The Sounds of Korean: A Pronunciation Guide.

By Miho Choo and

William OGrady. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2003.
vii+256 pp., US$22.00 (paperback).
Jaehoon Yeon*
In any language, words may be pronounced differently than they appear. There
are certain pronunciation rules that learners must acquire for the Korean lan-
guage. Learners also have to make great efforts to hear and distinguish different
phonetic sounds other than those in their native language. In order to master the
pronunciation rules of a foreign language, one needs to learn it in a systematic
way. One needs to know precisely of what sounds the language consists, how
they are pronounced, and what changes they undergo in particular contexts.
Then, one has to practice time and time again. The Sounds of Korean is designed
for these purposes.
This book is a general introduction to Korean pronunciation for learners at all
levels of proficiency. The book is divided into two parts. Part I consists of five
chapters: An overview and chapters on vowel and consonant sounds in Korean,
various adjustment processes that modify speech sounds in different positions
within words and phrases, and the role of prosody in meaning and emotion. Part
II, which the authors claim is the heart of the book, consists of a large set of
practice exercises specifically designed to complement the descriptions and
explanations in Part I. The accompanying CD provides readers with the actual
sounds of Korean recorded by two native speakers of standard Korean, one male
and one female, at a moderate speed (p. 5) or at slow to moderate speed (p.
113).
There is one thing to note here with regard to natural colloquial speech
employed in the book and the CD. Natural colloquial speech, according to the
authors, represents the way Korean is actually spoken (p. 5). They claim that it
is possible to become proficient in Korean only if one is exposed to Korean as it
is spoken in the real world. Consider the following description:
* School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
If Koreans pronounce Look as if it were , and if they sometimes
pronounce flower + subject marker as if it were , you need to
know this. Otherwise, youll never understand spoken Korean, and your
own speech will never sound fluent (p. 5).
Although we might agree with the authors that learners need to know this pro-
nunciation habit/variant, this does not necessarily mean that learners need to imi-
tate this habit. It would be misleading to say or imply that this colloquially
deviant pronunciation scheme is a model that learners need to learn. For exam-
ple, diphthong reduction (p. 62) as explained in the book could be either mis-
leading or confusing if the readers were to think that this is a predominant phe-
nomenon. The description is as follows:
In colloquial speech, the glide portion of a diphthong (the w or y) can
be weakened or even dropped. The most frequently affected diphthongs
are those beginning with the glide w, which is reduced and often com-
pletely dropped in faster speech, except when it occurs at the beginning
of a word. You can hear the effects of this adjustment in words such as
scissors and apple, which can be pronounced [] and [
], respectively (p. 62).
Example Pronounced
? Do you have scissors? []
Eat the apple []
Its cold []
My ear hurts []
It should be noted that these diphthong reductions are not the standard pronunci-
ation even if some people do pronounce words in these ways. It would be mis-
leading to encourage readers to learn and apply this diphthong reduction scheme
for the examples above. In addition, the above description contains a contradic-
tory example, namely. Following the rule stated in the description that
diphthongs are reduced except when it occurs at the beginning of a word,
should not be reduced to [] as it indeed does occur at the beginning. It would
have been better if the authors treated this kind of colloquial pronunciation habit
separately from the normal adjustment rules. Sometimes natural colloquial pro-
254 The Review of Korean Studies
nunciation is over-emphasized. It is stated chicken + subject marker and
earth + subject marker are almost always pronounced [] and [],
respectively, without (p. 59). As a standard Seoul speaker, I do not agree
with the wording almost always as per the authors judgement. I think that
many people still pronounce these words as [] and [] although statisti-
cal research has yet to be made available to confirm this matter.
There is one more thing that I would not agree with the authors, that is
Consonant weakening of and (p. 94). Consider the following examples:
Example Without weakening With weakening
(uncommon) (common)
knee + subject marker [] []
in the kitchen [] []
Although some people pronounce the final and as and , it would be
presumptuous to say that the standard pronunciation without weakening is
uncommon as the authors claim. Many speakers, including the reviewer, pro-
nounce these words without weakening. Therefore, the pronunciation without
weakening may still be considered standard.
These minor points aside, this book is highly readable and well-written. This
is an important source of information about Korean pronunciation in English for
learners. The authors have done a good job in explaining pronunciation rules
(adjustments) in a consistent and systematic way. This book is also successful in
explaining various phonological phenomena in simple terms. Without using spe-
cialized linguistic jargon such as palatalization or assimilation, to name a couple,
the authors managed to explain these phenomena clearly in an accessible man-
ner. A glossary is also provided (p. 109-110) for linguistic terminologies such as
aspirated, nasalization, tense, etc. The book is also commendable for giv-
ing detailed accounts and clarification on the ways in which individual sounds
and words are pronounced--on the sounds of & with a sh-like pronunci-
ation (p. 46-47); on the difference between and (p. 12-13); on how to dis-
tinguish between ///, ///, and ///(p. 23-44); on the fact
that front is pronounced [] in the compound word front door (p.
77-78), and so forth, among many other examples. The diphthong (p. 15) is
also well explained. The authors divided the use of the diphthong into three dif-
ferent positions (at the beginning of a word, as the possessive suffix, and else-
Book Reviews 255
where), and provided appropriate examples and pronunciations accordingly.
They also noted that some speakers pronounce the glide very weakly or not at all
in word-initial position, saying [] for . It seems to me that this phenom-
enon could be regarded as a dialectal variation. The Korean vowel requires
special attention, since no such vowel exists in English. The authors way of
teaching how to pronounce this vowel is useful and interesting. They suggest
that learners start with the more familiar sound. As you pronounce , move
your tongue slightly back in your mouth while keeping your lips relaxed and
unrounded. The resulting sound is Korean (p. 10). In contrast, I used to teach
students to start with the sound to pronounce the unfamiliar vowel . If you
make your lips unrounded as you pronounce while keeping your tongue in the
same position, you can produce the Korean vowel . I will leave the readers to
judge which way is more accurate and preferable. The chapter on prosody gives
readers an overall picture of how Korean prosody works. My only reservation
about this chapter is that it fails to discuss the vowel length distinction.
Overall, this is a very well written and readable book which provides learner-
friendly explanations of nearly-all aspects of Korean pronunciation without
employing too much linguistic/phonetic jargon. I recommend this book as a
good reference for Korean pronunciation.
256 The Review of Korean Studies