Advice/ Direction on my Korean pronunciation?

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fizzyapples_
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Advice/ Direction on my Korean pronunciation?

Postby fizzyapples_ » Wed Oct 20, 2021 2:38 am

Hi all, new here :)

I was looking for a place to get constructive feedback about how my Korean pronunciation is going. I'm upper elementary in terms of overall proficiency, but I haven't done much speaking. I have talked to a few friends and a tutor via zoom but I always chicken out of trying to speak properly and end up sounding super American. But this way, I did put in a better effort knowing I'm behind a screen and that it's no one who knows me judging it ;) :)

I feel like my main problem is intonation, as it's still really hard for me to figure out where to put the stress in a sentence. I know this is a little hurried, so sorry about that in advance.

If there's any ways you could share that I need to improve, I'd be most thankful :) I'd like to start early trying to fix pronunciation errors before they become habits.

Clip link: https://vocaroo.com/15gTIlGtc5DS

Here's a transcript of what I said: " 언어 학습 사이트를 하면서 내가 많은 사람들 로맨틱한 관계를 찾는 것을 보았는데 (그리고) 결혼 찾고 싶은 사람들이 때문에 친구를 만날 때 조심하세요".
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Re: Advice/ Direction on my Korean pronunciation?

Postby rdearman » Wed Oct 20, 2021 7:47 am

I've only just started Korean, so you sound fantastic to me. But for pronunciation advice you might want to try some of these techniques:

  • Audio Drills
  • Chorusing
  • Shadowing
  • Phonetic analysis (Luca Lampariello)

For Audio Drills the FSI stuff is good for that. https://fsi-languages.yojik.eu/languages/fsi.html
Phonetic analysis you can find more information about here:https://www.lucalampariello.com/native-accent-in-language-learning-part-23/
And for Chorusing you can look at this PDF:https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Olle-Kjellin/publication/285234145_Quality_Practise_Pronunciation_With_Audacity_-_The_Best_Method/links/565ca20308aeafc2aac71765/Quality-Practise-Pronunciation-With-Audacity-The-Best-Method.pdf

I also did a video about using a program called AudioWorkBook for pronunciation practice. Ignore the stupid music in the first couple of seconds, it was only the 3rd or 4th video I ever did. :D

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fizzyapples_
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Re: Advice/ Direction on my Korean pronunciation?

Postby fizzyapples_ » Wed Oct 20, 2021 9:43 pm

Thank you so much for all the links, and I think it's a great video and didn't even notice the music :) I'm going to watch it back again :D
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Re: Advice/ Direction on my Korean pronunciation?

Postby Leurre » Thu Oct 21, 2021 3:38 am

Hey so congrats on some great pronunciation first of all! Here are some fast and easy tips here I would say:

1. Abandon the 'y' sound that inserts itself at the end of your '에' vowels, that's the biggest contributor to the foreignness of your accent right now. If you need an anchor to go on and if this is useful, the 에 sound is much closer to the Spanish or French e, é than to anything in English. Just avoid any sound close to the English equivalent of 'ay' with that hanging 'y' like the plague. (때문에, 봤는데, 만날 때 etc)

2. Your 받침 sounds are off. I think you should slow down a bit. You're slurring the ends of syllables like 습, 찾 봤, swallowing them too much. You do this for 는 as well which makes your봤는데 especially hard to grasp.

3. You have some 으 오 우 issues. Especially your 오 needs to sound like a whole, fuller and deeper 'o', similar to the Spanish O if that helps. This is especially audible when you say 결혼, 조심. At some point you say 둘 when you mean 들 as well.

I would advise you to slow way down and focus on hitting your 받침 sounds and to ensure that especially those 으 오 우 vowels are on point before anything. Intonation I believe is a bit more of an art and you'll get that as you listen to more things.

As to the text itself, here is a suggestion for a slightly more natural version keeping as many of your original words:
저는 언어 학습 사이트를 방문하면서 언어교환보다 로맨틱한 관계를 원하는 사람을 많이 봤는데(언어 교환할 때) 조심하세요/조심하는 게 좋아요.
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Re: Advice/ Direction on my Korean pronunciation?

Postby fizzyapples_ » Thu Oct 21, 2021 5:38 am

Leurre wrote:Hey so congrats on some great pronunciation first of all! Here are some fast and easy tips here I would say:

1. Abandon the 'y' sound that inserts itself at the end of your '에' vowels, that's the biggest contributor to the foreignness of your accent right now. If you need an anchor to go on and if this is useful, the 에 sound is much closer to the Spanish or French e, é than to anything in English. Just avoid any sound close to the English equivalent of 'ay' with that hanging 'y' like the plague. (때문에, 봤는데, 만날 때 etc)

2. Your 받침 sounds are off. I think you should slow down a bit. You're slurring the ends of syllables like 습, 찾 봤, swallowing them too much. You do this for 는 as well which makes your봤는데 especially hard to grasp.

3. You have some 으 오 우 issues. Especially your 오 needs to sound like a whole, fuller and deeper 'o', similar to the Spanish O if that helps. This is especially audible when you say 결혼, 조심. At some point you say 둘 when you mean 들 as well.

I would advise you to slow way down and focus on hitting your 받침 sounds and to ensure that especially those 으 오 우 vowels are on point before anything. Intonation I believe is a bit more of an art and you'll get that as you listen to more things.

As to the text itself, here is a suggestion for a slightly more natural version keeping as many of your original words:
저는 언어 학습 사이트를 방문하면서 언어교환보다 로맨틱한 관계를 원하는 사람을 많이 봤는데(언어 교환할 때) 조심하세요/조심하는 게 좋아요.


Wowwww, thank you so much!! Your points were so good that I could almost instantly recall what you meant or if I listened back, I could hear all that. I know I was speeding for sure, maybe it was in an effort to not have to pronounce as much, which I succeeded at :lol:

My eyes have been opened to many things just from your 3 helpful observations, so thank you so much!

I will definitely hone in on 에 and listening to natives pronounce it more so I can eliminate that first :) I had no idea that was happening.

So, if I may ask one more thing, does it sound decent overall (with a lot more work ahead, of course) or does it just scream "foreigner"?
I just wondered because out of language learning, pronunciation is one of the most important things to me and you could definitely call me a stickler about it (when it comes to me myself speaking).

Thank you so much again, I really appreciate you telling me specifics :D
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Re: Advice/ Direction on my Korean pronunciation?

Postby Leurre » Thu Oct 21, 2021 6:55 am

Sure thing, and glad to know I've been helpful!
Yes, so overall i think you are very lucid. Sorry, in my haste to point out areas of improvement I skipped over what you are doing well, which is actually just as important to improving.
So on sounds, you're hitting your 어 vowels (언어, 하면서 등) very well, other like ㄷ and ㅈ also. It's easy esp for beginners to miss these sounds I think. The fact that you're pronouncing them accurately really helps the listener get what you mean first pass.
On intonation, so there are some classic patterns of emphasis that permeate Korean (people love talking about high/low intonation in Japanese, it's a little similar in concept but it's more about stress on the word than it is pitch), the most common being:
LOW HIGH LOW HIGH, LOW HIGH LOW HIGH, LOW HIGH LOW LOW
So to demonstrate: 수빈이가 영민이를 사랑해요
...
This is not imo very helpful and kind of hard to describe while writing, but there are several types kind of like this pattern above.
What you are doing in the audio is generally putting the stress towards the end of the Word or phrase: 하면, 봤는. I think this is a good instinct. In conjugations of 한자어 (so like most verbs and adjectives that go with 하다) it's good policy to never stress the first syllable, with some exceptions in formulations like your last 조심하세요, which sounds very much like you've heard someone say that in that way before and are imitating them (I mean this in a good way).
I started studying Korean almost 15 years ago now, I flatter myself I can pass for a native speaker over the phone, and I've never once actually studied intonation in order to learn the language. I think you're perfectly able to refine an accent without doing it, but that's just my own view on things.
So yeah overall I'd say your pronunciation is lucid, you're not going into any weird places with your intonation and you seem to have good instincts on it! (Those 'ay' sounds definitely scream foreigner, yes, along with your 'light' 오sounds. Tackle those two and you have a 50+% improvement with 2 changes!)
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Re: Advice/ Direction on my Korean pronunciation?

Postby fizzyapples_ » Thu Oct 21, 2021 8:14 pm

Leurre wrote:Sure thing, and glad to know I've been helpful!
Yes, so overall i think you are very lucid. Sorry, in my haste to point out areas of improvement I skipped over what you are doing well, which is actually just as important to improving.
So on sounds, you're hitting your 어 vowels (언어, 하면서 등) very well, other like ㄷ and ㅈ also. It's easy esp for beginners to miss these sounds I think. The fact that you're pronouncing them accurately really helps the listener get what you mean first pass.
On intonation, so there are some classic patterns of emphasis that permeate Korean (people love talking about high/low intonation in Japanese, it's a little similar in concept but it's more about stress on the word than it is pitch), the most common being:
LOW HIGH LOW HIGH, LOW HIGH LOW HIGH, LOW HIGH LOW LOW
So to demonstrate: 수빈이가 영민이를 사랑해요
...
This is not imo very helpful and kind of hard to describe while writing, but there are several types kind of like this pattern above.
What you are doing in the audio is generally putting the stress towards the end of the Word or phrase: 하면, 봤는. I think this is a good instinct. In conjugations of 한자어 (so like most verbs and adjectives that go with 하다) it's good policy to never stress the first syllable, with some exceptions in formulations like your last 조심하세요, which sounds very much like you've heard someone say that in that way before and are imitating them (I mean this in a good way).
I started studying Korean almost 15 years ago now, I flatter myself I can pass for a native speaker over the phone, and I've never once actually studied intonation in order to learn the language. I think you're perfectly able to refine an accent without doing it, but that's just my own view on things.
So yeah overall I'd say your pronunciation is lucid, you're not going into any weird places with your intonation and you seem to have good instincts on it! (Those 'ay' sounds definitely scream foreigner, yes, along with your 'light' 오sounds. Tackle those two and you have a 50+% improvement with 2 changes!)


Ahhhh, thank you so much, VERY helpful again :)

I watched a video last night by "Easy Languages" on Korean and they were interviewing some people in 올림픽공원 and while it wasn't that good in some ways ( missed words, translation issues etc) I slowed it down to 75x speed and got some good, clear accents to listen to for study.

I won't worry about my intonation and will just believe it will come with time.

Woah, 15 YEARS?! Kudos to you, that's quite an accomplishment! Language learning is a lifetime process, as they say, so I better buckle in 8-)

Thanks again!
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