Sound Check: crisp differences between ㄱ, ㄲ, and ㅋ

When trying to find out the pronunciations of some consonants, you may find yourself wondering how to articulate sounds like ㄲ, ㅋ, ㄸ,ㅌ, ㅃ, ㅍ, ㅆ, ㅉ, and ㅊ because of their similarities.

So, how do Koreans pronounce them differently?

Don’t be disappointed or blame yourself for being unable to grasp such differences at first.

The reason you can’t pronounce and distinguish them properly is due to the fact you've never trained your tongue and muscles to sense them. As for Koreans when trying to speak in English.

You need to give yourself guidelines to support you along the way and eventually cause those dynamics to become second nature.

예사소리(lenis)

It indicates consonant sounds such as g(ㄱ), d(ㄷ), b(ㅂ), s(ㅅ), and j(ㅈ).

Key point is to exhale sounds as smoothly as BREATHING.

They are supposed to be gentle and monotonous, with no intonations or accents.

ㄱ, ㄷ, ㅂ, ㅅ, ㅈ, 예사소리 (lenis) — MARUCHINGU

된소리(fortis)

There are no similar alphabets that can pronounce these.

SQUEEZE (choke) your throat so to not let air in your lungs get out and pop out the sounds.

Vibrations in your throat and lungs when uttering are signs of properly blocking the air movement.

거센소리(aspirated consonants)

In contrast to 된소리 ensure you produce these sounds by strongly exhaling air, much like blowing air into a balloon without stopping it.

Related English sounds are: k (ㅋ)killing, t (ㅌ)ticking, p (ㅍ)popping and ch (ㅊ)chat .

ㅋ, ㅌ, ㅍ, ㅊ, 거센소리(aspirated consonants) — MARUCHINGU

Lastly, why, in the first place, do such sounds exist as fortis (된소리) and aspirated (거센소리) sound besides lenis (예사소리) in Korean? And why, for the strangers’ ears, does Korean sound like having accents and intonations in it even though it doesn’t have any phonetic symbols indicating them as we are known? From my perspective, as a Korean teacher who has a quite long experiences of teaching and base on not academic but more likely empirical point of view, I presume they act like accents and intonations. It sounds a little radical but when I teach my students pronunciations of fortis and aspirated sounds with lenis sounds, it occurs to me that, because of their attributes, they are just like accents or intonations. And I reached the conclusion that lenis sounds such as ㄱ,ㄷ,ㅂ,ㅅ and ㅈ are accent-less words and fortis, ㄲ,ㄸ,ㅃ,ㅆ and ㅉ and aspirated sounds ㅋ,ㅌ,ㅍ and ㅊ are accented words. If you understand what I’ve told and distinguish those sounds based on this finding, you can speak Korean just like Koreans without a hitch.