TeacherJoy

Before you dive in, make sure you’re familiar with how ㄹ is pronounced and how nasalization works in Korean.

The concepts here might feel tricky at first. You don’t need to master everything right away. Just get a rough idea for now, and come back to it later when the patterns start to feel more familiar. That’s how real understanding grows.

Let’s quickly review how they are pronounced.

In standard Korean, ㄹ doesn’t appear at the beginning of native words and it typically pronounced like an English “L.”

As a side note, South Korean tends to change an initial ㄹ of a Sino-Korean word to ㄴ or ㅇ, while North Korean keeps the original ㄹ. For example, 노인(老人), meaning “old person,” is written and pronounced 로인(老人) in North Korea.

Here are more examples.

Left is South Korean, right is North Korean.:

• 내일 (tomorrow, 來日) – 래일
• 요리 (cooking, 料理) – 료리
• 역사 (history, 歷史) – 력사
• 노동 (labor, 勞動) – 로동
• 여자 (woman, 女子) – 녀자

And even the “이(李),” one of the most common Korean family names, is pronounced “리(李)” when read as a single-syllable Sino-Korean word. It’s even written as “Lee” in English!

Historically, the character 李 was read as 리, then changed to 니 during a transitional period, and eventually became 이 in modern South Korean usage. Other family names like 유, 나, and 임 went through similar changes. For instance, there are now both 유 and 류 families, although they all originally came from the pronunciation 류.

Hopefully, it helps!

Also, the stop sounds ㅂ, ㄱ, and ㄷ can change into their corresponding nasal batchim sounds ㅁ, ㅇ, and ㄴ in certain phonetic environments.

From here on, I’ll walk you through some examples and explain why the pronunciation changes in each case. But to be honest, these kinds of pronunciation changes usually happen in words that beginners don’t often come across. So if it doesn’t make complete sense right now, no worries — just come back to it later when you’re ready.

After ㄱ Batchim Followed by a Syllable Starting with ㄹ

When batchim ㄱ is followed by ㄹ, ㄱ changes to ㅇ and ㄹ changes to ㄴ.

Here are some examples:

• 백로 (white heron) → [뱅노]
• 속력 (speed) → [송녁]
• 석류 (pomegranate) → [성뉴]
• 박람회 (exhibition) → [방남회]

Even with batchim ㅇ.

• 종로 (It’s a place name) → [종노]
• 강릉 (It’s a place name) → [강능]
• 대통령 (president) → [대통녕]

After ㄷ Batchim Followed by a Syllable Starting with ㄹ

When batchim ㄷ is followed by ㄹ, ㄷ changes to ㄴ and ㄹ also changes to ㄴ.

BTW, examples of this pattern are extremely rare in everyday Korean!!

몇 리 (→ /멷/ + /리/) → [면니]

After ㅂ Batchim Followed by a Syllable Starting with ㄹ

When batchim ㅂ is followed by ㄹ, ㅂ changes to ㅁ and ㄹ changes to ㄴ.

Take a look at these examples:

• 협력 (cooperation) → [혐녁]
• 왕십리 (It’s a place name) → [왕심니]
• 압력 (pressure) → [암녁]
• 입력 (input) → [임녁]

Korean pronunciation rules like these don’t always how up in beginner textbooks, but they come up all the time in real speech. You don’t need do memorize every detail right now. Just knowing that these patterns exist is already a big step!

Come back to this post whenever things sound different from what you expect! 🙂