Korean Lessons ᚛ Level 1 - My First Steps in Korean (Lessons 1 to 30) ᚛ Lesson 7 - Liaison in Korean

Liaison in Korean

Classic liaison

In some languages, a liaison happens when a word ends with a consonant and is followed by a word that begins with a vowel. In making the liaison, the consonant is pronounced and becomes part of the following word.

Remember that in Korean, consonants are not always pronounced the same depending on whether they are at the beginning or the end of a syllable, so you have to adapt! A liaison is created when a syllable ends with a consonant and the following syllable begins with a vowel sound, i.e. the silent consonant ㅇ.

한국어 (= Korean language) is composed of:

• 한
• 국
• 어

However, 국 which ends with ㄱ and 어 which begins with ㅇ follow each other, so there is a liaison. Imagine the word as if ㄱ became the initial consonant of the following syllable.

In our mind, we could imagine this: [한구거].

• 한
• 구
• 거

한국어

먹었어 (= I ate) is composed of:

• 먹
• 었
• 어

But beware, there are two liaisons here!

Between 먹 and 었, a liaison occurs and you should imagine that ㄱ becomes the initial consonant of 었.
Equally between 었 and 어, another liaison occurs and you should imagine that ㅆ becomes the initial consonant of 어.

We can then imagine the word 먹었어 as follows: [머거써].

• 머
• 거
• 써

먹었어

Liaison with compound consonants

Liaison with a space

Be careful, if a space is present between two syllables, the liaison may be different.

Exercices

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