Is ㅅ Pronounced S? SH? T? | Korean Pronunciation Explained 

I absolutely love it when pronunciation teachers mention mouth and tongue movements in detail. Please keep this up with other Korean sounds, you're becoming my pronunciation go-to. Please create the ultimate ㄲ video lol.

You are directly responsible for the elimination of a singificant portion of the frustration that comes with learning a new language.

I'm a native speaker who has taught in Asia 20+ years, ten in Korea. Your presentation and examples are a beautiful combination. By the way, I've always been unsure with the ㅆ. You're "sighing" example has cured me. Thank you Sun-saeng-nim

English is my second language And i realized when i say "she" i'm using the korean one "시" 😭

These videos are some of the most helpful I've found so far in learning Korean. There are so many sounds that aren't like in English. Your explanations are so clear and concise. I much more confidently (and probably still incorrectly) pronounce these uncomfortable sounds. ㄹ still kills me.

The difference between /ㅅ/ and /ㅆ/ in Korean is not just a tension or pressure on the muscle, but the tongue shape is also different. For /ㅅ/, the tongue is laid flat (and relaxed as the narrator explains) behind the lower teeth, whereas for /ㅆ/ , the tongue is grooved, making the air passage narrower. The more hissing sound you get from /ㅆ/ comes from this grooving of the tongue. The reason why Korean /ㅆ/ is more like English /s/ is because for English /s/ as well, the tongue is grooved and so producing more hissing sound, not because the tongue muscle is tensed. There is a difference, though, between Korean /ㅆ/ and English /s/. For English /s/, the tip of the tongue is raised, moving toward the alveolar ridge, whereas for Korean /ㅆ/ (and /s/ as well), the tongue is put behind the lower teeth.

omg i’m french and i’m learning korean alone and this was SO helpful thank you SO MUCH

this helped so much i was so confused 😂

I have to say this is very well explained. I speak mandarin, English, Thai and French. For me to learn a language I say my ears are very accurate when it comes telling the difference of pronunciation. I find Korean pronunciation is very ambiguous in a lot of ways that's why I'm here. With the details of how to put stress in the tongue or not definitely helps a lot.

i've been studying korean for funsies, just trying to learn the alphabet and understand the writing system, and your videos are *so* helpful. as a person who is only fluent in english (and has only studied spanish/french outside of that), the romanization for korean is so reductive and it's very difficult to figure out how to attain the correct oral posture (?) to make the sounds. i really appreciate the time you take to explain how to hold your tongue/lips, the amount of tension, and how the sounds in korean are different from common english sounds; all of it really helps get you to the right place! like, at the very least, even if it takes a while to click, i can understand *where* i'm going wrong. before i found your videos i was convinced my mouth simply could not make these sounds, but i think i can now... with enough practice (see: mumbling them to myself over and over again like a lunatic) eta: the exception mentioned at the end of the video kind of reminds me of the french _liaison,_ where a typically silent final letter is joined along with the following word and pronounced - with _les,_ the 's' is often silent, but when it's paired up, like with _les amis,_ the 'z' sound at the end of _les_ becomes the initial sound tacked onto _amis._ not sure if that explanation makes sense lmao, but it was the first thing that popped into my head during the explanation! 😂

When you said think of the ㅅ like sighing s that made PERFECT sense to me. I sigh all the time LOL.

I am just beginning to learn Hangul. After listening to many lectures, I find your delivery and explanation to be most helpful. Thank you.

Yes, it was very helpfull :) In my native language we distinguish between "sh" and "si" and also "s+i" (like in Spanish 'yes') sound, so the difference in pronunciation is very prominent. And when we write two s's in a word next to each other, we always say two 's' sounds, for example "ssak" =mammal, read exactly as it's written. 😀 I love comparing languages, their grammar and phonetics etc., so I find this kind of videos extremely interesting :)

the best instruction ever on the pronunciation of Korean sounds combining with phonetics and some phonology! Cheers!

Thank you so much! I’m learning Korean from two different teachers. One said 시 was pronounced “she” and the other said it’s “si”. Which really confused me, but now I think I understand.

This channel is definitely gonna go big. Only has 1k subscribers, but has the quality of a 100k channel, although most of the videos I see are fairly recent. Thanks for making good content!

This was so helpful! Even though I'm studying Korean in university, they never really taught us how pronounce every letter correctly. They would just tell us if our pronunciation needed work, but they didn't really explain how to pronounce it better. The difference in ㅅ and ㅆ was very clear in this video. Thank you so much!

Thanks! You just helped me clear up an answer for my homework in phonetics. Although, after watching the video, whenever I start learning Korean, I will make sure to come back and watch your videos. :)

this makes so much sense!!!! first time ever this makes sense! noone else explains it so well as you, so easy to understand so thoroughly too!

Great explanation!! I wasn’t able to find any other videos on pronunciations of ㅅ in different cases so this was very helpful! Other basic examples of the “t” sound is in numbers like 셋, 넷, and 다섯.

I just started taking Korean at my university this week. This video helped explain some things I was feeling a bit confused by in our class exercises. :) Thank you so much!

I'm actually in love with you for how good you are at explaining this. Thank you so much!

Please make more of these videos! I am currently in Geoje, trying to learn korean at work and I you are definitately one of the best resources I have to learn. I really like your explanations on pronunciation, it finally clicked when I saw this one. 감사합니다!

Thank you for these great explanations! Even though I seem to have a partial deafness for the subtle differences within Korean consonant groups, with your help I at least slowly learn now to pronounce them more or less correctly... ^.^ Also, to my ears, the Korean double consonants are the ones that sound the most like their English counterparts. The simple consonants all seem to add an "h" sound between them and the following vowel, as if the vowel itself wasn't a simple "a" but a "ha". If I try to say s + ha or g + ha, I seem to automatically arrive at the right pronunciation for ㅅ and ㄱ.

I was looking for some consonants-differences in pronunciation videos on RU-vid as I have just started learning Korean and honestly your videos are the best. Thank you so much, they are so helpful!!

I noticed that in Korean, the pronunciation of s before i is different from other vowels. ㅅㅏ > sa, but ㅅ| > shi

Exceptionally well done pronunciation video. Probably the best I've seen for easy to follow, and the contrasting of English with 한국어. 감사합니다!!

it’s just like the difference between س and ص in Arabic! Well this makes this a whole lot easier for me thanks!

Thank you for these wonderful videos, as the partner of a Korean person who grew up in America, I never get this kind of in-depth explanation of pronounciation rules! I aim to become conversational in Korean and your lessons are a great help!!

The “sigh” helped so much lol

you have no idea how much this helped me. tysm

I really love how you showed us to the pronunciation and how it shouldn't sound like! Really well explained

Your explanation is very good. Thanks for sharing. And your English is really good!!

Wow, this helps a lot. I'm a new student and was stunned by the sounds I was hearing associated with this consonant. Your explanations make a lot of sense to me, and help discern what I'm hearing. And maybe my pronunciation is improving too!

Your explanation is very clear I wanna cry, people need to know this channel. 너무 감사합니다 💜💜

Oh my god! When you explained the 시 sound, when I kept my mouth still, I said it correctly compared to the English “she”! Best explanation out there and it helped!!

This instruction video is very helpful. Thank you for the pronunciation tips. I can clearly understand how the lip movement should be different. ✌🏻

It REALLY helped me to pronounce the ㅅ sound. I knew before that ㅅ is pronounced a little bit "weak", I mean without tensing the tongue, and the ㅆ sound is pronounced with a tension. But I didn't see much difference. 감사합니다 선생님 ❤

Perfect explanations. Very helpful.

Yo this is crazy how well I'm learning pronunciation with these videos.

thank you so much for this!! i never realised the nuance when i was learning on my own, until i was told by a native speaker lots have issues with these two consonants. your explanation regarding the lack of tongue movement forcing out air in the single s sound instantly fixed this for me, just like magic!

thank you very much for this, once you mentioned the relaxed tongue so much clicked for me, now i feel like i actually sound like im pronouncing natives.

So helpful, thank you very much. I love your language and cultur

This is wonderful! Thank you for these insights. Self-studying using only the romanizations is exceedingly frustrating because many of the romanizations don't make sense to me. This was brilliant. 👍🏼

The BEST video about ㅅ that I watched. And I watched many. Thank you !

Your videos are always so helpful. I know I'll be referring back to this one from time to time as I practice Korean pronunciation. I had noticed that 'ㅅ' sounds different from our 's' but I couldn't seem to figure out how to make the correct sound. Thank you very much!

I LOVE YOU! I AM SO GLAD I FOUND YOU OMG YOU EXPLAINED EVERYTHING SO PERFECTLY I was trying to find how to pronounce 실례합니다 And no one explained it better than you❤️❤️❤️🥺🥺🥺

This is the first time I'm easily able to produce sounds that confused me earlier... Thanku so much...

Now, Your videos r clearing all my doubts to which I'm dealing since 3 months ,너무너무 가사합니다 선생님 🥰🥰🥰🥰

Thank you so much! I've been so confused with this because of "sh" romanisation, but the pronunciation is similar to one of our (norwegian) double consonants "kj" (which is confused with the sound "sj/sh" also for native Norwegian speakers). Now I see that it's closer to the pronunciation of "kj" than the "sj" I've been using. My korean pronunciation will improve a lot because of this.

Thank you! This is the only video where I was able to hear the difference. Your explanations are great!

It's just like urdu/arabic/persian 사 ( ثا) and 싸 (سا) ..... thank you sooo much for explanation....it was really helpful ☺️😇

This helped sooo much! The way you explained the sa and tense ssa it made me think about a c and k and how they sound alike but different too!

Thank you so much. This has been a relief 😩. I've been struggling with these sounds for a while . Please can you do a video on the ㅡ sound? It's killing me🙏

I understand a lot better, now! I learned elementary French in college, and that language has a similar rule to the last one you said: if any consonant (not just s) ends a word and the next word begins with a vowel, the consonant carries over, too. It’s spelled “comment allez vous” (how are you), but it’s pronounced like it should be written “commen-tallez vous.”

Another point is the Korean lax s is just s with more aspiration, while the tensed version is just the usual s with no aspiration. That's the impression I got

Thanks. Your channel helps a lot. Whenever I start learning vocabulary I encounter several words that sound really different than what I thought they would. Now, I would have to go through each and every vowel and consonant specifically before starting the vocabulary.

I noticed that 'ㅅ' at the end of a syllable (받짐), when the next word starts with vocal (eg 'ㅇ'), sounds indeed like [s] very often, but sometimes it can sound like [d/t] (at least to me). For instance '멋있습니다' [meo*s*isimnida] vs '멋없습니다' [meo*d*isimnida]. Not sure if there is a rule for that. Thank you for this and the other videos. Super helpful!

Thank you very much for making this video it was really helpful

I can see this channel grow big very quickly with such well made videos. I liked the anesthesia comparison haha! Will you cover common Korean sentence building and/or Verb endings in the future?

Damn your video actually helped me understand the difference between ㅅ and ㅆ you explain really well!

Thank you, you explained this really well!

Thank you. Your videos are so helpful. I am constantly referring other learners to them.

Thank you so much for this video, finally I understand the difference between all of these! Although my own pronunciation isn't quite right yet.. 😆😆

Could you please do a more detailed explanation for the differences between /ㅅ/ and /ㅆ/? I still couldn't quite grasp the difference between them, maybe some example words would be helpful.

Great explanation👍

YES thank you SO MUCH for this I finally get it!!

선생님 샘물씨. Lots of practice there. I think I will try to visit your site every day after studying to practice my pronunciation. You do such a fantastic job of explaining the critical aspects of pronouncing each letter properly so that your students can sound like native speakers.

A nice presentation, but I wish that the korean word examples would stay longer in view...

Go through these videos, I'm noticing a pattern of "do this sound from English, but without moving your lips" kinda like how a ventriloquist does it. It's interesting.

I just found your channel today and I greatly appreciate the way you present your information. But might I share something that I think I've observed between English and Korean? It seems to me that the ㅅ sound and the S/SH sound are not the same at all; they just happen to sound similar enough so our brains translate them to what we know. I mean, to make the basic S sound you relax the entire throat, place the tip of the rigid tongue to the base of your top teeth (not quite touching), and then asperate. So the air flows out freely until it hits the tongue, compresses to get out, making a hiss. The SH is very similar except the tip of the tongue is turned up to point at the middle of the palate, so after the air hisses past the tongue it expands again on the other side, rolls around, and comes out as the SH sound. But for ㅅ, the tongue is lower, behind the bottom of the top teeth, kind of like the TH position but a bit further back and a bit higher. And then... it isn't the open throat asperation, it is actually the vowel that follows the ㅅ - start the sound which powers the ㅅand then drop the tongue and finish the vowel on its own. Does that make sense? Am I kind of on track? Of course, different vowels will shape the sound differently, leading to what English speakers will translate as our S, SH, or T (T as in pretty, not T as in talk). So then the English speaker talks, but in reality they are trying to emulate ㅅ with the various letters S, SH, or T. Again, is what I'm seeing the reality? Of course, it is generally easier to emulate a sound when it is a sound that can be emulated (yeah, 어, 여, and 으, I'm talking about you!) than it is to learn a whole new letter... but I have a dream! A dream to speak Korean with actual Korean sounds! Well, a dream to some - a nightmare to others! Sorry, could not resist the Excalibur reference.

This was so helpful! Thank you!

This video is amazing! 😊

This was by far the clearest and most practical explanation for the difference between ㅅ and ㅆ! Thank you so much! I just have one follow-up question. Would you also say that the ㅅ in, say, 사 is also aspirated, whereas the ㅆ in 싸 is not?

Best explanation, thank you !

The explanation was the slightest bit confusing but when you compared the first two variations of the character I could tell the difference. Thanks heaps!

your videos r my fav way to learn korean

Wow. Awesome explanation!!!! So clear. Thank you.

Oh man, I really appreciate this video! Thank you so much!

very helpful as a confused beginner!

Wow...this Channel is Amazing. You cannot find these kind of excellant explanations anywhere on the web. Thank you so much. I just started learning korean and all my little hurdles im facing currently are being well explained here. Keep up the good work! Greetings from Germany

It was taking me a lot of time to understand the pronunciation, cause in my mind I knew it wasn't the same sound as english but now that you explained I'll try to replicate the sounds thank you!!

This video is super helpful. I knew there were differences in how ㅅ is pronounced according to the following vowel, but i could never get close to the exact pronunciation. The pronunciation of ㅅ + ㅣ ,etc is brand new knowledge for me. Thank you. A remaining question. I think I often hear ㅅ + ㅏ often pronounced almost like ts + ah. Why am I hearing this?

This is awesome, super helpful. I'd love to see more videos like this, particularly if you could include some IPA phonetic transcriptions of Korean words instead of just phonemic transcriptions or English transliterations.

thank you SOOOOO much!! i struggled for a couple of days now but your video helped me big time 🌻

For the first time I figure out the pronunciation of ㅅ. Thanks a lot 🥰

I would be most grateful if you could tell me where to place the tip of the tongue when producing the ㅅ and ㅆ consonants and whether or not the placement of tip of the tongue changes when articulating the syllables 시 or 씨 as well as some others.

This is really helpful..I've been puzzled with why the S sound like a soft TH or like a lisp at times lol hopefully you could make another video about that TH sound. Thank you! 🥳

I was really confused earlier but you explained very well. 정말 고맙습니다. 💜

I was so useful, spacially the parts you explained the mouth and tongue's shape Thank you so much

Really useful - thank you!

Finally the only thing I found hard in Korean language thank you alot😭💀

Learning so much with those vidoes🥺 keep up with the great work👍

This was magnificent! Excellent explanation, so so helpful. Thanks :D

So helpful thank you!

Very helpful thank you!!

So helpful!!!! Thank you!

It helped very much, thank you!

This was very helpful I always got confused and ended up saying it wrong before. Thank you!!

Thank you for your video!!!