Cantonese → Korean
Korean uses 34 sounds. You already own 14 of them from Cantonese. The other 20 are the work — and 18 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: near-close → close
Korean: milk · written "ㅜ"
Your /ʊ/ is the one in tung4 同 (same).
the move: near-close → close
Korean: this; two; tooth · written "ㅣ"
Your /ɪ/ is the one in sing1 星 (star).
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 baa1 爸 (dad).
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 daai6 大 (big).
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 go3 個 ((classifier)).
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 sik6 食 (to eat).
the move: close, but not identical
Korean: country · written "ㅏ"
Your /aː/ is the one in saam1 三 (three).
the move: near-close → close-mid
Korean: today · written "ㅗ"
Rounded, closed. Keep it apart from ㅓ: 손 son 'hand' against 선 sʌn 'line'.
Your /ʊ/ is the one in tung4 同 (same).
the move: near-close → close-mid
Korean: yes · written "ㅔ", "ㅐ"
Two letters, one sound: ㅐ was the more open of the pair and Seoul has merged them. 개 'dog' and 게 'crab' are now homophones, and the spelling is memorised.
Your /ɪ/ is the one in sing1 星 (star).
the move: alveolar → alveolo-palatal
Korean: house · written "ㅈ (initial)"
Plain ㅈ — between English ch and j, with the tongue flat. Voiced to /d͡ʑ/ between vowels.
Your /t͡s/ is the one in zung1 中 (middle).
the move: alveolar → alveolo-palatal
Korean: tea; car · written "ㅊ"
Your /t͡sʰ/ is the one in ceot1 出 (to go out).
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 sik6 食 (to eat).
the move: voiced
Korean: fool · written "ㅂ (between vowels)"
The same letter as /p/, voiced because it sits between vowels. Korean does not hear the difference; English does.
Your /p/ is the one in baa1 爸 (dad).
the move: voiced
Korean: where · written "ㄷ (between vowels)"
Plain ㄷ voiced between voiced sounds.
Your /t/ is the one in daai6 大 (big).
the move: voiced
Korean: meat · written "ㄱ (between vowels)"
Plain ㄱ voiced between voiced sounds — which is why the same word is romanised gogi and starts with a k-sound.
Your /k/ is the one in go3 個 ((classifier)).
the move: near-close → close, unrounded
Korean: that; he · written "ㅡ"
Say /u/ and spread the lips. Romanised eu. The same vowel as Japanese u and Vietnamese ư.
Your /ʊ/ is the one in tung4 同 (same).
the move: unrounded
Korean: Seoul · written "ㅓ"
An unrounded open o — the vowel of English 'cut' but further back. Romanised eo, which misleads everyone; it is one vowel.
Your /ɔː/ is the one in ngo5 我 (I).
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.
Genuinely new
Nothing in Cantonese 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.
Rhythm and pitch
The layer spelling never records, and the one that makes a correct sentence still sound foreign.
| Cantonese | Korean | |
|---|---|---|
| Rhythm | Syllable-timed | Syllable-timed, phrase melody |
| Stress | No contrastive stress; prominence comes from particles and from changed tone (變調) lifting a syllable to tone 2. | 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. |
| Pitch | lexical tone — pitch changes the word | Not tonal, and not a pitch-accent language either in the standard: Seoul Korean gives its pitch to the PHRASE, not the word. Each accentual phrase rises over its first two syllables and falls at the end (low-high … high-low), and the very first syllable starts higher after an aspirated or tense consonant than after a plain one — which is how listeners tell 달 from 탈 at the start of a phrase. Questions rise at the end, as in English. The Busan and Daegu dialects DO have lexical pitch accent (가지 is 'branch' or 'aubergine' by pitch there), which is why southerners sound sing-song to Seoul. |
What you have that Korean doesn't
28 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.
m̩fkʷkʷʰŋ̩t͡st͡sʰaːɐɛːiːɪɔːuːʊœːɵyːaːiɐiaːuɐueiouɵyiːuuːiɔːi
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 Cantonese 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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