1.2 The Letter That Is Neither L Nor R — Epoché
What you will be able to do Produce ㄹ as a single quick tap between vowels, and as a held tongue tip at the end of a syllable. Say why the English r is the wrong sound in every position, and why the English dark l is wrong at the end of a word. Produce the long ㄹ written with two of the letter, and hear it as one long sound rather than two. Read sixteen minimal pairs aloud, keeping ㄹ distinct from the consonants nearest to it. Prerequisites : 1.1, which sets up the habit this whole volume needs, of asking what the mouth is doing rather than which English letter the sound resembles. The letters themselves come from 0.3 Hangul and 0.5 Hangul . English has two liquid consonants and keeps them apart: light and right are different words. Korean has one, written ㄹ . That sounds like a simplification, and in one way it is, because no Korean word will ever be lost to you because you confused two letters here. In another way it is the harder problem, because a single letter that has no English equivalent is easier to fake badly for years. English speakers substitute their own r, which is not close, and their own final l, which is not close either, and nothing ever corrects them, because no word is ruined. The rule One letter, two things for the tongue to do, and which one you do is decided entirely by position. Between two vowels, and at the beginning of a word, the tongue tip taps the ridge behind the upper teeth once and immediately leaves. At the end of a syllable, before a consonant or before a pause, the tongue tip goes to the same place and stays there, with the air flowing around the sides. Where the letter stands Example What the tongue tip does Between two vowels 나라 , 머리 , 다리 taps the ridge once and leaves at once At the start of a word 라디오 the same single tap At the end of a syllable 물 , 달 , 서울 goes to the ridge and stays, air passing at the sides Written twice across a boundary 빨리 , 몰라요 stays, for about twice as long Both actions use the same spot, which is why one letter is enough. The difference is duration: a tap that is over before you notice it, against a hold that lasts as long as the consonant does. If you can say the Spanish word para , or the American English pronunciation of butter where the t is a single flick of the tongue, you can already make the tap. If you can say the l of million , with the tongue tip forward and the back of the tongue out of the way, you can already make the hold. What decides which one you use is only position, never meaning, and there are no exceptions to learn. So reading aloud needs one question: is this letter standing between vowels, or is it closing a syllable? Look at the block. If ㄹ is the onset, at the top left, it is a tap. If it is underneath, it is a hold, unless the next block begins with a vowel, which is the subject of the next lesson. Neither the l nor the r of English Take the English r first, because it is the more damaging substitution. In most accents of English the r is made with the tongue bunched up or curled back in the middle of the mouth, without the tip touching anything, and usually with the lips slightly rounded. Every part of that is wrong for Korean. There is contact in Korean, the contact is at the front, and the lips do nothing. An English r in place of ㄹ is not a slight accent; it is a sound Korean does not contain, and it is the single clearest marker of an English speaker's accent in the language. The fix is mechanical rather than acoustic. Put the tip of your tongue on the ridge behind your upper teeth, as if starting to say d , and then let it fall away instantly instead of holding it. That flick is the tap. Say 나라 slowly with a real d in the middle, then speed it up until the d becomes a flick, and you have arrived at it from the other side. The final l is the subtler problem. English has two l sounds and does not notice them: the one in leaf , made with the tongue tip forward, and the one at the end of feel or ball , where the tip may barely arrive at all and the back of the tongue rises towards the soft palate. That second one, the dark l, is what an English speaker automatically produces at the end of a word, and it is wrong for the Korean final ㄹ , which is the light kind: tip firmly forward, back of the tongue low, no hollow resonance. Say feel and then leaf , and notice that the l is not the same sound; then say 물 with the l of leaf and not the l of feel . Two smaller habits to break. English speakers often add a vowel after a final l, so that 달 comes out with two syllables. And they often let the final l turn into a w, as many accents do in milk . Neither happens in Korean: the syllable ends with the tongue in place and nothing after it. The long one When ㄹ closes one block and begins the next, you get two of the letter in a row, and what comes out is not two sounds but one long hold. The tongue tip goes to the ridge and stays there through what would be the end of the first syllable and the start of the second, then releases into the following vowel. Word Meaning Notes 빨리 ko ppalli quickly What you hear the hold runs across the middle of the word without a break 빨리 오세요! Come quickly! 몰라요 ko mollayo I do not know What you hear the same long hold, from the verb 모르다 달라요 ko it is different What you hear from 다르다 , which has a tap; the polite form has the long hold The length is doing real work. A learner who releases the first ㄹ and taps the second produces two taps, which sounds to a Korean ear like a stumble rather than a word. The instruction is to arrive at the ridge, wait, and then go on. Count it as one consonant that takes twice as long, not as two consonants in a row. Minimal pairs A language with one liquid has no pairs contrasting l with r, so the pairs here do something else: they test ㄹ against the consonants nearest to it in the mouth, which is what the sound collapses into when a learner produces it carelessly. All but the last are pairs of final consonants, because that is where the substituti