Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Brady]

Everytime I say this word Koreans look at me like an alien just popped out of my chest. Then after a few painful repetitions they finally get it, and repeat it exactly the way I said it. What gives?

[peony]

it should be pronounced with a soft 's' - sull nal

[just because]

Soul-lal

The reason being is this...
설날 is spelled out like this Seol-Nal however...

When the ㄴ(n) is preceeded by the ㄹ(l) in the patchim before the "n" sound becomes an "l" sound..

So even though it is spelled Seol-nal the actual pronunciation is Seol-lal

[Brady]

Gotcha, thanks.

[J.B. Clamence]

just because is correct. n + l = ll in Korean pronunciation.

In fact, the official present transliteration of the holiday is actually "Seollal."

Other examples of n + l = ll:

- Jeollanam-do (province)
- Jeollabuk-do (province)
- Mullae (subway stop near Shindorim)
- Mt. Halla (South Korea's highest peak)
- Shilla (ancient Korean kingdom)

[Qinella]

[J.B. Clamence]

[Qinella]

Yes I have that book but I forgot the ㄹ -> ㄴ rule since it so rarely appears.

Thanks for the info.

[Hater Depot]

관리.

[Qinella]

[tzechuk]

[Hater Depot]

Just realized this one when I was asked last night how long I've been in Korea -- 일년. The woman definitely pronounced it 일련, though maybe my ears need cleaning.

[billybrobby]

There's some disagreement, even amongst Koreans, about this stuff. Take a poll on how to pronounce the subway station 선릉 and you'll get a mix of 설릉 and 선능.

That said, 설날 is always 설랄 as far as I know.

잘나다 is another ㄹ + ㄴ. For the life of me, I want to say it's pronounced as it's spelled, but I could be wrong.

[Return Jones]

Koreans have a weird relationship with consonants in English and even in Korean. This is not a Korean bashing moment, but this sort of thing frustrates me when it comes to Koreans blatantly telling me I'm saying something wrong when I know it's correct.

About two years ago the head teacher (I really liked her) at my elementary school would say the word "buffet" in Korean as "VWEEfay". Often it's written as 뷔페. Surely an educated person would know that it should be pronounced as "BWEEfay". As I studied Korean with her sometimes, I politely questioned her pronunciation but she never seemed to understand that she imported a foreign V sound to replace a native Korean B sound. It didn't make any sense to do so because the word begins with a B sound in both languages. Furthermore she didn't even seem aware that she was a using a foreign consonant sound in her own language.

Another example was an adult student that used F whenever there was a P sound in Korean or English. I wrote several words on the board with the ㅍ but he still said F. I wrote 평 (floor area space) and he said "Fyeong". Strange.

Another example is when someone is listening to a conversation and allegedly saying "네, 네 네" (Nay, nay, nay) when actually they're saying something to the effect of "데, 데, 데" (Day, day, day). I've questioned this one too, but to no success.

Don't mean to rant or criticize, but I feel a bit avenged after many moments when I said something in Korean that was merely 99.99% correct and got laughed at. Fortunately it doesn't happen much anymore

[Qinella]