves the following consonant alone, so that d is genuinely soft.