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장단음 (長短音) in Korean

OMG. I never knew that Korean uses length to distinguish between words!!! >,< Such discoveries never fail to amaze me. But I can’t believe it took me nearly 3 years to realise this fundamental fact of Korean. O.o Please tell me I’m not the only one :/

According to a source, there are 7185 pairs of words that are distinguished by length, making it a total of 15,000 words. Most of these words are sino-korean words (한자어). Some of the 한자 are usually pronounced with a long sound while some can be pronounced both long and short.

For example, 화:장 (葬) is pronounced with the long vowel while 화장 (粧) is pronounced with the short vowel. This explained the puzzled look my Korean friend gave me when I was trying to explain that we learned about 화장장 and 혐오시설 during our classes! I must have said it with a short vowel instead. O.o

*Update*

I’m so intrigued by this that I did a search online. Came across a really insightful article that questioned the need of maintaining the long-short distinction in daily conversations. Korean is a language that places heavily reliance on pragmatics and context to deliver its meaning. In light of such a reliance, is there a need to continue maintaining the distinction when the context is clear? Also, there is no underlying rule that govern such a distinction. This means that you have to memorise each instance and to us foreigners, it can be a difficult task indeed.

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It’s so exciting(?) yet infuriating at times. Just when you thought you have made more progress in your proficiency, you realised that you are nowhere still being native. I thought that I was becoming better in my pronunciation, but now I have to take into account long-short distinction ):

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11 Comments

  • Reply
    mandu00
    10 December, 2010 at 5:33 PM

    Very interesting indeed! Now makes me wonder if the puzzled looks I receive are sometimes because of this. Apparently there is some sort of logic behind which words gets pronounced with a long sound and which get pronounced with a shorter sound (a very loose logic, I think). Anyway, I didn’t know there were so many words like that. 15,000? Woah! I only know maybe 3? (eye vs snow, bird vs three, bottle vs sickness). Heh heh.

    • Reply
      hangukdrama
      10 December, 2010 at 5:46 PM

      i’m gonna try to find out more about it. bad timing though, seeing how i have a final exam tmr ): but i’m too intrigued by this! I dint even know about those 3! thanks alot 😀 😀

  • Reply
    mishmash
    10 December, 2010 at 10:35 PM

    I did notice the short-long aspect of similar sounding words but never gave it much thought. I had passed it off as just the individual’s speech pattern XD

    Seeing how there is a reliance on hanja when it comes to clarifying certain words…me thinks that is going to be a huge problem for me -_- oh vey

    • Reply
      hangukdrama
      11 December, 2010 at 12:35 PM

      hahaha yeah hanja is a tough aspect of korean! that’s why i really respect those foreigners who managed to pick up korean to a high level!

  • Reply
    Warp3
    11 December, 2010 at 3:23 AM

    I’d read about the long vowel / short vowel distinction before (I believe the Wikipedia article on Korean phonetics covers that topic), but I also recall reading that most modern Korean dialects don’t really distinguish between long and short vowels now (especially among the younger generation of Korean speakers).

    • Reply
      hangukdrama
      11 December, 2010 at 12:33 PM

      that’s true. it’s something that is disappearing with time. however, i think korean students are still tested on it in those national korean proficiency exams and it’s tough for them too.

  • Reply
    Courtney
    12 December, 2010 at 6:08 AM

    Is there a list us foreigners could consult to determine which words should have short vowels and which ones should be pronounced with long vowel sounds. I too had just ascribed the differences to different speakers. Now I’m kind of having an “omg” moment. I guess if I weren’t addicted to Korean I would have given up long ago…

    • Reply
      hangukdrama
      14 December, 2010 at 11:03 PM

      so far I wasn’t able to find a comprehensive list online. I’ll let you know if I find one ^^ I have it in my book though.

  • Reply
    Courtney
    15 December, 2010 at 10:35 AM

    Shanna, did you find the long and short vowel list in your Yonsei book? How about the different pronunciations for different hanja based words, also from Yonsei? (Since I know all of about 15 hanja, I don’t know how I’ll keep that straight…) You are so right, when people say Korean pronunciation is very straightforward, I don’t know what they’re talking about. The Hangeul alphabet may be very logical, but all the pronunciation rules make actually speaking Korean much more complicated.

    • Reply
      hangukdrama
      15 December, 2010 at 10:57 PM

      nope. i found them in this book called KBS 한국어능력시험준비서. ^^ It’s actually a preparatory book for koreans who wanna take their mother tongue proficiency exam. Pretty advanced >,<

  • Reply
    alodia
    5 February, 2011 at 12:57 PM

    흑! this is difficult! ㅜㅜ

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