Spanish → Korean
Korean uses 34 sounds. You already own 18 of them from Spanish. The other 16 are the work — and 14 of those are the dangerous kind: close enough to something you already say that you will substitute them without hearing yourself do it.
The silent swaps
Your mouth has something close enough to reach for. These survive for years precisely because they sound right to you — the fix is hearing the difference first, not trying harder.
the move: postalveolar → alveolo-palatal
Korean: house · written "ㅈ (initial)"
Plain ㅈ — between English ch and j, with the tongue flat. Voiced to /d͡ʑ/ between vowels.
Your /t͡ʃ/ is the one in chico (boy).
the move: palatal → velar
Korean: river · written "ㅇ (final)"
ㅇ is /ŋ/ at the END of a syllable and silent at the start — a placeholder that lets a vowel have a block to itself (아, 이, 오).
Your /ɲ/ is the one in año (year).
the move: aspirated
Korean: arm; eight · written "ㅍ"
Aspirated — a strong puff of air. The p of English 'pot'.
Your /p/ is the one in pan (bread).
the move: close, but not identical
Korean: bread · written "ㅃ"
Tense: the throat stiffens, the release is sharp and there is no puff at all. The third kind of p. Also what plain ㅂ becomes after an obstruent (입구 ipk͈u).
Your /p/ is the one in pan (bread).
the move: close, but not identical
Korean: strawberry · written "ㄸ"
Tense t. 달 tal 'moon', 탈 tʰal 'mask', 딸 t͈al 'daughter' — one triplet to hear the three-way contrast on.
Your /t/ is the one in todo (all).
the move: close, but not identical
Korean: flower · written "ㄲ"
Tense k. Also what plain ㄱ becomes after an obstruent: 학교 hakk͈jo.
Your /k/ is the one in queso (cheese).
the move: close, but not identical
Korean: uncooked rice · written "ㅆ"
Tense s: longer, harder, no breath. 살 sal 'flesh; to live' against 쌀 s͈al 'rice'.
Your /s/ is the one in sol (sun).
the move: unrounded
Korean: that; he · written "ㅡ"
Say /u/ and spread the lips. Romanised eu. The same vowel as Japanese u and Vietnamese ư.
Your /u/ is the one in luz (light).
the move: alveolar → alveolo-palatal
Korean: time · written "ㅅ before i, y-vowels"
The sh of Japanese shi, not the sh of English ship — tongue flat.
Your /s/ is the one in sol (sun).
the move: postalveolar → alveolo-palatal, aspirated
Korean: tea; car · written "ㅊ"
Your /t͡ʃ/ is the one in chico (boy).
the move: postalveolar → alveolo-palatal
Korean: to be salty · written "ㅉ"
Tense ㅈ.
Your /t͡ʃ/ is the one in chico (boy).
Words you may say identically
Two or more Korean sounds landing on one sound of yours. Until the ear separates them, the mouth cannot — which is what the ear trainer is for.
- t͡ɕ = d͡ʑ = t͡ɕʰ = t͡ɕ͈ → your t͡ʃ vs vs vs
- p = pʰ = p͈ → your p vs vs train this pair →
- t = tʰ = t͈ → your t vs vs train this pair →
- k = kʰ = k͈ → your k vs vs train this pair →
- s = ɕ = s͈ → your s vs vs train this pair →
- u = ɯ → your u vs train this pair →
Genuinely new
Nothing in Spanish sits close to these. They sound foreign in your mouth — which is the good news: you can hear that you are not saying them yet.
one
Often faint between vowels (좋아 t͡ɕoa has none left). Merges with a following plain stop into an aspirate: 좋다 t͡ɕotʰa.
Closest thing you own: — but labiodental → glottal.
Seoul
An unrounded open o — the vowel of English 'cut' but further back. Romanised eo, which misleads everyone; it is one vowel.
Closest thing you own: — but close-mid → open-mid, unrounded.
Rhythm and pitch
The layer spelling never records, and the one that makes a correct sentence still sound foreign.
| Spanish | Korean | |
|---|---|---|
| Rhythm | Syllable-timed | Syllable-timed, phrase melody |
| Stress | Fully contrastive, and mercifully written: if a word breaks the default pattern (stress on the second-to-last syllable for vowel/-n/-s endings, on the last otherwise) it carries an accent. Three-way minimal sets are common and the accent is the only thing separating them. | None at word level. No syllable is reduced and no vowel becomes a schwa; every syllable is said in full. What an English ear hears as stress is the phrase-initial rise. |
What you have that Korean doesn't
9 sounds with no job in Korean. They are not mistakes — but they are where an accent leaks in, because a sound you own is easy to use when a hard one is due.
The honest caveat
This is a prediction from the shape of two sound systems, not a recording of you. It says what your inventory makes likely — it cannot know that your Spanish has a regional variety that already owns one of these, or that you learned Korean from someone whose accent you copied. A teacher listening to you beats it. Use it to know what to listen for.
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