Final consonants: the letter underneath

A third letter, underneath

You know 사. Now look at 산: the same two letters, squeezed upward, with a third letter below them. Play both. The new letter is a consonant that closes the syllable: sa becomes san. It is still one block and one beat.

The three words here end in sounds English also has at the end of a syllable. 산 ends in n. 밤 ends in m. 강 ends in the “ng” of “sing”. Yes, that last one is written with the circle.

The bottom seat

A block has up to three seats: first consonant, vowel, final consonant. The final always goes at the bottom, whether the vowel is tall, as in 산, or flat, as in 문. With a flat vowel the three letters simply stack.

The circle ㅇ has two jobs. In the first seat it is silent. In the bottom seat it is “ng”. In 강 the tongue never touches the front of the mouth at the end, and there is no g sound after it.

In Korean this bottom consonant is called 받침. You do not need the term yet, but you will see it in dictionaries and textbooks.

ㄹ at the bottom sounds like l

At the start of a block ㄹ is a quick tap. At the bottom it changes: the tongue tip goes up behind the upper teeth and stays there, giving an l sound. That is why 물 is romanized mul and 말 is mal.

Keep it light. English l at the end of a word (“full”, “ball”) is made with the back of the tongue pulled back, which darkens it. The Korean one uses only the tongue tip. 서울 is two beats, seo-ul.

Stopped, not released

ㄱ and ㅂ at the bottom are where English habits get in the way. Say English “book” slowly and you will hear a small burst of air after the k. Korean does not let that burst out. For 책 the back of the tongue closes for k and the sound simply stops. For 밥 and 집 the lips close for p and stay closed.

No air comes out and no extra vowel follows. The word ends in a sudden silence.

The romanization writes these finals k and p (chaek, bap, jip) because that is how they sound when stopped.

ㅅ at the bottom is not s

Play 옷 and listen to the end. There is no hiss. A Korean syllable cannot end in an s sound, so ㅅ in the bottom seat is stopped just like the letters in the last step: the tongue tip closes behind the upper teeth, as for t, and holds.

The spelling keeps ㅅ. The sound is a stopped t, which is why the word is romanized ot. In Hangul the pronunciation can be written 옫.

Short words that end in ㄴ, ㅁ, ㅇ

Read each block as one beat, final included. 눈 is “eye”, 돈 is “money”, 방 is “room”. 빵 is “bread”; it starts with the tense ㅃ, so no puff of air.

Two-block words work the same way, one block at a time: 가방 is ga-bang and 사람 is sa-ram. In 사람 the ㄹ starts the second block, so it is the tap. The ㅁ under it closes the word.

People and things

These are longer, but every block is a pattern you know. Read slowly and give each block its own beat: han-guk, hak-saeng, chin-gu, i-reum, seon-saeng-nim, gim-chi.

선생님 has three blocks and each one has a final: ㄴ, ㅇ, ㅁ. Do not add a vowel between them. 한국 and 학생 contain a stopped ㄱ. Close for the k, hold, and move on to the next block.

Places, time and countries

More everyday words: 학교 school, 식당 restaurant, 맥주 beer, 시간 time, 일본 Japan, 미국 the USA.

Listen closely to the first three. After a stopped ㄱ, the consonant that starts the next block comes out hard, like the tense letters: 학교 sounds as if it were written with ㄲ, and 식당 as if with ㄸ. The spelling does not change. You are not tested on this; it happens by itself when you hold the stop properly.