Basic Consonants ㄱ ㄴ ㄷ ㄹ ㅁ ㅂ ㅅ ㅇ ㅈ ㅎ

What You Will Learn in This Unit

In this unit, you will learn the names and sounds of the ten basic consonants. The consonants ㄱ, ㄷ, ㅂ, and ㅈ sound different when they come at the beginning of a word and when they come between vowels, so you need to know this difference in order to read the 가·나·다 syllable chart.

The Names and Sounds of the Ten Basic Consonants

A consonant letter has a name and a sound. The name is what we use to call the letter, and the sound is the sound actually produced inside a word. The table below summarizes the ten basic consonants.

A letter name is a word that names the letter itself, so when you read a word, you produce the sound, not the name. For example, the name of ㄱ is 기역 (giyeok), but the first sound of 가다 (gada, to go) is [k] or [g]. The words in this unit have the same letter and sound, so no bracketed pronunciation is given.

ㄱ·ㄷ·ㅂ·ㅈ, Which Change at the Beginning of a Word and Between Vowels

The letters ㄱ, ㄷ, ㅂ, and ㅈ are each written as one letter but are pronounced in two ways. At the beginning of a word, they are plain sounds without voicing. Between vowels, they are voiced and sound close to [g], [d], [b], and [j]. This difference depends on the position of the letter, and the letter shape does not change. The aspirated consonants (ㅋ, ㅌ, ㅍ, ㅊ) are covered in Unit 4.

In the table above, the ㄷ in 다리 is at the beginning of the word, so it is close to the plain sound [t]. The ㄷ in 바다 is between vowels, so it is close to [d].

Two Sounds of ㄹ

ㄹ has two sounds. When it comes before a vowel, it is pronounced as [r], a sound made by lightly tapping the tip of the tongue against the gum ridge. When it comes as a final consonant (받침), it is pronounced as [l]. Final ㄹ is covered in Unit 7, so in the words of this unit, ㄹ is always read as the [r] sound before a vowel.