Korean Double Final Consonants
First of all, the
final consonant in a Korean syllable is called a 'batchim". Most Korean
words have a single batchim, while others have no batchim at all. Let's take
for instance the words 목 (neck) and 코 (nose). 목 has
"ㄱ" as batchim, while 코 has
no batchim in it.
But did you know
that Korean has words that end with double final consonants? That’s right, and
reading them can be confusing because we tend to read them together which
actually sounds weird. You should know that only of them is pronounced while
the other is silent. How do we know?
There are a total
of nine double final consonants and we categorize them into two. For the first
category, only the consonant on the left is voiced. They are ㄳ, ㄶ, ㄵ, ㄼ, ㄾ,
and ㅄ. Below are sample words, their meaning, and pronunciation.
몫 (목다)
allotment/share/portion
많다 (만타)
to be many
앉다 (안타)
to sit down
여덟 (여덜)
the number eight
넓다 (널다)
to be wide
없다 (업타)
to not have
Most of them are
verbs in their infinitive form. When conjugated into their different tenses,
the syllable on the right is pronounced but as the initial consonant of the
next syllable. For example, “I have no money” in Korean is “나는 돈이 없어요”.
The 없어요 is pronounced like 업서요.
This is not the case with ㄶ where “ㅎ”
remains silent after the conjugation. For instance, in the sentence “사람이 많아요”
(There are many people), we don’t pronounce it as 만하요 but 만나요.
The second group of
this type are ㄺ, ㄻ,
and ㄿ where the right consonant is voiced and the left one
is silent. Below are sample words, their meaning, and pronunciation.
흙 (흑)
soil
읽다 (익다)
to read
젊다 (점다)
to be young
삶 (삼)
life
읊다 (읖타)
to recite (a poem)
Just like the first
group, the originally silent consonant is voiced when conjugated (in case of
verb) or added with particles (in the case of noun). The last syllable is drag
to the next syllable as its initial consonant. For instance, “읽어요”
is pronounced like “일거요” and “삶은”
is pronounced like “살믄”.