Japanese → Korean
Korean uses 34 sounds. You already own 21 of them from Japanese. The other 13 are the work — and 12 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: aspirated
Korean: arm; eight · written "ㅍ"
Aspirated — a strong puff of air. The p of English 'pot'.
Your /p/ is the one in きっぷ kippu (ticket).
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 きっぷ kippu (ticket).
the move: aspirated
Korean: rabbit · written "ㅌ"
Your /t/ is the one in たべる taberu (to eat).
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 たべる taberu (to eat).
the move: aspirated
Korean: nose · written "ㅋ"
Your /k/ is the one in かさ kasa (umbrella).
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 かさ kasa (umbrella).
the move: aspirated
Korean: tea; car · written "ㅊ"
Your /t͡ɕ/ is the one in ちいさい chīsai (small).
the move: close, but not identical
Korean: to be salty · written "ㅉ"
Tense ㅈ.
Your /t͡ɕ/ is the one in ちいさい chīsai (small).
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 さかな sakana (fish).
the move: uvular → 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 /ɴ/ is the one in ほん hon (book).
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.
- 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 →
- t͡ɕ = t͡ɕʰ = t͡ɕ͈ → your t͡ɕ vs vs
- s = s͈ → your s vs train this pair →
- u = ɯ → your ɯ vs train this pair →
Genuinely new
Nothing in Japanese 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.
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.
| Japanese | Korean | |
|---|---|---|
| Rhythm | Mora-timed | Syllable-timed, phrase melody |
| Stress | No stress in the English sense — syllables are not louder or longer, so a Japanese speaker reading English tends to flatten it, and an English speaker reading Japanese tends to hammer syllables that should be even. | 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
10 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 Japanese 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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