Mandarin Chinese → Korean
Korean uses 34 sounds. You already own 20 of them from Mandarin Chinese. The other 14 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: 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 bā 八 (eight).
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 dà 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 gǒu 狗 (dog).
the move: close, but not identical
Korean: to be salty · written "ㅉ"
Tense ㅈ.
Your /t͡ɕ/ is the one in jiā 家 (home).
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 sān 三 (three).
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 wǔ 五 (five).
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 bā 八 (eight).
the move: voiced
Korean: where · written "ㄷ (between vowels)"
Plain ㄷ voiced between voiced sounds.
Your /t/ is the one in dà 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 gǒu 狗 (dog).
the move: voiced
Korean: very · written "ㅈ (between vowels)"
Your /t͡ɕ/ is the one in jiā 家 (home).
the move: close-mid → open-mid
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 /ɤ/ is the one in hē 喝 (to drink).
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 = b = p͈ → your p vs vs train this pair →
- t = d = t͈ → your t vs vs train this pair →
- k = ɡ = k͈ → your k vs vs
- t͡ɕ = d͡ʑ = t͡ɕ͈ → your t͡ɕ vs vs
- s = s͈ → your s vs train this pair →
- u = ɯ → your u vs train this pair →
Genuinely new
Nothing in Mandarin Chinese 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.
we; our
A tap, like Spanish single r or the t in American 'water'.
Closest thing you own: — but nasal → tap.
Rhythm and pitch
The layer spelling never records, and the one that makes a correct sentence still sound foreign.
| Mandarin Chinese | Korean | |
|---|---|---|
| Rhythm | Syllable-timed | Syllable-timed, phrase melody |
| Stress | Stress is a matter of length and clarity rather than pitch: a stressed syllable holds its full tone, an unstressed one goes neutral and short. | 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
22 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 Mandarin Chinese 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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