Korean Alphabet Pronunciation: How the 40 Letters Sound in the DPRK Norm

October 16, 2026 · KoryoTalk · 7 min read

Short answer: the 40 letters of the Northern alphabet 조선글 do not sound like “ay, bee, see”: every letter is always one and the same sound. Consonants split into three families — plain ones with a weak puff of air (ㄱ sounds like k/g), aspirated ones with a strong puff (ㅋ — “kh”), and tense ones with almost no air at all (ㄲ — a tight “kk”). Two sounds deserve special care: ㄹ — a single tap between Russian-style “r” and “l”, and ㅇ — silent at the start of a syllable, a nasal “ng” at the end. Below: every family explained by ear, the paper-test for aspiration, and minimal pairs like 불/뿔 (“fire”/“horn”) for ear training. The inventory and order of the letters are covered in the series hub, the letter-by-letter Russian transcription — in the companion article.

Three consonant families — the main key to pronunciation

To an untrained ear ㄱ, ㅋ and ㄲ all sound like “the same k”. The difference is not the sound itself but two features: the strength of the air puff (숨) and muscular tension. The whole system hangs on this:

The paper test is a working classroom trick: hold a sheet near your lips and say ㄱ, ㅋ, ㄲ in a row. On ㅋ the sheet visibly bends — that is aspiration; on ㄲ it stays still and the sound comes out harder and shorter.

Consonant by consonant: what the mouth does

• ㄱ — “k” made with the back of the tongue, no English-style puff; between vowels it softens toward “g”: 가구 sounds close to “kagu” (furniture).
• ㄴ — plain “n”, tongue tip to the upper gum ridge: 나비 “nabi” (butterfly).
• ㄷ — “t” with the tip at the alveolar ridge; between vowels it voices toward “d”: 다리 “tari/dari” (leg).
• ㄹ — the hardest sound for most learners: the tongue tip taps the alveolar ridge once, like a Spanish single r; word-initially it leans toward “r”, word-finally toward a light “l”: 로동자 “rodongja” (worker).
• ㅁ — plain “m”: 어머니 “eomeoni” (mum).
• ㅂ — “p” with a weak puff; between vowels it voices toward “b”: 아버지 “abeoji” (father).
• ㅅ — “s” with a faint “sh” tint before ㅣ: 사람 “saram” (a person).
• ㅇ — silent at the start of a syllable: 아이 is simply “ai”; nasal “ng” at the end: 강 “gang” (a river).
• ㅈ — “j” as in “jam”, leaning further toward “j” between vowels: 지우개 “jiugae” (an eraser).
• ㅊ — “ch” with a strong puff: 창 “chang” (a window).
• ㅋ ㅌ ㅍ ㅎ — “kh”, “th”, “ph”, “h”: the aspirated twins of ㄱ, ㄷ, ㅂ and a breathy “h”: 키 “khi” (height), 탁자 “thakja” (a table), 평양 “Pyongyang”.
• ㄲ ㄸ ㅃ ㅆ ㅉ — tense: 꽃 “kkot” (a flower), 딸 “ttal” (a daughter), 아빠 “appa” (dad), 쌀 “ssal” (rice grain), 찌개 “jjigae” (a stew).

Vowels: five basic and the compounds

The basic vowels map cleanly: ㅏ “a”, ㅗ “o”, ㅜ “oo”, ㅡ “eu” (unrounded “oo”), ㅣ “ee”. One sound needs a caveat — ㅓ: an open sound between “aw” and “uh”; in 어머니 the first syllable starts with it. Everything else is built by combination: ㅑ “ya”, ㅕ “yeo”, ㅛ “yo”, ㅠ “yu”, ㅐ/ㅔ “ae/e” (merged in living speech), ㅘ “wa”, ㅝ “wo”, ㅚ/ㅟ “we/wi”.

The diphthong ㅢ reads “eui” at the start of a word: 의사 “euisa” (a doctor). Inside a word it reduces to “i” — the norm, not a mistake.

받침: how final consonants sound

Only seven sounds are pronounced at the end of a syllable: ㄱ (k), ㄴ (n), ㄷ (t), ㄹ (l), ㅁ (m), ㅂ (p), ㅇ (nasal ng). Other letters in this position merge into those seven: ㅅ, ㅆ, ㅈ, ㅊ, ㅌ sound like “t”, ㅍ like “p”, ㄲ and ㅋ like “k”. That is why 밥 is “pap”, 꽃 is “kkot”, 책 is “chaek”. And if the next syllable starts with a vowel, the final consonant jumps into it: 음악 sounds “eumak”, not “eum-ak”. The full rule walkthrough is in the reading article of this series.

Minimal pairs: training the ear

The family differences are easiest to hear on word pairs that differ by a single letter:

* The words for “water”, “moon” and “grass” were not confirmed by the KoryoTalk dictionary during factchecking — they are listed here in their generally known Korean meaning as teaching pairs; the rest of the article’s facts are dictionary-checked. The navigation label 조선어 follows the Northern 두음법칙 spelling, as with 로동자 and 녀자; Southern variants are absent from the dictionary base.

Six more words for a warm-up: 혀 “hyeo” (tongue), 입술 “ipsul” (lips), 목소리 “mokssori” (voice), 집 “jip” (a house), 할머니 “halmeoni” (grandmother), 할아버지 “harabeoji” (grandfather). Say each pair three times: plain — aspirated — tense.

A week-long training plan

(1) Days 1–2: consonant families on the paper test, pairs 불/뿔 and 개/가구. (2) Days 3–4: ㄹ — slowly, a single tap, on 로동자, 다리, 달. (3) Day 5: 받침 — the seven final sounds on 밥, 꽃, 책. (4) Days 6–7: recite the whole alphabet in order from the hub article. You can check the sound and translation of individual words with the KoryoTalk bot: a 2.2-million-entry Korean–Russian dictionary base plus a separately built layer of verified Northern equivalents.

Factcheck: words and terms in this article — 조선글, 숨, 혀, 입술, 목소리, 발음, 소리, 자음, 모음, 받침, 개, 가구, 두부, 집, 무, 나비, 다리, 불, 뿔, 나라, 사람, 어머니, 아버지, 로동자, 지우개, 창, 키, 탁자, 평양, 허리, 꽃, 딸, 아빠, 쌀, 찌개, 아이, 강, 밥, 책, 의사, 교실, 오늘, 과일, 위, 예술, 아침, 야자, 은, 유리, 이름, 음악, 학생, 할머니, 할아버지, 같다, 없다, 읽다, 계렬, 붙다, 어떻게, 훈련, 끝, 단어, 다르다 — are confirmed by the KoryoTalk dictionary base. Letter names 기윽, 니은, 리을, 이응 are the Northern ones, per 조선말규범집 (1987 ed., § 1). Demand for the “alphabet” cluster (the “pronunciation” tail) — Wordstat cache of Oct 14: ~1,711 searches/mo.